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[Andyd]

Ok, the time has finally come for me to tag my thousands of photos.
The big decision is deciding what software I'm going to use to do it.
I like the way JRiver is setup for it but here is why I am considering other programs.

I want my tags to be totally universal and not just usable in JRiver database. If by chance I need to search my photos with any other program I want to be able to use these tags. Or if I share photos with other people I want them to be available to them as well.
So I don't know if I am doing something wrong here or not but things are not going exactly like I need them to.

In the tagging area there are headings such as 'Name', 'People', 'Places' 'Keywords', etc. This all seems great at first but and tags I apply this way do not appear in any other software programs or even Windows Explorer. Some of the other programs I am speaking of are XnView, Zoner Photo Studio, Photoshop.
The only JRiver tags that showup in other software are the ones I add to the 'Keywords' Category.
So my question is what are all these categories for if they are not universally recognized? This would be like me tagging my music and then finding out my MP3 player does not see them.

Testing with Zoner Photo Studio I applied tags in this manner... People, Events, Places, categories etc. They all show in other software. When they show up in JRiver they are not under the specific categories but all under 'Keywords'... but at least they are there.

So, hopefully I made my issue clear. Can someone tell me if I'm doing something wrong or JRiver is simple not capable of doing what I want...

[cncb]

Yes, unfortunately Keywords are the only universal tag.  So if you want to share with other programs in MC you will have to set up Keywords with a hierarchy like "People\Family\Bill" and "Places\Utah".  It would be a nice feature if MC could write these Keywords automatically from the other tags.

[Andyd]

Damn, that is kind of a bummer. I really like how the layout is setup for searching photos if this would work the way it should.
Sad to say I'm going to have to go with another piece of software for this...

[Trumpetguy]

Semi-colon ; separated tagging in Windows Explorer works fine. These Windows tags are interpreted as Keywords by MC. This will be universal at least in the Windows world, don't know about Mac and Linux. It also only applies to certain file types, such as jpg. Photoshop psd files and some (all?) video files are not possible to tag this way.

[Andyd]

Semi-colon ; separated tagging in Windows Explorer works fine. These Windows tags are interpreted as Keywords by MC. This will be universal at least in the Windows world, don't know about Mac and Linux. It also only applies to certain file types, such as jpg. Photoshop psd files and some (all?) video files are not possible to tag this way.

I shudder at the thought of the insane amount of hours it would take to do something like that in Windows Explorer!!!
Definitely need a GUI based program for a task like this (1000's of photos).
As of right now the new winner for me is going to be Photoshop Elements. All the 'categorized' tags transfer over as keyword tags to JR and everything else. JRiver would be a close second if there was an option to save 'all' the metadata to the 'keyword' tag. Its very nice to have those categories available.

[Trumpetguy]

I shudder at the thought of the insane amount of hours it would take to do something like that in Windows Explorer!!!
Definitely need a GUI based program for a task like this (1000's of photos).
As of right now the new winner for me is going to be Photoshop Elements. All the 'categorized' tags transfer over as keyword tags to JR and everything else. JRiver would be a close second if there was an option to save 'all' the metadata to the 'keyword' tag. Its very nice to have those categories available.

IMHO I wouldn't dismiss this solution. I have some 20000+ photos, and you work in batch, not single file operations (of course that is possible too). The user interface is graphical in much the same way as any third party application. It works, its fast and intuitive, and batch processing is just simple and reasonably fast.

[cncb]

As of right now the new winner for me is going to be Photoshop Elements. All the 'categorized' tags transfer over as keyword tags to JR and everything else.

Note that you have to remember to write the tags to files in Photoshop Elements (it is not automatically done whenever there is a change) and it doesn't reflect the top category/hierarchy in the Keywords (e.g. "People\Family\Bill" is only written as "Bill").

