[Digikam-users] edit metadata via information tab of caption/tags sidebar?

Sun Jan 29 15:28:06 GMT 2012

Ah, I see now. It is due to the bad behavior of the template in digikam. I
have no city set in my template, and yet it insists on overwriting existing
data to null. Yes, this must be fixed--very bad...
On Jan 29, 2012 12:39 AM, "Erik Felthauser" <efelthauser at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry, I guess I spoke too soon. Can someone more knowledgeable tell me
> why, after applying the described metadata changes using exiv2 and doing a
> "Re-read Metadata From Image" in digikam (changes confirmed by digikam's
> own metadata viewer as well as an external one), that when subsequently
> adding a caption to the image in digikam, why does the Xmp.photoshop.City
> field get set to null? And yet the Xmp.iptcExt.City field is not
> affected.... Both fields should be left intact...
>
> Any ideas?
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Erik Felthauser <efelthauser at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello Andrew and anyone else with this issue:
>>
>> I have figured out a fairly simple way to continue using digikam, while
>> being able to easily batch-apply any metadata you like to a bunch of photos
>> at once.
>>
>> My method involves using the command line (which, if you are not used to
>> it, can be a little intimidating, and frankly dangerous, but after a little
>> learning of the basics, you will find that many things can be accomplished
>> as easily, if not much more easily, as using a GUI).
>>
>> digikam (and, i believe, the kipi metadata-editor plugin) uses a
>> command-line back-end program called exiv2 to work with the metadata in our
>> images. since the metadata tools in digikam are not currently meeting our
>> needs, I decided to investigate the option of using exiv2 directly for the
>> purpose of applying certain metadata en-masse. (if you have digikam
>> installed, i believe you already have exiv2 installed as a dependency.)
>>
>> the main metadata that I like to apply to many images at once is 'City'.
>> other things like my name, copyright, etc, I use a digikam template for.
>>
>> so, I figured out what xmp field (xmp=state-of-the-art type of metadata)
>> digikam (version 2.5 at least) is using to set the City information. it is
>> using a field in the "photoshop" namespace of the XMP specification.
>>
>> after reading a little more about various XMP namespaces, I discovered
>> that there is some overlap in terms of where certain info can be stored.
>> Now, I prefer to use XMP metadata, because that is the future, not the old
>> way which was the IIM block. use of the IIM block was originally
>> established by adobe and the IPTC. but since then, XMP has been devised.
>> all tags in XMP must be a member of a "namespace". there are two main ones
>> in which City can be set: Xmp.iptc4xmpEtc.City and Xmp.photoshop.City.
>> [[for simplicity, some programs like exiv2 abbreviate the Xmp.iptc4xmpEtc
>> namespace to xmp.iptcExt. however, i believe that what they actually write
>> to your file is the proper iptc4xmpEtc, a point that I found briefly
>> confusing]] Anyway, I think it is unfortunate that both of these fields
>> exist, as it represents a possibility for conflict. but it seems that in
>> the future, the "IPTC Extended" namespace may be preferred over the
>> photoshop namespace. So, I have decided to be "in the moment" with digikam
>> and also "forward-looking" by setting BOTH fields simultaneously.
>>
>> to do this, I am doing the following:
>>
>> first, open a terminal. create a custom environment variable called
>> "prettycity" with the value of "Paris" by typing the line below, and then
>> hit enter:
>>
>> prettycity=Paris
>>
>> next, type the line below, but do not hit enter yet:
>>
>> exiv2 -M"add Xmp.iptcExt.City $prettycity" -M"add Xmp.photoshop.City
>> $prettycity"
>>
>> next, using a file browser such as nautilus (it helps to enable
>> thumbnails) select and drag all the images you want to tag as 'Paris' onto
>> the terminal window, and hit enter.
>>
>> This will apply 'Paris' to all of them, and digikam will recognize the
>> changes.
>>
>> If you then get to some photos that need a different value for the City
>> tag, simply update the shell variable the same way you set it to Paris:
>>
>> prettycity=Rome
>>
>> and now, you are ready to label your Rome photos.
>>
>> if you want to set other fields besides city, you can figure out what to
>> refer to the field as by referring to the exiv2 website:
>> http://www.exiv2.org/metadata.html
>> You may have to dig around a bit in all those pages to find the namespace
>> where the field you need is located, but it should be listed there
>> somewhere. but, the most common ones are the dc (=dublin core), IPTC Core,
>> IPTC Extended, and photoshop namespaces.
>>
>> Of course, before you try something new,* always backup your photos* and
>> confirm what your think you're doing to them is actually what happens
>> before you go crazy on them :)
>>
>> Also, if you are not needing to set the same value on multiple fields at
>> once, it is not necessary to use environment variables. In that case, the
>> command could be simplified to this, assuming you want to apply "Paris" to
>> "image.jpg":
>>
>> exiv2 -M"add Xmp.iptcExt.City Paris" image.jpg
>>
>> Hope this helps. Cheers.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 2:44 AM, Andrew Goodbody <ajg02 at elfringham.co.uk>wrote:
>>
>>> On 23/01/12 00:53, Erik Felthauser wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think I used to be able to edit additional metadata such as 'city' via
>>>> the Information tab of the caption/tags sidebar.  However, I think since
>>>> upgrading ubuntu to 11.10, I no longer can. If I click on one of the
>>>> fields there (below the template selector dropdown), I cannot edit any
>>>> of them: no cursor appears.
>>>>
>>>> I have tried digikam 2.1 in regular ubuntu repo, as well as 2.5 from the
>>>> philip5 ppa.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I also cannot do this in 1.9.0 but I would find it very useful to be
>>> able to do it.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Is it supposed to be possible to do this, or is it just my imagination
>>>> that I used to? I found a tutorial suggesting it is possible:
>>>> http://scribblesandsnaps.**wordpress.com/2011/02/22/work-**
>>>> with-photo-metadata-in-**digikam/<http://scribblesandsnaps.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/work-with-photo-metadata-in-digikam/>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I do have a vague recollection that I too used to be able to do it.
>>>
>>>  If this is indeed _not_ possible, is the only way to edit the city
>>>>
>>>> fields (besides hardwiring it into a template), then, to use the kipi
>>>> Image>Metadata>'edit all metadata' menu item window?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well at least there is a workaround even if it is annoyingly difficult
>>> to use.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>> ______________________________**_________________
>>> Digikam-users mailing list
>>> Digikam-users at kde.org
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>>>
>>
>>
>
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