Oranize Photos using IPTC/EXIF with serach/catalog capability wanted

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin Ros
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin Ros

Hi!

I want a program (if possible freeware) that can organize my pictures
well. The pictures come from my digital camerea. I just want to add
some comments to each picture, like: village x, person y and z,
occation a, ...
The information shall be saved within the jpg pictures (e.g. using
IPTC, EXIF). It must be possible to give the same comment (e.g.
village x) to several pictures at once. An already existing comment
shall not be deleted. The new comment shall be added to an existing
one.
Later on I want to search for pictures that fit a criterion like:
village x, during the year 2003.
Most important is, that the comments are within the picture and that
jpg file itself isn't touched otherwise. For example it would be nice
if the date isn't changed because of the comment manipulation. AFAIK
IrfanView has most of these features, except of the possiblity to
comment more pictures at once and to search picutres.

Any suggestion which program is best to use for this case?

Thanks

Martin
 
Martin Ros said:
Hi!

I want a program (if possible freeware) that can organize my pictures
well. The pictures come from my digital camerea. I just want to add
some comments to each picture, like: village x, person y and z,
occation a, ...
The information shall be saved within the jpg pictures (e.g. using
IPTC, EXIF). It must be possible to give the same comment (e.g.
village x) to several pictures at once. An already existing comment
shall not be deleted. The new comment shall be added to an existing
one.
Later on I want to search for pictures that fit a criterion like:
village x, during the year 2003.
Most important is, that the comments are within the picture and that
jpg file itself isn't touched otherwise. For example it would be nice
if the date isn't changed because of the comment manipulation. AFAIK
IrfanView has most of these features, except of the possiblity to
comment more pictures at once and to search picutres.

Any suggestion which program is best to use for this case?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Our Babya bPicture is the best (v5 coming soon):
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1076838784/1
 
Invader said:
Our Babya bPicture is the best (v5 coming soon):
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1076838784/1
Click to expand...

OT
Promoting your own product as 'the best' is considered spamming by most
people here, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Promoting your own Babya products as 'the best' goes far beyond that for
most people here, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Don't go there, you'll end up in a lot of killfiles. Some individuals will
flame you, the flamers end up in a lot of killfiles. People will reply to
the flamers to stop flaming, and in the end it's impossible to stay a way
from a lot of crap in this newsgroup, which most people here dislike,
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
end OT

To the OP: I do believe Irfanview is capable of doing what you want to
achieve, I'm just not sure how, but hopefully someone will jump in and tell
us. :)

Rod
 
OT
Promoting your own product as 'the best' is considered spamming by most
people here, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Promoting your own Babya products as 'the best' goes far beyond that for
most people here, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Don't go there, you'll end up in a lot of killfiles. Some individuals will
flame you, the flamers end up in a lot of killfiles. People will reply to
the flamers to stop flaming, and in the end it's impossible to stay a way
from a lot of crap in this newsgroup, which most people here dislike,
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
end OT

To the OP: I do believe Irfanview is capable of doing what you want to
achieve, I'm just not sure how, but hopefully someone will jump in and tell
us. :)

Rod
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks, Rod. That's the bad feeling I got. The minute I saw that
some sort of registration was required, wondered about that. I never
like when we're forced into anything like that. Always have to wonder
what they'll do with the information. Forums are one thing, to dl
free software??!! No way.
 
fitwell said:
Seems like the site requires registration or something to dl. Not
good. Perhaps there is a link to dl this file from elsewhere?
Click to expand...

Try searching for it at addict3d.org
 
Martin said:
Hi!

I want a program (if possible freeware) that can organize my pictures
well. The pictures come from my digital camerea. I just want to add
some comments to each picture, like: village x, person y and z,
occation a, ...
The information shall be saved within the jpg pictures (e.g. using
IPTC, EXIF). It must be possible to give the same comment (e.g.
village x) to several pictures at once. An already existing comment
shall not be deleted. The new comment shall be added to an existing
one.
Later on I want to search for pictures that fit a criterion like:
village x, during the year 2003.
Most important is, that the comments are within the picture and that
jpg file itself isn't touched otherwise. For example it would be nice
if the date isn't changed because of the comment manipulation. AFAIK
IrfanView has most of these features, except of the possiblity to
comment more pictures at once and to search picutres.

Any suggestion which program is best to use for this case?

Thanks

Martin
Click to expand...


exifer http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/ can do this for
you,
and xnview too http://www.xnview.com/

a little warning:
AFAIK, neither irfanview, nor xnview or exifer can search for data within
the pictures itself. As far as they are able to find pictures on keywords,
they will use a seperate database where they will copy the exif and/or iptc
data to this database to speed up searches. If I'm wrong, please someone
please tell me.

MightyKitten
 
Martin said:
Hi!

