[Digikam-users] How to remove "left behind" tag tree

[David Vincent-Jones]

It looks to me as if Linux could really do with a version of Exiftool 
GUI; that would allow easier bulk metadata manipulation. Possibly it 
would run under Wine.

David

On 12-11-11 03:09 PM, Marie-Noëlle Augendre wrote:
> Thanks for your answer, and sorry to have been a bit long to answer 
> ... days seem to be way too short at the moment!
>
> 2012/11/8 Elle Stone <l.elle.stone at gmail.com 
> <mailto:l.elle.stone at gmail.com>>
>
>     Hi Marie-Noëlle,
>
>     Here's one possible approach. To be on the safe side, first create
>     backup copies of all the images and put them somewhere digiKam isn't
>     looking. Also make a backup copy of the digiKam database.
>
>     Then use exiftool to locate and delete all the tagging metadata from
>     the images themselves (from the images digiKam is managing, not from
>     the backup copies). Also delete any digiKam XMP sidecar files.
>
>
> That's the easy and quick thing to be done.
>
>
>     Temporarily set digiKam up to not write any metadata to images or to
>     digiKam xmp sidecar files (just write to the database) and clean up
>     the tag tree in the digiKam database. It goes a lot faster if digiKam
>     is writing only to the database, and you can delete and rearrange tags
>     without fear of creating a new set of unwanted tags.
>
>     When you are finished deleting and rearranging all the tags in the
>     database, there won't be any remnant unwanted tags in the image
>     metadata (having removed them with exiftool) or in any existing XMP
>     sidecars (because they were already deleted). So when everything is
>     exactly like you want, you can write out the desired tag trees to XMP
>     sidecars or back to the image files, whichever you want. And this time
>     digiKam won't get confused when it "synchronizes" while writing out
>     the tags.
>
>
> Thing is the whole procedure will take quite some time, and I don't 
> know when I'll be able to do that as I need my Digikam to add new 
> pictures several times a week.
> I can keep separated picture files on different removable hard disc; 
> but I understand Digikam can handle only one DB per installation ... 
> unless I create a special user (having his own Digikam DB in his 
> /home) for doing the job on the old pictures, while I use a new DK 
> installation in my own /home to handle the pictures that keep coming 
> week after week.
>
> Once the job is done, I could reimport the "old" pictures in the new 
> installation.
> Would it be feasible like that?
>
>     Send me a private email and I can help with the exiftool commands.
>     digiKam writes tags, captions, rating, and etc to a number of
>     different locations (eg digiKam xmp tags, lightroom xmp tags,
>     microsoft xmp tags), and exiftool can remove whatever needs to be
>     removed.
>
>
> Couldn't you send them to the mailing-list? I guess I'm not the only 
> one to have mess to clean up ....
>
>
>     I just went through this procedure with all of my own images and I
>     took notes along the way. I ended up finding and removing a ton of
>     old, unwanted metadata left behind by various DAM softwares that I've
>     used at one time or another.
>
>     Kind regards,
>     Elle
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Marie-Noëlle
>
>
>
>     On 11/7/12, Marie-Noëlle Augendre <mnaugendre at gmail.com
>     <mailto:mnaugendre at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     > The more I have tried to organize my tags since I began to use
>     Digikam a
>     > couple of years ago, the more I've added to the mess!
>     > Most tags seem to appear several times in different places all
>     over the
>     > arborescence.
>     >
>     > I'm willing to reset my whole tagging system and start afresh to
>     tag my
>     > 25000 and more pictures, but I need to clean up everything
>     beforehand.
>     > Any idea/recommandation how to do that? it'll have to erase all
>     the tags
>     > (and only them) from all the metadata wherever they are registered.
>     >
>     > Thanks for helping,
>     > Marie-Noëlle
>     >
>
>
> -- 
> <http://www.marie-noelle-augendre.com/photos/>
>
> Mes dernières photos sont dans ma galerie 
> <http://www.marie-noelle-augendre.com/photos/>.
> Retrouvez-moi aussi sur mon blog <http://www.mnaugendre.com/>.
> Et parcourez les Cévennes à ma façon avec Cévennes Plurielles 
> <http://www.cevennes-plurielles.com/>,
>
>
>
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