Re: critical missing feature: embedding tags in EXIF/IPTC

[Piergi <pt traversin org>]

e.m.fields wrote:
> 
> But that missing feature is the embedding / importing / exporting of image
> tags within the image, in IPTC/EXIF format.  Right now, if I tag and
> organize all my photos within F-spot and then move those images someday to
> another system (or another hard drive), all those tags are lost except
> within the old F-Spot database.  This is tying the user into one system,
> and
> locking them into one software package, which is not very much the
> FOSS/Linux way of doing things, no?
> 

No. It is not like that at all: the tags are embedded in the images, in XMP
format. For sure when IPTC tags are found they are read and imported, I
don't know if they are written as well.

Maybe you missed the option «write metadata to images»?

I am not a f-spot developer, but I reckon the reason for that is pretty
simple: the IPTC standard is a fairly rigid one (and does not support
Unicode, AFAIK), and it seems to me more and more applications are
supporting the more flexible XMP standard (including DigiKam).

As for DigiKam, it does read XMP (when I imported my photos tagged with
f-spot DigiKam correctly imported the tags), and when I tag photos with
DigiKam it copies the tags in the IPTC format as well.
I tried DigiKam for a while, but sincerely I cannot imagine how can somebody
even *think* of tagging a big amount of photos with that cumbersome
incredibly counter-intuitive system. Please somebody correct me if I am
missing some hidden feature--it wouldn't be surprising, as it seems that
that software does also coffee in a few flavours :)

For your problem, I suggest you copy the XMP tags into the IPTC fields, if
you prefer those. I would use an old-school system, very effective:
exiftool.

>From exiftool man page:
«
      exiftool -@ iptc2xmp.args -iptc:all= a.jpg
            Translate IPTC information to XMP with appropriate tag name
            conversions, and delete the original IPTC information from an
            image.  This example uses iptc2xmp.args, which is a file
included
            with the ExifTool distribution that contains the required
            arguments to convert IPTC information to XMP format.  Also
            included with the distribution is xmp2iptc.args, which performs
            the inverse conversion.
»
This is just an example, and *it does the opposite of what you want* but I
am pretty sure that reading the manual and/or asking in the interweb will
point you to the exact command.

Also, exiftool can go recursively through directories, making the whole
thing just a matter of time.

*Be sure to do some test before re-tagging your collection* (no need to say,
probably, but I would feel very guilty if something nasty happens!)

Myself I use a different approach: I do tagging and commenting with geeqie
($ sudo aptitude install geeqie), then I add copyright and stuff with
exiperson (http://exiflow.sourceforge.net)--a perl script that uses
exiftool--and after that I import everything in f-spot.

I hope that helps.
Piergi

BTW, does somebody know an application for tagging photos? Just tagging, the
good old UNIX way: one application, one purpose. It should use the XMP
standard at least, EXIF?IPTC welcome :D
p.
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