[Andyd]

@Trumpetguy... Let's just say you are correct. And technically you are. I just tagged about a dozen files in WE in about 5 seconds.
Here are 2 reasons I will still opt for a program like elements.
#1 With all those photos there are simply going to be too many tags to remember and the chance for error will go up. For example a common name like Bill... I have multiple friends with this name that are in the photos. So now going through countless photos I have to remember every time exactly how I wrote their name... did I write Bill or Billy... 'last name', Bill etc. And even if I remember everything perfectly there is still a chance I can make a typo and not notice. With Elements I only have to type any name, event, place one time. So there is no chance of this error happening.
#2 Even though it will be limited to the program I am using I will still have the option of the more user friendly search pane... list of places, list of people etc. Just tick the boxes of what I am looking for and bam its done.
Lets say I get this done this week and 3 years from now I'm looking for someone or something and want to search with windows explorer I have to remember EXACTLY how I tagged them. With elements or any other program I don't have to remember anything. My list is always there and it will be easier to have a categorized list then one LONG list of tags.

@cncb... yeah, that seems to be the way all the programs work. They don't write the files unless you tell them to.

[cncb]

@cncb... yeah, that seems to be the way all the programs work. They don't write the files unless you tell them to.

Actually, most other programs that I've looked at do this automatically whenever there is a change: including MC, Windows Live Photo Gallery, IDImager, ... I currently use Photoshop Elements and this is one of the things that really bugs me about it.

[Andyd]

Actually, most other programs that I've looked at do this automatically whenever there is a change: including MC, Windows Live Photo Gallery, IDImager, ... I currently use Photoshop Elements and this is one of the things that really bugs me about it.

Well, over the last couple days I tried Elements, XnView, Zoner, and Faststone and I'm pretty sure they were all that way. Maybe I'm mistaken... my head is starting to spin from trying all these different programs.
Aren't you mistaken about MC though... you are referring to JRiver when you say that, correct? I thought you have to click library tools and 'update tags from library' before it altered the files...

[cncb]

Well, over the last couple days I tried Elements, XnView, Zoner, and Faststone and I'm pretty sure they were all that way. Maybe I'm mistaken... my head is starting to spin from trying all these different programs.
Aren't you mistaken about MC though... you are referring to JRiver when you say that, correct? I thought you have to click library tools and 'update tags from library' before it altered the files...

I'm not familiar with those other programs so you probably are not mistaken.  However, you are mistaken about (JRiver) MC.  You can use "Update Tags From Library" to manually write tags to individual files, however, if you have "Options | General | Importing & Tagging | Update tags when file info changes" enabled then tags will be written to files automatically as the tags are changed.

[Andyd]

Thanks cncb.... good to know! So many options in this program!!

[Trumpetguy]

@Trumpetguy... Let's just say you are correct. And technically you are. I just tagged about a dozen files in WE in about 5 seconds.
Here are 2 reasons I will still opt for a program like elements.
#1 With all those photos there are simply going to be too many tags to remember and the chance for error will go up. For example a common name like Bill... I have multiple friends with this name that are in the photos. So now going through countless photos I have to remember every time exactly how I wrote their name... did I write Bill or Billy... 'last name', Bill etc. And even if I remember everything perfectly there is still a chance I can make a typo and not notice. With Elements I only have to type any name, event, place one time. So there is no chance of this error happening.
#2 Even though it will be limited to the program I am using I will still have the option of the more user friendly search pane... list of places, list of people etc. Just tick the boxes of what I am looking for and bam its done.
Lets say I get this done this week and 3 years from now I'm looking for someone or something and want to search with windows explorer I have to remember EXACTLY how I tagged them. With elements or any other program I don't have to remember anything. My list is always there and it will be easier to have a categorized list then one LONG list of tags.

I see what you mean. My tagging needs have been limited so far. I have only added tags like "summer holiday", rough locations etc. Not tried to add names.

That been said, Windows actually remembers earlier tags. Just start typing, and there is a realtime search that will give you a dropdown list, which is really helpful to avoid typos ond multiple almost-identical tags. But you have to remember, there is no list to pick from until you start typing. Guess this is a pr computer thing.

I have never really tested PS elements, the program itself does not appeal to me, I find it cluttered and very little intuitive (and it tries to be a bit too intelligent). Maybe I should give it a chance again.

[Andyd]

I see what you mean. My tagging needs have been limited so far. I have only added tags like "summer holiday", rough locations etc. Not tried to add names.

That been said, Windows actually remembers earlier tags. Just start typing, and there is a realtime search that will give you a dropdown list, which is really helpful to avoid typos ond multiple almost-identical tags. But you have to remember, there is no list to pick from until you start typing. Guess this is a pr computer thing.

