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Author Topic: [REQUEST] Photos / Images Management Improvement  (Read 7143 times)

MusicHawk

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[REQUEST] Photos / Images Management Improvement
« on: March 02, 2018, 11:28:46 am »

The early upgrade discount is tempting, but for what? I bought MC 24 (and every prior year for many), hoping to finally get improvements to MC's Photos / Images capabilities. After all, MC's splash screen shouts "PHOTOS" louder than anything else -- it is dead-center in the splash graphic, the only media logo in bright colors. Seems like a promise that MC does great things with Photos. So, I'm hoping MC24 dives as deep into Photos as it already does to Music and Video.

Because I have used MC "forever", upgraded every year, my music library design and use was locked down years ago, still wonderful, the reason I recommend MC to fellow broadcasters. I'm not aware of anything more I need in the audio area (until MC can directly feed Chromecast Audio, and directly feed Alexa).

Re MC video, while I'm sure it is wonderful too, I have found no use for it, not my thing. And live TV recording is not possible in my areas of California, too many mountains for over-the-air reception.

That leaves MC Photos / Images as the weak spot. Improving it would be a huge reason to upgrade, and probably for non-MC customers to buy it -- only some people want to deeply manage audio or video, but *everyone* has ever-growing photo collections.

My current big job, which will go on and on, is to scan and catalog my extended family's decades and decades of photos. I have more than 60,000 photos so far. Checking with family and friends who are constantly shooting pictures with their "phones", that's not even a large number. To organize all these images, MC is my tool of choice.

But there are many ways MC's Photos aspects could be improved, as discussed by many users over the years. I'm hoping to hear that better ways to organize, tag, and view Images will be a big focus of MC 24. Help users be smart about metadata, by supporting standard tags that can be read/written by other imaging apps, and ditch the proprietary tags that are evolutionary dead ends (or even better, have them write to standard tags such as Keywords, using the prefix "trick" that some of us have adopted). Add some standard views optimized for Photos. Provide a better photo Preview mode, perhaps a floating window that shows the currently-selected image. Improve the image editing tools. Improve the slide show, and especially provide a robust screen saver slide show -- the features of abscreensavers.com, especially the ability to superimpose metadata (Captions ! ) controlled by CSS, is an excellent example. These are just top-of-head ideas, reviewing forum discussions of the past 10 or more years will yield more strong suggestions.

Since Photos have their own needs, a starting point could be to give MC a Photos Only Mode just like it has an Audio Only Mode. This would greatly simplify MC for users who want to manage Photos and not also do Audio/Video things. Hide the many many menu options and actions that do not apply to Photos. And perhaps add/expose Photos-specific functionality.


Also, I'd love to use MC for PDF management, it "just" needs better PDF preview/viewing and standard tagging. I include PDF as a Photos feature because in my world, most PDFs are containers for scanned images. The document scan button on many printers/scanners stashes the resulting images in PDFs. As with photos, most people have ever-expanding piles of PDFs that MC could help tame.
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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.

Manfred

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2018, 06:45:15 am »

Also my wish. I have ~14000 photos stored in MC . Apple is for me the measurement. Include map etc...
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Fingerling

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2018, 05:14:59 pm »

Indeed that would be nice.
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mschneid

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2018, 12:30:26 pm »

Just upgraded from 18....to 23  I was reminded that I began with 12 and had every upgrade through 18.    Before I did.... I took a look at all of the new features tabulated since 18 and nothing speaks to my needs. So Why spend the upgrade cash?  Like MusicHawk... audio is my primary use and its perfect...  I just wanted to encourage the company to upgrade the Photo management system.   I am not looking for photoshop or google photos... just a smart way to do the basics and share with family and friends.... (Ie...publish an edited, cropped, and captioned set of family photos on google photos that they can look at  AND use the google informatics in ways that it is good at)

(ps   glad I spotted the warning on using the XP OS with 23 ....   turns out... for my needs  23 functions as well as 18 on an old machine....   I had thought this pathway had been shut down with continued evolution based on the forum threads when the switch over was being made)

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darichman

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2018, 02:21:56 am »

This would be my single wish for MC24 also. My image workflow would be hugely benefited by:
  • batch date editing (reconcile time differences)
  • advanced EXIF editing
  • PDF support
  • use of map to tag coordinates

Picasa is no longer updated or supported. I previously used a combination of MC and Picasa, with Picasa filling in the gaps for me that MC left out. There is no other image management program out there that has MCs level of organisational control. I find that Adobe's suite has too narrow a focus for me.

