[Digikam-users] Update, clean, and move database?

[Peter Albrecht]

Hi Jasper,

On 18.01.2014 02:00, Jasper wrote:
> I am worried due to the sheer size of the photo collection that I will not
> be able to find the problem photos where the metadata didnt stick.
> 
> How can I be sure that _all_ and I mean _all!_ metadata is saved to
> exif/xmp. What will I lose?

I guess, there is no chance to be 100% sure, apart from
looking at every image by hand. But you won't want to do
that. ;)

Best thing, I could come up with:

a) MAKE A BACKUP!!!! ;)
  Of your images and your digikam database.


b) Test, whether your digikam installation in general is
writing all the metadata, you want: Edit one Image and add
tags, a comment, rating, ...

Than go to console and call
  exiv2 -p a my_image.jpg
to verify, all data has been written to the jpg.

Allmost all of the important data will be found in the
XMP-Section. E.g.:
  - Xmp.xmp.Rating
  - Xmp.digiKam.TagsList
  - ...

If you can find all of your important data in this dump,
digiKam should be able to read this again.


c) Do a search which brings up all your images. ;)
Select all of them and choose from the menu:
  "Image" -> "Write Metadata to Image"
This should write all the types of metadata (checked in b)
to your image files. And brings all metadata-sections in the
file to the same version.

If the amount of your images is too large, you could do this
e.g. per year. Goal is, to call "Write Metadata to Image"
for every single image at least once.


d) Now, you can move away your old digiKam database, start a
new one and import your metadata from the image files again.


That's the way, I would go.

Regards,
	Peter Albrecht