I have never really tested PS elements, the program itself does not appeal to me, I find it cluttered and very little intuitive (and it tries to be a bit too intelligent). Maybe I should give it a chance again.

Here is another thing to consider which I just discovered myself as well while using all these new products. Many of them have facial recognition.  You import a folder containing a few hundred photos... highlight them all and click the facial recognition and it scans through them picking out all of the heads. You name them and bang it can tag hundreds of photos instantly with that same person in it. Small learning curve for the program as the software isn't foolproof but the errors are few and the work to fix them is minimal. You may have to teach it a few things and it can make a few mistakes but easily corrected and the time saved is incredible. Also (at least in Elements) after you do this and you scan through your photos all faces will be marked which is nice... you can make sure everything was done properly and if it happened to miss anyone it just a couple mouse clicks to add another face.
Once I discovered this option it was a no brainer to upgrade to get one of the newer programs.

[Andyd]

With the task of tagging 1000's of photos ahead of me I have tried about a dozen programs in the last 2 weeks.
For some reason the world must not care about this nearly as much as music tagging ... I can't find one program that does EVERYTHING. And none of them play well with each other.

While in no way will JR be my program for tagging I would prefer it to be my program for browsing my photo collection once my tagging it done.
One major reason I will use another program to tag is lack of facial recognition that dedicated photo editing programs have which will save an insane amount of hours... I would never expect JR to implement something like this as this doesn't fit the media player standards.

Anyway... here is the problem. All the better programs can search similar to JR... select People, Places, Events, Keywords etc.
What many of you may not know is that if you tag in JR unless you tag 'keywords' then no other program out there will see anything you tag. If you simply tag in the people or places categories then no data is saved to your files.
Now if you tag for instance in Photoshop Elements you can apply tags in the categories mentioned above and they will be saved as 'tags' and visible to every other photo browser out there. However only in that particular program will you be able to see them categorized. If you tag in elements using people, places etc and then browse in JR you wont see them in categories but every tag will be visible only under the 'keywords' heading.

Damn... I'm dragging this out...
What I am looking for from JR is that ability to.... say I just tagged all my photos in Elements.
Now I want to use JR to browse.
But I have no categories... but I have about 300 keywords from all my categories!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaay to many.
It would be nice if I could select all the names for example and tell JR to put them in the people category... same with places, events etc.
Then I can browse my collection properly.

As far as I can tell this is not possible....
Hopefully I made clear what I am trying to say.... any chance of seeing something like this in the future?

[JimH]

When we added image management many years ago, there was no standard for tagging.  Ours was one of the first.  We may need to revisit this.

MC can read a couple of other formats on import.  You might be able to use the Library Tools to get some of what you want.  I think it's "update library from tags", but you could test a few.

[Andyd]

When we added image management many years ago, there was no standard for tagging.  Ours was one of the first.  We may need to revisit this.

MC can read a couple of other formats on import.  You might be able to use the Library Tools to get some of what you want.  I think it's "update library from tags", but you could test a few.

After quite a few hours I find that what I want isn't really possible at the moment.
If I import the tags from another program to the JR library the do import but only under the 'keywords' heading. The categories don't transfer... this is actually true between ANY two programs.

That's why I was looking for this feature request.... so I can take those imported tags and have JR identify them in the categories....

[JimH]

I've merged two threads.

[lawman74]

When we added image management many years ago, there was no standard for tagging.  Ours was one of the first.  We may need to revisit this.

Yes, this definitely needs to be revisited AND "fixed" -- that is, made compliant with the XMP standard. See, for example, the following sites:
- http://www.photometadata.org/META-101-metadata-Q-and-A
- http://www.iso.org/iso/home/news_index/news_archive/news.htm?refid=Ref1525
- http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/XMP.html

As someone else wrote, MC could become a great photo manager and viewer, but only if it first implements the metadata standard that all others have adopted or will adopt very soon (or be left out in the cold!).

