[Digikam-users] Photographs with metadata...

[Thorsten Schnebeck]

> About Reading RAW metadata, i full agree with you... but
> writting metadata in RAW file is a non sence for me because all
> RAW files are propietary...

Ok, this is maybe very special but have you notice Nikon software 
announcement? Their latest NEF raw file management tool writes 
the different software process step into the raw file. The same 
with Apples new raw management program: You only use RAW as a 
base, do your image eding steps (cropping, color, white balance 
etc.) and save the parameters for these steps but not the result 
in areas of the raw-file. As the file format follows standard 
tiff chunks (CR2, NEF, DNG etc.) integration of aditional data is 
not problem and its still possible to decode the initial raw data 
with every converter. 

So rewriting RAW file header is useful and writing ITPC tags into 
tiff-like raw files is quite useful now that raw is a native 
image format in digikam :o)

Another important writing part is metatag transferring from e.g. 
raw to png. Today you often need to analyse a thumbnail jpeg-file 
of a raw image to have a compatible binary block that you can put 
into a png. But what if a cam does not support such separate 
jpegs? Metadata in raw-files are not binary compatible to e.g. 
png.

When digiKam wants to establish png as full featured file format 
you should save all your tags also from raw.

Last point concerning 1st class writing support are digikams own 
tag used for organizing and sorting. You know that there are many 
potential users out there who are very sceptic to trust relevant 
image information in a separate database. They want to have all 
information of an image into the image and they ask if its 
possible to sync database and image pool. 

To make this long story short - everything but libexif seems to be 
good for digikam to get a better generic metatag support over 
all. But changing/writing metatags is the fine art.

Bye

  Thorsten