sidecar files

[Remco Viëtor]

On dimanche 15 septembre 2024 00:14:54 CEST Barry Kruyssen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My wife is a very keen photo hobbist.
> 
> I'm in the process of moving 90,000 photos from Adobe photo elements to
> digiKam 8.4.0  (started process in prior version).
> 
> I'm using 2 different platforms for testing and production, Window 11
> and Chromebook.
> 
> I've exported all the photos and have an sidecar xmp for each photo with
> Tags representing all the catalogues from Adobe.
> 
> The initial install and scan for photos imported everything as expected
> in the prior version.  I have all 3 items checked, as per the screen
> shot, on the sidecars setup tab for metadata.
> 
> Issues:
> 
>  1. When I add new photos (with xmp file) in version 8.4.0 the sidecar
>     is automatically read,  I have to do an Album > Reread Metadata from
>     files.
>  2. If I update the tags (delete or add a new tag) the information is
>     not writen back to the sidecar file.  I have an import python app
>     that copies photos from a source to "Pictures" folder and creates a
>     sidecar file containing Tags for the import date and time.
> 
> I could just use the sidecar file as a once only import tool and rely on
> the db to store all the data but I want to keep the data standalone to
> easily move between platforms (Chromebook is used whilst traveling and
> then transfered to Windows server when back home).
> 
> What have I missed?
> 
> Thanks and regards
> Barry

Digikam can read sidecar files from Lightroom, but they use a slightly 
different naming convention: Adobe uses <basename>.xmp, where digikam uses 
<basename>.<ext>.xmp, where <ext> is the extension of the corresponding image 
file or raw file. And digkam only writes to sidecar files with the naming 
<basename>.<ext>.xmp.

In addition, reading from and writing to sidecar files can be configured in 
the settings. I don't remember what the defaults are, though, so you may want 
to check those settings. The modifications to the tags will have been written 
to the database, so you can still get them to the sidecar files.

If you have to move the actual files when you add new images, the easiest 
might be to use Digikams import functions, those do read existing sidecar 
files afaik.