I am only one of thousands -- perhaps vastly more -- who are totally fed up with Google Picasa now that it has become part of Google+. We don't want to expose our photos to the world, and when we add names to the metadata through face recognition, we certainly don't want to have notifications sent to the people named and give them the ability to view the containing albums, but we still want their names visible to people with whom we decide to share an album. So we're looking for something better with which to manage our photos and do so entirely under our control. It doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles for photo editing, just the viewer AND tagging and search features that we want and that are fully portable with our photos. That means writing ALL the tags directly into the photo file itself AND in accordance with the XMP standard. Of course, all this data should remain with a photo when it is resized (unless the user chooses to remove it).

(While somewhat beyond the scope of this comment, I will add that photo viewers -- including MC -- need to become more sophisticated at displaying this metadata as requested by a user -- for example, only show me the Description field, or Description plus DateTimeOriginal.)

MC is very close to this already -- the main thing it needs is the implementation of the XMP standard. Now, that poses a few issues such as what to do with the current MC tag categories "People" and "Places" because their use and/or content in MC is not necessarily able to be mapped to existing tags in the XMP standard that would be searched by most software. (There is a "People" field in the XMP Media Pro tags, but that might not be searched by most software -- I really don't know.) Perhaps the optimal solution would be to move them both into the XMP Dublin Core "Description" field since that is the only "kitchen sink" that seems to be available and that most software would search. (This goes beyond the recommended use of that field, but that seems justifiable in the circumstances.) Alternatively, since XMP can be extended, MC could add these fields, but that may cause more problems than it solves, especially for searching. I don't know because I'm not aware of the technical details. I just know that I want all my metadata stored in the photo in an XMP-compliant manner and able to be searched by most XMP-aware software.

I have used MC for music (audio and video) for years, but never really considered it for photos. However, I think there is a real opportunity for MC to gain users in the photo area if it implements the suggestions above and markets itself better in the photo sphere.

Happy New Year, and Best Wishes for 2014 and beyond!

[cncb]

MC is very close to this already -- the main thing it needs is the implementation of the XMP standard. Now, that poses a few issues such as what to do with the current MC tag categories "People" and "Places" because their use and/or content in MC is not necessarily able to be mapped to existing tags in the XMP standard that would be searched by most software.

MC already follows the XMP standard for Keywords writing to the XMP Subject section.  It also writes to the IPTC Keywords section.  Most other software should be able to read at least one of these.  So, I think the best way to handle this would be for MC to optionally duplicate People, Places, Events, and other selectable fields automatically to the Keywords field by pre-pending the field name as a root level of the hierarchy (e.g. "Places\Chicago", "Events\Wedding", etc.).  The Keywords would then still be written in the standard way as they are now and would be available to other programs.

[)p(]

MC already follows the XMP standard for Keywords writing to the XMP Subject section.  It also writes to the IPTC Keywords section.  Most other software should be able to read at least one of these.  So, I think the best way to handle this would be for MC to optionally duplicate People, Places, Events, and other selectable fields automatically to the Keywords field by pre-pending the field name as a root level of the hierarchy (e.g. "Places\Chicago", "Events\Wedding", etc.).  The Keywords would then still be written in the standard way as they are now and would be available to other programs.

Yes I agree keywords hierarchies work very well. I use them between jrmc, Lightroom and windows explorer and they show up correctly in all of them. If you like a people, places, events view with keywords in jrmc just setup a view scheme that orders them by the top words of the keywords hierarchies.

[Andyd]

Yes I agree keywords hierarchies work very well. I use them between MC, Lightroom and windows explorer and they show up correctly in all of them. If you like a people, places, events view with keywords in MC just setup a view scheme that orders them by the top words of the keywords hierarchies.

What did you originally tag them with to have them viewable as categories in MC? I've tried tagging photos in multiple programs like PS Elements, Cyberlink Photodirector and probably half a dozen others and JRiver simple sees any category data as 'keywords'... nothing is categorized as people, places, events, etc.

I don't know anything about programming but I would thing one simple solution for JR at least for now would be to have the ability to tell it a list of entries for each of these categories. Then when it scans your photos into the library for the first time when it sees keywords such as 'bill' 'lisa' 'mike' 'marcy'... it knows to not list them under 'keywords' but to list them under 'people'... do the same for places, events and any other category you want. Basically JR would have a database of your personal tag requirements and make use of any keywords thrown at it.

