[KPhotoAlbum] IPTC and EXIF, kphotoalbum, digikam

[Thomas Hummel]

Hello,

I'm new to this list. I search hard for answers but I'm not sure I get
everything right and feel I might use your help :

My understanding is that :

  . EXIF tags are for technical picture info (focal, exposure, ...)

  . IPTC tags are more adequate to store comments or personnal info

  . kphotoalbum uses EXIF tags for reading but does not use IPTC at
    all and does not write EXIF tags

  . this is a choice (in order not to touch the original file, to be
    able to store tags relative to read-only media), so won't be implemented

  . softs able to store IPTC info, like digikam (does it ?) use, for
    performance reason, a "database" anyway (in addition of storing
    metadata into picture files)

  . Kphotoalbum does not really have the concept of album (which is
    fine since you can you dynamically build an "album" at each search).

  . Kphotoalbum does not touch the folder layout on the filesystem

Are all those points correct ?

Like I read partially somewhere, what about IPTC tags writing support ?

I mean, Kphotoalbum seem to better suit my needs than digikam and its
concept are simple and straightforward (unix philosophy). But what
about what you're left with if you have for some reason to change of
picture indexing software ? In this case, wouldn't metadata into the
file itself be the best way to guaranty portability of hard work of
tagging thousands of pictures ?

How would the soon to be released Metadata Kipi plugin (that digikam
would use) interact with Kphotoalbum ?

And at last, what does Kphotoalbum provides relative to tagging that
digikam does not  (or maybe possible tagging actions are the same in
both but easier in Kphotoalbum ?) ?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
  Thomas Hummel