Thanks for any attention images get this version :)
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tij

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2018, 05:17:02 am »

just a smart way to do the basics and share with family and friends

amen to that ... i just want MC to catalogue my photoes (tagging) ... so if Bill and Mary come to our house ... i can tell MC to do slideshows of photoes with Bill or Mary while playing some nice music :)

allowing family members to help tagging will be great as it is lonely to do it alone ... but some priveleges should be in place ... so my son does not tag his sister images for ‘fun’
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raldo

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2018, 05:28:35 am »

This would be my single wish for MC24 also. My image workflow would be hugely benefited by:
  • batch date editing (reconcile time differences)
  • advanced EXIF editing
  • PDF support
  • use of map to tag coordinates

Picasa is no longer updated or supported. I previously used a combination of MC and Picasa, with Picasa filling in the gaps for me that MC left out. There is no other image management program out there that has MCs level of organisational control. I find that Adobe's suite has too narrow a focus for me.

Thanks for any attention images get this version :)

Darichman, I'm starting to feel old! How many years has it been since we first started discussing these issues?

I am with you on time tagging and batch time tagging.

Wrt. geotagging, there are multiple tools for that which are as good as Picasa. I used Geotagger (free) (and Picasa of course) but I am now using Adobe Lightroom (LR) for face tagging and geotagging ONLY (Note that LR screws up keywords but that can fixed with MC). MC auto imports geotags (exif) and facetags (xmp) btw. That's a very nice feature.

What do you mean by "Advanced Exif Editing"?

I Would like to see an expansion of exif to mc tags, preferably that as many EXIF tags as possible are accessible. An example is the "city, state, sub location, etc" set within EXIF which is mapped to MC places tag. I'd like to see new MC tags foreach exif location tags and a Places tag which is updated when these tags are updated in MC-
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Daydream

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2018, 08:34:14 pm »

How many years has it been since we first started discussing these issues?

9 years. At the very least. The current abracadabra photo tagging fields are even older. I get it that when they were implemented it was early days for digital photography metadata. But 9-10 years of no updates borderlining on indifference? Who has time to wait that long?
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tij

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2018, 12:39:08 am »

Wrt. geotagging, there are multiple tools for that which are as good as Picasa. I used Geotagger (free) (and Picasa of course) but I am now using Adobe Lightroom (LR) for face tagging and geotagging ONLY (Note that LR screws up keywords but that can fixed with MC). MC auto imports geotags (exif) and facetags (xmp) btw. That's a very nice feature.

So MC recognizes all LR tags?
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marko

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2018, 12:59:18 am »

So MC recognizes all LR tags?
Kind of... See this post for replicating the Lightroom keyword heirarchy in MC...
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,109858.msg760711.html#msg760711

darichman

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2018, 03:08:59 am »

Darichman, I'm starting to feel old! ...

Tell me about it. Jim reminded me not long ago that I've been here since 2002 :o

I'll have to check out geotagger and might need to revisit lightroom as well. Thanks for the advice raldo.

As for EXIF editing - essentially what you have described. There are some instances where I'd like to modify the EXIF data, particularly when the date is wrong (I can change MCs date field, but the date is still wrong in every other piece of software I load the photo into). I have my own custom MC tags for Country, Province, City, Subplace but wold love these to be more standard and write to EXIF.
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JimH

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2018, 06:21:43 am »

9 years. At the very least. The current abracadabra photo tagging fields are even older. I get it that when they were implemented it was early days for digital photography metadata. But 9-10 years of no updates borderlining on indifference? Who has time to wait that long?
What's wrong with the "abracadabra photo fields"?  What do you want?

"No updates" isn't quite right.  Animated GIF recently.  TIFF and TIFF tagging.

The only consensus I notice here is for PDF files to be included as images.

Are you certain you have explored what's there?   
https://jriver.com/images.html

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MusicHawk

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2018, 01:23:38 pm »

On a phone so can't elaborate, but quick thoughts:

Perhaps the main BIG request is PDF support.

But much more is needed, yet it doesn't summarize as one word. There are many MC photo\image wishes, scattered over many posts across many years,  needs still not met. Individual suggestions might seem "small" or even trivial, but mostly they are mainstream capabilities that add up to a very big opportunity for MC to become a strong contender in the photo management world.
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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.

marko

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2018, 02:18:58 pm »

We have been asking for the ability to edit EXIF data for some time now.

The ability to correct date / time original, date / time taken especially. This would oh so useful when it comes to things like scanned images (where I also like to add the scanner used in the EXIF data, or the camera, if known. also useful when you forget to set the camera clock for DST, or combining photos from different cameras after being on a family day out etc.

All things I currently need to use a third party app to achieve.

-marko

raldo

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2018, 02:23:49 am »

The only consensus I notice here is for PDF files to be included as images.
There is also a consensus on Exif editing.
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mschneid

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Re: Image Management Improvement
« Reply #15 on: March 09, 2018, 10:17:25 am »

IME,   photos are different then audio.   The main difference is that they are personal experiences and now  touch stones for me personally versus public performances by artists (audio and video). About the only personal information I add to Audio/Video is whether or not I like the piece... IE my personal rating.   that is it.    Whereas, the meta information of photos is 100 percent personal.   

