Topic: What image management features are missing in MC? (Read 5400 times)

dcwebman · « **on:** March 27, 2009, 04:30:42 pm »

Jim asked this question elsewhere:

Quote from: JimH on March 27, 2009, 08:01:14 am

What features are missing? What's your short list?

Since I haven't tagged photos in over a year with other programs and haven't gotten fully into MC image management, I figured others would be able to give Jim a better answer. Some things I have seen mentioned are:

Face recognition
Tag people in the photo instead of just the entire photo (like Facebook)
Updating an image that has been put on Pix01 and updating just that image instead of the entire gallery again
Side by side comparison of photos?

benn600 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 27, 2009, 06:16:48 pm »

As far as image playback: what about a background image plus 3D slightly rotating images floating over top? Just some enhanced way to view images that is much more active looking.

Rob L · « **Reply #2 on:** March 27, 2009, 06:53:56 pm »

or... how about... as I keep saying, but no-one seems to notice... just getting the existing stuff fixed first?

like the image visualisations handled aspect ratio properly? Image Cube and Slideshow always stretch the pictures rather than maintaining a 1:1 pixel ratio, which rather ruins them...

please?

chriswale · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2009, 08:09:04 am »

...another excellent feature would be to find duplicate images based on the image itself!!
Imagine that!

bunglemebaby · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2009, 09:19:26 am »

-Geotags (lat/long data from GPS) as a native field. It would also be neat to be able to use these for advanced viewing features involving maps and such, but that's really probably territory that MC shouldn't go down...

Quote

# Face recognition
# Tag people in the photo instead of just the entire photo (like Facebook)

+1 to both of these

Quote

...another excellent feature would be to find duplicate images based on the image itself!!

Big +1 (this would really help me unmessy my photo collection...I don't really have time for both it and my music, sadly)

EDIT: Oops, didn't notice the "management" in the title here. The below don't relate to that:

At a more esoteric level, it would be neat to be able to use one's personal photo collection intelligently in conjunction with audio playback. So, as an example, I could associate pictures from a given event (or year or...) with a certain playlist and have them play back automagically whenever that playlist is played. An MC supported Now Playing to work in conjunction with something like this would be cool too. I imagine that this is probably sort of possible to do now, but it seems more complicated than I prefer to deal with as is.

In general the GUI for photos in MC just doesn't feel quite right too. Photos just feel more fun when using Picasa to view them (useful feedback there, huh?) I can't put my finger one why right now, but I'll try to give it a real reason next time I'm working with photos.

-JB

chriswale · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2009, 10:00:25 am »

+1 to GeoTag

an extension on the idea of Geo Tagging would be to populate the following fields automatically...
[country]
[state]
[city/town]
[suburb]

This way, you are able to see all the photographs from your old neighborhood, OR all the photographs of when you traveled to a particular town/country.

I do this manually at the moment, and it makes photo browsing so much fun!

raldo · « **Reply #6 on:** March 29, 2009, 10:20:15 am »

Quote from: raldo on March 29, 2009, 10:10:56 am

[...]
I'd like to request a new field type: An ordered list, similar to the current comma delimited list but *without* the alphabetical auto reordering feature. Why? Because Credits in movies need to be ordered in the original order...

While we're waiting (in vain?) for face tagging, an ordered list would help to preserve order for people in images...

dcwebman · « **Reply #7 on:** March 30, 2009, 06:08:56 am »

I currently have Photoshop Elements 6 and looked at the differences. One of the big things would be able to convert easily from there into MC. I was unable to do the following:

Tag(IPTC: Headline). More info in http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46111.0
Put XMP info into MC fields. From the image I tried, these contain: description, Notes, etc.
Read in Elements info like: keywords, ratings, albums

Peter_T · « **Reply #8 on:** March 30, 2009, 07:25:53 am »

+1 for geotagging and face tagging.

gappie · « **Reply #9 on:** March 31, 2009, 05:58:31 pm »

im a bit unsure about what image managment tools are missing. three years ago i tagged several hundred of images using what was then standard in mc. people, in the order as they where in the pictures. a bit later the idea about how to handle these tags changed, and everything i put in there got messed up dramatically.

i dont tag the images for the next few years, but for when i start to forget whats on there (and to find them back, of cource).

the point i want to make is that what ever is choosen, there should be taken in account that the information putted in there should survive more than a few years. i really believe there is some responsebility issue here that especcially with images (and home videoos) the information added is not easy to get back by some website because it is personal. and that desicions based on what is the hype of the day, are not always the right choices..

gab

cncb · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2009, 10:24:38 pm »

Quote from: dcwebman on March 30, 2009, 06:08:56 am

Read in Elements info like: keywords, ratings, albums

Unfortunately keyword tags and albums are stored in the PSE database so the database would have to be read and translated (I wrote a tool to do this for v5 and earlier before they changed the database completely). I think PSE stores ratings in a tag somewhere that MC doesn't recognize.

darichman · « **Reply #11 on:** April 01, 2009, 02:31:19 am »

I'd really get excited if geotagging and face tagging were on the way - a bit ambitious, but not impossible by any stretch.

GeoTagging:
Two areas are important here... (1) Getting the coordinates. These may be built into the filetags for newer cameras, or may need to be added manually.
Picassa links nicely with Google Earth so you can "click" on the Google Earth map where you think the photo was taken and it adds the coordinates automatically. Pretty cool.

(2) Displaying that information in a useful way - I'd love to see a simple map with thumbnails of pictures at the relevant places. Zooming in would give you more detail and show more thumbnails, naturally.

