[KPhotoAlbum] IPTC and EXIF, kphotoalbum, digikam

[Risto H. Kurppa]

Hi and welcome to use KPA. It's a powerful tool to manage your library
(I have some 40 000 images there and works fine!)


> My understanding is that :
>
>   . EXIF tags are for technical picture info (focal, exposure, ...)
>
>   . IPTC tags are more adequate to store comments or personnal info

As far as I know.

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

Correct

>   . 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

AFAIK

>   . 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)

Correct, AFAIK. (It would take ages to read IPTC from all images
always when the program is loaded, for example)

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

Correct

>   . Kphotoalbum does not touch the folder layout on the filesystem

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 ?

That actually doesn't belong here but at the kipi mailing list. If a
KIPI-plugin like that would be released I'd believe you could also use
it 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 ?) ?

Don't know, never user digikam to tag something. Someone else will
propably answer this and also confirm my other answers.


r


-- 
rhk

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