Actually this seems like something that could be easily done... I'll check later today to see if the software has been updated 

[)p(]

What did you originally tag them with to have them viewable as categories in MC? I've tried tagging photos in multiple programs like PS Elements, Cyberlink Photodirector and probably half a dozen others and JRiver simple sees any category data as 'keywords'... nothing is categorized as people, places, events, etc.

I don't know anything about programming but I would thing one simple solution for JR at least for now would be to have the ability to tell it a list of entries for each of these categories. Then when it scans your photos into the library for the first time when it sees keywords such as 'bill' 'lisa' 'mike' 'marcy'... it knows to not list them under 'keywords' but to list them under 'people'... do the same for places, events and any other category you want. Basically JR would have a database of your personal tag requirements and make use of any keywords thrown at it.

Actually this seems like something that could be easily done... I'll check later today to see if the software has been updated 

You end up with so many because elements only exports the last item in a keyword hierarchy.

I have tagged with windows live photo gallery, jrmc and now also lightroom and they all support event\vacation, people\family\peter.

With keywords you can replace the stock people, places etc view scheme with one of your own that looks exactly the same based on a custom view scheme. There are lots of ways to make one for example probably the most easy way to get a lists with all people\ tags is make a view scheme...add a search list...create a rule filter for: keywords starts with "people\""

[Andyd]

You end up with so many because elements only exports the last item in a keyword hierarchy.

I have tagged with windows live photo gallery, MC and now also lightroom and they all support event\vacation, people\family\peter.

With keywords you can replace the stock people, places etc view scheme with one of your own that looks exactly the same based on a custom view scheme. There are lots of ways to make one for example probably the most easy way to get a lists with all people\ tags is make a view scheme...add a search list...create a rule filter for: keywords starts with "people\""

Ok, either I don't understand what you are saying.... or I don't understand how you are saying to do it???

What I thought I was reading was that you are doing what I want to do.
You tagged your photos in another program but for example for people you prefixed every person with 'people\'

So I did a quick test with about 10 pictures and tagged people with Photoshop Elements. I prefixed each person with 'p_'
Applied my new tags to the JR library.

I right clicked on the 'people' menu in JR and clicked edit.
Checked 'search list' and created a new search list.
Made a rule saying 'keywords' 'contains' 'p_'

This didn't work properly for me.... simply showed all the pics together that started with p_ and the rest of the tag meant nothing.

*********
Then I tried this.
Did basically the same thing except created a search list titled with the persons name and made a rule that the keyword is that persons name.
I just added a few names and it works great. Now I have it doing exactly what I need it to do.
Only thing that will suck is making nearly 100 rules for the people category. Places and events wont be nearly as bad.
Is there anyway to automate this task? I could probably bang it out in a hour or 2 manually but anything to bypass the tedious project would be cool.

What I really like about being able to add all these rules and exceptions is I can also create some custom categories so I can also include artwork/desktop/wallpaper type pictures into the library as well.
After I get through the initial few hours this may not be such a big deal after all.

As of right now I can get this running exactly how I want with a little effort.

What I like about this method is that I don't have to add any prefixes to my tags. I can simply name them for the people, places, etc.
So right now it looks like I'm going to take the route of tagging in Photoshop Elements taking advantage of the facial recognition.
Then setting up all the categories and rules in JR.

Thanks for the help and interested to hear if you have any thoughts on how I might speed up/improve the process.

[)p(]

See above, that is because you use elements. That program only writes the last word into the file tags. If you use a program that writes the complete hierarchy into the file with a hierarchy delimiter that MC understands it will import them fully. I think MC can import  /,\ and : delimited keyword hierarchies correctly but I am not 100% sure if that is correct.

Only thing that will suck is making nearly 100 rules for the people category. Places and events wont be nearly as bad.

That should not be necessary. I think you can make one for each category. In the searchlist wizard select keywords and you can then just trick all the keywords that belong to that category in the 3th field.

[Andyd]

Well, by no means am I dead set on Elements...
Are you telling me that if I tag in Lightroom or Windows Photo Gallery then I wont have the issues I am having?

That should not be necessary. I think you can make one for each category. In the searchlist wizard select keywords and you can then just trick all the keywords that belong to that category in the 3th field.

