[Digikam-users] What is the best way to merge two sets of digiKam-managed photos?

[Milan Knížek]

Tom Moertel píše v So 08. 08. 2009 v 08:09 -0400:
> on my laptop.  Is there a good strategy for merging these sets of photos 
> while preserving my tagging, etc?

I am interested in this kind of work-flow, too. I have not tested it thoroughly, but the following could work with 1.0.0-beta3:

x on desktop computer:
    allow synchronisation of Metadata with images
    synchronise all images with database
x on notebook:
   create a new digikam collection and database on the notebook
   copy some images / albums from the desktop to notebook using a file
manager 
   tag/comment/rate the images

Then copy the images back to the desktop computer overwriting the
original files. Even when digiKam is running, it would not notice that
tags have changed. Also, synchronising of database with images does not
help.

Now, there are two alternatives:
x delete the database on the desktop computer and let it rebuild (time
consuming)
x search and select the migrated images and choose "read metadata from
images" in the right pane Caption/Tags (it is hidden under "more" icon
at the bottom).

Rebuilding database from scratch may not be a good idea in case that
from whatever reason you have various texts written in metadata objects,
where digiKam assumes they have the same text (e.g. IPTC keywords,
Dublin core Subject and xmp.digikam.keywords). I have not tested that,
so it may or may not cause problems. 

The latter alternative did not work fully with 1.0.0-beta2, but with
beta3 seems to be okay - I am going to use it soon on my vacation
trip...


regards,

Milan Knizek
knizek (dot) confy (at) volny (dot) cz
http://www.milan-knizek.net - About linux and photography (Czech
language only)