[Digikam-users] Digikam IPTC

[Dotan Cohen]

On 19/02/2008, michael hughes <leftbrainorama at googlemail.com> wrote:
> My main problem is the IPTC. I still have not found a way to coherently work
> with this despite having spent six weeks on and off with the problem. It
> begins with the preferences; you have to switch IPTC on. This is for me the
> first major "policy statement". As a professional I could just about accept
> that you could switch IPTC off but as a default this is just not serious. I
> now find bits of information (the copyright details in prefs) in the IPTC
> but am not quite sure how they got there. Captions have appeared from photos
> which already had captions after being imported into Digikam. Using Tags I
> have still not found an intuitive way of adding information. Maybe I just
> have a blind spot - if so then tell me what I am doing wrong. Until then I
> have to reiterate that Lightzone still is the more mature product

Problems (correct me if I misunderstood):
1) IPTC must be switched on.
2) Unexplained information written to IPTC data (copyright details and
captions).
3) No intuitive way to add information using Tags

My replies to each individually:

1) IPTC must be switched on.

While this may seem "not serious" to one who uses IPTC as a vital work
component, a more serious issue would be if Digikam altered photos
without the user expecting such. As Digikam is intended for use by a
wide range of users, including those new to such applications,
altering photos without the user explicitly requesting it could be
dangerous. As professional users (those who care about IPTC) will take
the time to more thoroughly explore their options, they can discover
and enable IPTC.

2) Unexplained information written to IPTC data (copyright details and
captions).

Please send to me a photo that displays this property. That is, a
photo that you photographed and know that there was no previous IPTC
data, that had IPTC data written to it by Digikam by 'accident', or
without your doing so.

3) No intuitive way to add information using Tags

What information would you like to add? How would you expect that it
be added, or how is it adding in an intuitive manner in other software
that you are familiar with. Assume that we are _not_ familiar with the
other software, and unless it runs on Linux, we cannot even test it.
So describe in detail what it does and that feature may very well find
it's way into Digikam.

Thanks, Michael, for your willingness to help improve Digikam so that
it better suits professional photographer's needs.

Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?