Not sure how to do this? Searchlist wizard??

.........do you mean when I am creating the rules that keyword is any to just tick all the names?
If I do this then I don't get each name listed under the category... just whatever I named this particular rule.

[)p(]

1. Yes. For example windows live photo gallery uses the forwards slash to delimit a keyword hierarchy. they are called labels and when you enter there or in explorer for label: people/peter that will get imported by jrmc as a nested keyword people\peter. Lightroom also has the option to use forwards slashes as the delimiter.

2. You are right that wont work as you intended, sorry.

[glynor]

Yes, this definitely needs to be revisited AND "fixed" -- that is, made compliant with the XMP standard.

+1

(And, I agreed a long, LONG time ago:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32144.msg220623#msg220623)

[Andyd]

Trying out Windows Photo Gallery.... can't figure out how to save tags to files...
Did a search and all I can find are older articles saying it can't be done???

[lawman74]

Please excuse my limited knowledge about most of the technical side of photo tagging, particularly embedding the tags in the photo -- I am really just getting into it, trying to understand what's going on, and finding that it's rather a mess all these years after it started!

I may have at least partially misrepresented what Picasa is now capable of in this regard. I discovered that there is a relatively new option to have Picasa embed facial recognition name tags in photos. It seems to use a new set of items in the XMP standard -- or at least new to me! The XMP data for a photo tagged with the names of 4 people and the rectangles around their faces looks like this when viewed in an XMP-competent editor (actually in a table, but that doesn't show here):

XMP
XMP Toolkit   XMP Core 5.1.2
Modify Date   2014:01:04 18:32:17-05:00
43 minutes, 47 seconds ago
Region Applied To Dimensions W   4,000
Region Applied To Dimensions H   3,000
Region Applied To Dimensions Unit   pixel
Region Name   Andy Smith, Joe Mullen, Lyn Borg, Matt Ryan
Region Type   Face, Face, Face, Face
Region Area X   0.746, 0.19675, 0.527, 0.32725
Region Area Y   0.370333, 0.341667, 0.206667, 0.1975
Region Area W   0.132, 0.1325, 0.11, 0.0995
Region Area H   0.212667, 0.211333, 0.176667, 0.158333
Region Area Unit   normalized, normalized, normalized, normalized

To activate this in Picasa, you need to be sure the “Store name tags in photo” box is checked. To find that box, go here:
 - Windows: Tools > Options > Name Tags
 - Mac: Picasa > Preferences > Name Tags
Checking the box only affects people that you identify from that time onward.

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a program other than Picasa that will find these names using a search, but I'm sure that will come in the fullness of time! (And as I try more programs.)

(A little warning I read -- the Region coordinates are fixed when the when focus was locked, not when the photo was actually taken, so the camera or subject may have moved in the intervening time. That seemed to be true in the test I did, where one of the Regions was not on the person's face at all.)

However, this does not allow for the hierarchies that other people have mentioned in their posts as being useful, such as the "people\family\peter" example given earlier. Guess we can't have everything!

I have noted on other forums a difference of opinion in this regard -- some people want the facial region to be linked to the name, others don't think that's important. Obviously, the hierarchical method gives a totally different sort of advantage, and takes considerably more time to tag since the intermediate tag(s) cannot be automatically inserted. I guess it would be better to just put "family" in the Keyword field, assuming that a search can carried out across the Region and Keyword (and other) fields.

A useful EXIF/XMP etc tag viewer that you can use to check out this sort of stuff can be found here: http://regex.info/exif.cgi

Another that I intend to try out is here: http://metalith.ru/en/index.html

If you are aware of other really powerful photo metadata editors, I would appreciate references to them.

Thanks!

[darichman]

Yes, this definitely needs to be revisited...
...
MC is very close to this already -- the main thing it needs is the implementation of the XMP standar ...

Good post - I agree. I'm at a bit of a personal impasse with Picasa for the same reasons.

Would dearly love to move to MC exclusively, but they both do things the other can't at the moment.

