[digiKam-users] Windows File Properties (such as tags) do not show in digiKam 7.2

Wed Jul 7 15:58:56 BST 2021

Thanks Gilles,

I have not had a chance to try out 7.3.0 with Exiftool support, eager to do
so. Back in January, I opened Bug 432265
<https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=432265>. Attached to the bug there is
a sample file with a problematic XMP condition caused by modifying the Geo
Tags in Windows Photo Gallery.

I am curious to know - In which operations Exiftool is used by Digikam?

On Wed, Jul 7, 2021 at 2:48 AM Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The good news for the future is the official support of ExifTool in the
> next 7.3.0 release. We already perform advanced operations that Exiv2
> backend is not able to do.
>
> https://i.imgur.com/o2WLFI5.png
>
> So perhaps this kind of problem can be done in digiKam directly without
> using ExifTool CLI directly.
>
> Feel free to open a file in bugzilla about this topic for future
> integration.
>
> Best regards
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
> Le mar. 6 juil. 2021 à 23:53, José Oliver-Didier <jose_oliver at hotmail.com>
> a écrit :
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am also a long time Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) user. I am slowly
>> migrating into using Digikam as my primary photo manager. I wrote a blog
>> post a while ago which details where WPG writes the metadata to in the file
>> and how to access it using Exiftool which may be of help -
>> https://jmoliver.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/accessing-windows-photo-gallery-metadata-using-exiftool/
>>
>> - It is my understanding that for JPG files File Property Keyword
>> metadata is written back to file, unless of course the file or folder has a
>> read-only attribute enabled.
>> - Digikam should be able to read XPKeyword tags (legacy Windows XP
>> metadata locations), do make sure you have you have Exif.Image.XPKeywords
>> for Read and Write operations in Digikam's Metadata Configuration (From the
>> menu bar click on Settings -> Configure Digikam, click on Metadata and in
>> the Advanced tab click on "Tags" on the dropdown) as having "Image tags"
>> checkbox enabled in "Write this information to the Metadata".
>> - I recently stumbled upon an issue in which for some files the metadata
>> was not read by Digikam. After some research, I discovered that if images
>> were edited in WPG (Example: Straighten image, adjust contrast...) or WPG
>> "Geo Tags" added, certain oddly crafted XMP metadata would be written back
>> to the file which has been problematic to other applications such as
>> Digikam. In Digikam, the XMP file metadata will not be read and thus not
>> displayed. To correct the issue, I used Exiftool to "rebuild" the file XMP
>> so that Digikam could be able to read it. The problem and how I was able to
>> mitigate this issue is detailed in this Exiftool forum post -
>> https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=12367.msg66881
>>
>> Hope this helps, and as always, when performing file modification
>> operations, do make sure you have a backup of your files. Test with a
>> subset of images first.
>>
>> - J Oliver
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 1:32 AM Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The Windows file properties depends of proprietary Windows database that
>>> we don't access or extended properties located in file system
>>>
>>> This is why you don't see this information in digiKam.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Gilles Caulier
>>>
>>> Le jeu. 17 juin 2021 à 15:38, <mytea4-kde at yahoo.com> a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Hello – I am new to digiKam in the past year and have been searching
>>>> the documentation and websites for this issue with no luck.  Hopefully
>>>> someone with more experience can point me in the right direction.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Over the past 20yrs, I have primarily used Windows File Explorer to tag
>>>> photos.   In the past I’ve also used, on occasion, Shutterfly local tools
>>>> and Windows Photo Gallery, both of which have become defunct.   When I view
>>>> pictures in File Explorer or Windows Photo Gallery, I see my tags in the
>>>> Details pane.   I can use the File Explorer search function to find all
>>>> pictures with those tags.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yesterday I discovered that for SOME pictures (on various cameras) the
>>>> tag/keyword had been written into exif field XPKeywords.  For a small set
>>>> of pictures, the tag is written into the IPTC Keywords field; I believe
>>>> these are pictures I tagged with digiKam or with ExifDateChanger Pro.   But
>>>> for the VAST MAJORITY of my pictures, the tag is just in the Windows File
>>>> Properties Tag/Keyword, not in exif or iptc.  I also used IrfanView to view
>>>> the exif & iptc information to try and verify what was present in the file
>>>> metadata.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> digiKam does not seem to read the Windows File Properties fields so I
>>>> can’t search for pictures by my tags.
>>>>
>>>> My pictures are taken on 10+ cameras and have various Exif versions
>>>> over the years, but the problem exists across all of these.   I have
>>>> pictures from 2020 with that XPKeywords field (with my tag in it) in the
>>>> exif data, and other pictures from 2020 without it (that I had never
>>>> tagged), so this isn’t just related to older or newer pictures.   The issue
>>>> spans all  years, all cameras.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I tried going to digiKam Tag Manager Tool > Read Tags from Image – but
>>>> no luck.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is this a bug in digiKam?   Or is there some other tool I need to use
>>>> in Windows to force it to write my tags into the exif (or iptc) keywords?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To be clear, on the vast majority of my photos, the exif data does not
>>>> even include the XPKeywords field; when a tag had somehow been applied to
>>>> the exif data, it seems to have inserted that XPKeywords field.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I really want to migrate all my photo organization work into digiKam,
>>>> but can’t do that until I learn how to get my tags to show up.
>>>>
>>>> Appreciate any and all advice or direction.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jaimi
>>>>
>>>
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