FaceTagging
There are a few ways you could do this. Users could click/draw a:
- standard square to identify faces (same size across all photos - like facebook)
- a resizable rectangle to identify people (bit more dynamic/accurate, takes into account different sized faces in portraits vs group shots etc)
- or a complete draw tool to select the margins of a person (most detail, so that hovering over an arm eg would still show up the correct person)

The info could be stored as a coordinate (or a series of coordinates) matched to a particular person entry.

In terms of using/displaying the facetagging info... an ideal view would have the photo, with an ordered list of names below (or to the side). Hovering over the face/area in the photo could highlight the name. Hovering over the name could highlight the person in the photo.

Also, I'd quite like to see pix01/an image hosting solution which would allow 100% quality/size uploading and ability to update albums without replacing them entirely. I wouldn't mind paying for it.

hit_ny · « **Reply #12 on:** April 01, 2009, 03:59:52 am »

More control in the crop section.

What i miss is the extra control M$ office picture manager gives you, its posible to say exactly how many pixels to crop from left, right, top bottom. Just little combo input boxes with up/down arrows in the right column.

With MC its eyeball and go, whilst acceptable with more subjective aspects, is inadequate for crop.

rjm · « **Reply #13 on:** April 01, 2009, 09:38:50 am »

I would love to switch to MC for managing my photos but I have hundreds of hours of work invested into ThumbsPlus meta data for my 20,000 photos.

The meta data is nothing unusual (keywords, text description, galleries (aka playlists), plus a few simple user fields) and would map nicely to MC fields. ThumbsPlus data is easy to get at because they use Access under the hood.

Unfortunatley I do not know how to import the data into MC and it is not an option to re-enter the data given the high volume.

I suspect many other people face a similar issue. Suggest you provide some tools or tips for moving meta data into MC.

rick.ca · « **Reply #14 on:** April 01, 2009, 07:07:39 pm »

Quote

I do not know how to import the data into MC

If you have Access, you should be able to export to XML and import that as a playlist.

Doof · « **Reply #15 on:** April 01, 2009, 07:26:11 pm »

For the most part, MC does what I want. I would love face tagging and geotagging capabilities.

For some things, like keyword tagging and captioning, I've seen other programs that do this more easily than MC, that would be nice to see.

For instance, when tagging photos with keywords, it would be nice if I could open up the Tag AW, click on keywords, and just type one keyword after another, hitting enter after each one and have them populate the box below. Currently, I have to seperate each keyword with semicolon, which is honestly harder to hit and slower than the Enter key, which is just the natural way to do it, rather than hunting down that tiny semicolon key. Just an example of what I mean.

hit_ny · « **Reply #16 on:** April 02, 2009, 01:48:05 am »

Quote from: Doof on April 01, 2009, 07:26:11 pm

Currently, I have to seperate each keyword with semicolon, which is honestly harder to hit and slower than the Enter key, which is just the natural way to do it, rather than hunting down that tiny semicolon key.

semicolon is easy to get if you put the index finger on the J key, on my keyboard and i suspect many others has a little ridge like the F key. Then your little finger is already on or very close to the semicolon key.

Has anything changed since you made this post ?

dcwebman · « **Reply #17 on:** April 02, 2009, 07:34:09 am »

Quote from: rjm on April 01, 2009, 09:38:50 am

I suspect many other people face a similar issue. Suggest you provide some tools or tips for moving meta data into MC.

+1

Quote from: dcwebman on March 30, 2009, 06:08:56 am

Tag(IPTC: Headline). More info in http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=46111.0
Put XMP info into MC fields. From the image I tried, these contain: description, Notes, etc.

If just the ability to use the Tag function completely with all IPTC and XMP info worked, I would start using MC for my images this weekend. MC knows the info because it is displayed when you click for detailed format information. Just need to be able to get that info into a field in MC.

park · « **Reply #18 on:** April 02, 2009, 10:02:21 am »

Stacks tools could do with being finished of and polished. I would love to see a "Stack tools" action window with all the commands grouped there.

rjm · « **Reply #19 on:** April 02, 2009, 10:38:18 am »

Quote from: dcwebman on April 02, 2009, 07:34:09 am

If just the ability to use the Tag function completely with all IPTC and XMP info worked, I would start using MC for my images this weekend. MC knows the info because it is displayed when you click for detailed format information. Just need to be able to get that info into a field in MC.

+1

rjm · « **Reply #20 on:** April 02, 2009, 10:44:09 am »

Quote from: rick.ca on April 01, 2009, 07:07:39 pm

If you have Access, you should be able to export to XML and import that as a playlist.

Thanks. I've thought about trying this but am fuzzy on how to do it, especially for meta data that is relational like galleries (aka nested playlists) and keywords.

Are you aware of a good thread in this forum or something in the wiki that might shed some light?

Doof · « **Reply #21 on:** April 02, 2009, 11:42:52 am »

Quote from: hit_ny on April 02, 2009, 01:48:05 am

semicolon is easy to get if you put the index finger on the J key, on my keyboard and i suspect many others has a little ridge like the F key. Then your little finger is already on or very close to the semicolon key.

True enough, but my fingers very rarely stay right on the home row, and once they've left, the semicolon is no longer that easy to find.

Quote

Has anything changed since you made this post ?

Yeah, my list of People and Keywords has grown unmanageably large.

chriswale · « **Reply #22 on:** April 02, 2009, 05:12:52 pm »

http://www.face.com/ seems to be working of face recognition for FaceBook.
Face recognition is definitely a very useful feature. I think that Picasa 3 Web Albums is a great example for the developers to see.

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Author Topic: What image management features are missing in MC? (Read 5400 times)