[)p(]

Trying out Windows Photo Gallery.... can't figure out how to save tags to files...
Did a search and all I can find are older articles saying it can't be done???

window live photo gallery should work. I justed tested this in expleror because I dont have windows live photo gallery on this pc because I only use lightroom and jrmc now. I added the label: "people/peter" to a photo jpg in its properties in windows explorer. And it correctly imported into jrmc as keywords: "people\peter" then I added another keyword "event\test" to it in jrmc. Then I went back to explorer and looked at the files properties and jrmc had correctly updated the label to "people/peter; event/test; " So its a perfect two way sync.

[Andyd]

window live photo gallery should work. I justed tested this in expleror because I dont have windows live photo gallery on this pc because I only use lightroom and MC now. I added the label: "people/peter" to a photo jpg in its properties in windows explorer. And it correctly imported into MC as keywords: "people\peter" then I added another keyword "event\test" to it in MC. Then I went back to explorer and looked at the files properties and MC had correctly updated the label to "people/peter; event/test; " So its a perfect two way sync.

Just tried the explorer test myself with success.

But what I am asking is (and it seems all programs work this way that I've tested including MC)... I tagged the photos in Photo Gallery but they are just saved to that programs database. I can't find how to save the data to the file itself so MC will see it....

[)p(]

Just tried the explorer test myself with success.

But what I am asking is (and it seems all programs work this way that I've tested including MC)... I tagged the photos in Photo Gallery but they are just saved to that programs database. I can't find how to save the data to the file itself so MC will see it....

The later versions of windows live photo gallery did update the same labels you see in the files properties and as you now have seen MC will recognize them. I am talking about windows live photo gallery and not the stock windows photo gallery that came with windows?

Update: I tried it now myself with windows live photo gallery and it worked. Added a label. It showed up directly in the file properties in explorer and imported by jrmc as a keyword. With background import enabled in jrmc it should even pick up any chances you make to the labels of your photo's in windows live photo gallery automatically.

[cncb]

Good post - I agree. I'm at a bit of a personal impasse with Picasa for the same reasons.

I still don't understand.  What standard is MC not following?

[Andyd]

The later versions of windows live photo gallery did update the same labels you see in the files properties and as you now have seen MC will recognize them. I am talking about windows live photo gallery and not the stock windows photo gallery that came with windows?

Update: I tried it now myself with windows live photo gallery and it worked. Added a label. It showed up directly in the file properties in explorer and imported by MC as a keyword. With background import enabled in MC it should even pick up any chances you make to the labels of your photo's in windows live photo gallery automatically.

Sorry, slightly confused here. Are you telling me that there is a difference between 'Photo Gallery' and 'Windows Live Photo Gallery'?

I downloaded from here
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/photo-gallery

[)p(]

Sorry, slightly confused here. Are you telling me that there is a difference between 'Photo Gallery' and 'Windows Live Photo Gallery'?

I downloaded from here
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/photo-gallery

Mmm, they changed the name of it again. But yes that is the correct one and to make sure I installed it now from your link and it works for me. They are called descriptive tags in photo gallery, labels in the files properties in explorer and are  imported as keywords by MC.
Are you sure your files are not set to read only?

[lawman74]

I still don't understand.  What standard is MC not following?

I may have been unfair, to some degree at least, in saying that MC does not comply with the XMP standard. As I have said in another post, I am just learning about XMP, and I now realize that the problem is that XMP itself is not quite the sort of "standard" that I thought it was. Yes, I knew that the "X" is for "extensible" (as in XML), but I did not realize that XMP does not clearly define where to put the sort of information that one would normally put in the MC "People" field, and that there are several "Location" field(s) within XMP/Exif standards, making it a bit difficult for MC to determine where to put the information that MC users enter into the MC Location field.

My point really is that MC should take whatever MC users enter in both the "People" and "Places" fields and put it SOMEWHERE in the XMP data, instead of leaving it out entirely from the photo. At least, I have not been able to find values I put in those fields in MC in the XMP data, even using what seems to be the most powerful tool for dealing with XMP data, ExifTool (and ExifToolGUI). Of course, ExifTool is complicated and I may not have used the necessary features, but I am sure someone here can correct me if indeed the "People" and "Places" data is put into the XMP data -- preferably in a place where it is likely to be found by XMP-capable search programs, but at least where MC's search can find it (such as in an MC extension to XMP).