I want a program (if possible freeware) that can organize my pictures
well. The pictures come from my digital camerea. I just want to add
some comments to each picture, like: village x, person y and z,
occation a, ...
The information shall be saved within the jpg pictures (e.g. using
IPTC, EXIF). It must be possible to give the same comment (e.g.
village x) to several pictures at once. An already existing comment
shall not be deleted. The new comment shall be added to an existing
one.
Later on I want to search for pictures that fit a criterion like:
village x, during the year 2003.
Most important is, that the comments are within the picture and that
jpg file itself isn't touched otherwise. For example it would be nice
if the date isn't changed because of the comment manipulation. AFAIK
IrfanView has most of these features, except of the possiblity to
comment more pictures at once and to search picutres.

Any suggestion which program is best to use for this case?

Thanks

Martin
Click to expand...

PhotoStudio
 
MightyKitten said:
exifer http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/ can do this for
you, and xnview too http://www.xnview.com/
Click to expand...

No they can't.
a little warning:
AFAIK, neither irfanview, nor xnview or exifer can search for data within
the pictures itself. As far as they are able to find pictures on keywords,
they will use a seperate database where they will copy the exif and/or iptc
data to this database to speed up searches. If I'm wrong, please someone
please tell me.
Click to expand...

Neither irfanview nor exifer nor xnview keep a database, nor can they
perform searches on keywords or comments (either in the images, or in
a database).

You want an image management system, not an image browser or editor.
There are many. Since you want the information saved in the IPTC
fields as well as a database, I suggest you look at Pixview
(http://www.pixvue.com/product/index.html).

Other possibilities include:

MyAlbum, http://www.myalbumpro.com
ImageN http://www.pixoid.com/
WinPhoto http://cat-photo.sourceforge.net/

I don't think any of these automatically store data back into the IPTC
or EXIF fields, though it has been a while since I tried them, so I'm
not sure. MyAlbum has scripting capabilities, so I suspect it could be
done there. (Pixvue *does* store the data in both IPTC and database,
which is why it was my first suggestion).

<Soapbox>
I personally think saving keywords and descriptions back to the IPTC
fields is highly overrated. Why not just keep the data in the
database? Once you keep it two places, you have to maintain it in two
places. Also, once you let a program re-write the file, you take a
small risk that some programming error will cause you to lose an EXIF
field, or something like that. I prefer to never touch the original
file.
</Soapbox>

Anyway, if you are willing to give up on the requirement to keep the
data in the IPTC fields, and just use a database, then I recommend
MyAlbum.

None of these applications are as powerful as the full-featured
payware ones. But most people don't need that capability (nor do they
want the complexity).

Oh, one other comment. You say:
It must be possible to give the same comment (e.g.
village x) to several pictures at once. An already existing comment
shall not be deleted. The new comment shall be added to an existing
one.
Click to expand...

I don't think it works that way in any image management application
that I know of. In the comment or description field, they will all
*replace* the existing comment with the new one.

For keywords, it normally works the way you want. If you add a keyword
to several images, it adds that keyword, but does not remove existing
ones.

Terry
 
fitwell - 13.07.2004 14:21 :

[about 45 babya lines snipped]
Ah, thanks, Rod. That's the bad feeling I got. The minute I saw that
some sort of registration was required, wondered about that. I never
like when we're forced into anything like that. Always have to wonder
what they'll do with the information. Forums are one thing, to dl
free software??!! No way.
Click to expand...

please to all posters of this thread: Please DON'T quote all the
babya-lines again and again. THY!
 
Terry said:
MightyKitten wrote:
Click to expand...
No they can't.


Neither irfanview nor exifer nor xnview keep a database, nor can they
perform searches on keywords or comments (either in the images, or in
a database).
Click to expand...

Well this is what I ment. Either they can't search for exif data at all OR
they will put the data into a database for search speed reasons.
You want an image management system, not an image browser or editor.
There are many. Since you want the information saved in the IPTC
fields as well as a database, I suggest you look at Pixview
(http://www.pixvue.com/product/index.html).

Other possibilities include:

MyAlbum, http://www.myalbumpro.com
ImageN http://www.pixoid.com/
WinPhoto http://cat-photo.sourceforge.net/

I don't think any of these automatically store data back into the IPTC
or EXIF fields, though it has been a while since I tried them, so I'm
not sure. MyAlbum has scripting capabilities, so I suspect it could be
done there. (Pixvue *does* store the data in both IPTC and database,
which is why it was my first suggestion).

<Soapbox>
I personally think saving keywords and descriptions back to the IPTC
fields is highly overrated. Why not just keep the data in the
database? Once you keep it two places, you have to maintain it in two
places. Also, once you let a program re-write the file, you take a
small risk that some programming error will cause you to lose an EXIF
field, or something like that. I prefer to never touch the original
file.
</Soapbox>
Click to expand...

That is where we realy differ. It is a big blessing to have all the keywords
in pictures after a crash (I realy would hate to add comments and keywords
again to all the pictures I have.) A database just won't do it for me.
 
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