The standard tags and audio meta information are of common interest and can be downloaded/standardized or added to my music files and customized as I need.   Some users have noted how they use JR less and less because  the on line services are good enough for them.    I would think that JRiver's true niche is in the PERSONAL Information management... 

 I capture photos of things that mean something to me at that time..   then I download/sync .... edit (or not) and curate them (or not).... ONCE....  I create an album of some or all the pics and that captures some essence of the remembered experience and save it.  It could be years before Life calls for a reason to view that album/experience again.   (So you really need to know    that your pics/organization will  last you a lifetime.    Now, Some albums call for being shared and that is where google  comes in.    but this data is personal  and I am not so keen to give it all away to google if I can avoid it.

How about batch editing a folder of downloaded/synced pics from cameras  then cropping and captioning and uploading the final results as an album to google photos in an efficient (minimal file duplication on my hard disk of edits and originals ) and simple (one click upload(of handpick data)  to account on google photos)..  All supported by the JR Media database of my personal tags and meta data..

Maybe this is possible right now...  I am not sure...   I am sort of a middle of the road user... More the point... I don't want to spend an enormous amount of time figuring out all of the pluses and minuses and how to's of using .. google drive, synching photos, google photos, Piccasa/photoshop editing synching and JRiver photo editing and database and synching.  ...   Perhaps finding out that you just can't do this kind of thing right now or ever.   My last two months of experience on this project has been frustrating

I can't find a readily available thread that speaks to how someone else has solved something close to my set of asks..

The other thing would be some guidance or tools to maintain a sensible back up plan for the processed photos and the underlying originals.  (what options are available and makes some sense so that I don't proliferate duplicates all over the world.)

Finally, it would be spectacular if you could suck in the facial recognition/ pattern information  of even a subset of images  (eg. those selected by you and google  on google photos) and then downloaded for subsequent use in my jr database.

I don't know anything about EXIF editing or the nuts and bolts.  So I can slog through those threads of requests by the advanced photographers guys for some hints.... but it adds to my level of frustration.   (I just don't want to spend too much time sorting this out .... so that is why I bought the upgrade!!!)

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Daydream

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #16 on: March 09, 2018, 08:55:43 pm »

What's wrong with the "abracadabra photo fields"?  What do you want?

On short, implement and respect the IPTC standard. If users want something else they can make custom fields, merging those.
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michaelmcclatchy

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #17 on: April 04, 2018, 09:27:21 pm »

9 years. At the very least. The current abracadabra photo tagging fields are even older. I get it that when they were implemented it was early days for digital photography metadata. But 9-10 years of no updates borderlining on indifference? Who has time to wait that long?

Slideshow has not been improved in years. I guess that I'm the only person who likes seeing their pictures while listening to music.
I ask for this feature improvement every release.
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carlismysecondname

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #18 on: April 04, 2018, 10:26:39 pm »

Slideshow has not been improved in years. I guess that I'm the only person who likes seeing their pictures while listening to music.
I ask for this feature improvement every release.

I agree with you there. In my own case, though, I was hoping there could be another 'playing now' tab instance where I could manually populate the list with images from different folders (including files not yet imported to the database) and slide (and zoom) between images actively without my activity there interfering with the music that's currently playing in the background. Seems practical enough a need.

*My alternative at the moment is to use a second image viewer program outside of JRiver to browse said photos... not always ideal if the program's goal is really to become one's all in one media viewer program.
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carlismysecondname

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Re: Photo / Image Management Improvement ?
« Reply #19 on: April 04, 2018, 10:48:00 pm »

On a phone so can't elaborate, but quick thoughts:

Perhaps the main BIG request is PDF support.

But much more is needed, yet it doesn't summarize as one word. There are many MC photo\image wishes, scattered over many posts across many years,  needs still not met. Individual suggestions might seem "small" or even trivial, but mostly they are mainstream capabilities that add up to a very big opportunity for MC to become a strong contender in the photo management world.

Though not necessarily 'images', I use JRiver as a simple database for certain documents (mostly PDF manuals). But, yes, even regardless of the ability to edit metadata in such files. It is incapable of creating a thumbnail view of said files automatically the same way Windows Explorer easily can -- if you have adobe acrobat or foxit etc. installed for PDFs and MS Office for office files. As far as I know, you've got to create unique thumbnail covers individually.
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DWAnderson

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Re: [REQUEST] Photos / Images Management Improvement
« Reply #20 on: June 04, 2020, 02:35:55 pm »

Curious to know if any of these requests have been implemented.

I just upgraded to version 26 from version 24 and (FWIW) would love to use MC to automatically tag people and locations in my photos.

I don't think that's possible with MC as it currently exists, so consider this a feature request!
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