Right now, as far as I can tell, MC has the same type of problem that Picasa has, or had until recently -- data a user enters about a photo is not all stored in the photo, but in a separate and proprietary location where it is lost if the photo is "divorced" from it or viewed in any other software. I think what the vast majority of users want is to be able to move their photos wherever they want and use them with whatever software they want without losing the information that they have entered with respect to each photo. Whether or not they can get at that information with any given piece of software is a separate issue entirely, and is dependent on an improved standard and on software producers. (Note that Picasa even has provided a tool to move face recognition data from its proprietary location(s) into the XMP data for each photo -- a necessary thing to save users from great irritation over losing that data and having to recreate it.)

Let's solve the first -- and most important -- problem first. As long as the information is stored somewhere in the XMP data, it can always be found and moved to a more appropriate ("standard") place later. For example, it could be stored in the Description field and bracketed with special characters to enable it to be easily identified and moved at some later time. This would at least ensure that it is searchable by most current XMP-aware software.

I may be wrong, but that seems to be similar to (but technically different from) what Picasa has done with its facial recognition data -- they have extended XMP to fit their needs for storing that data (just what XMP was designed to enable), and it is likely that someday either their extension will become another part of "standard" XMP or they will modify their current extension to comply with a variant of it that becomes part of "standard" XMP. The problem for now is that other software doesn't find the names in a search.

I would be glad of corrections to any misunderstandings in what I have written, but I think the goal I have set out is the correct one. Then I would be happy to use MC as my multimedia player for audio, video AND photos. It seems like a pretty small job for JRiver to accomplish.

[cncb]

Let's solve the first -- and most important -- problem first. As long as the information is stored somewhere in the XMP data, it can always be found and moved to a more appropriate ("standard") place later. For example, it could be stored in the Description field and bracketed with special characters to enable it to be easily identified and moved at some later time. This would at least ensure that it is searchable by most current XMP-aware software.

Note that the MC tags are stored in the image file itself but in a special MC section, not XMP.  So, you won't lose this information and it could be moved later.  However, I think the convention I described of duplicating these to Keywords with a hierarchy would be a decent solution that most other software should be able to handle.

[Andyd]

Mmm, they changed the name of it again. But yes that is the correct one and to make sure I installed it now from your link and it works for me. They are called descriptive tags in photo gallery, labels in the files properties in explorer and are  imported as keywords by MC.
Are you sure your files are not set to read only?

Ahhh, there is our problem. Its the same issue as all the other programs.
I don't want to have to type in descriptive tags for every photo. I thought you were telling me it would transfer my 'people' tags that I got using the facial recognition feature. That is what I have been doing and that's why nothing is being written to the file.
The descriptive tag method works... writes them to the file fine.

[)p(]

Ahhh, there is our problem. Its the same issue as all the other programs.
I don't want to have to type in descriptive tags for every photo. I thought you were telling me it would transfer my 'people' tags that I got using the facial recognition feature. That is what I have been doing and that's why nothing is being written to the file.
The descriptive tag method works... writes them to the file fine.

Raldo made a facetag importer for photo gallery and picasa facetags into MC. I don't use face tags so I am not sure if it still works. But you can look here if it can be helpful for your use case:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=54119.0

[lawman74]

Note that the MC tags are stored in the image file itself but in a special MC section, not XMP.  So, you won't lose this information and it could be moved later.  However, I think the convention I described of duplicating these to Keywords with a hierarchy would be a decent solution that most other software should be able to handle.

Thanks for that information. I agree that, for a quick-and-dirty solution, what you have suggested seems to be the only thing that will work. It is similar to what I suggested, but better because it would provide the hierarchy in the existing data (if there is one).

However, it is not the "proper" solution -- something like what Picasa has done is getting closer, but probably needs to be adjusted for more flexibility and officially standardized as a defined part of XMP. Only then will most photo search programs be adjusted to take it into consideration. (One reason it is not "proper" is because this is not the sort of information that is supposed to go into the Description field. Another reason is that it is clearly a "cludge" that will not work to, for example, identify the region in the photo where each face is, which is a highly useful feature.)

Perhaps a better solution would be to adopt the Picasa XMP model and just leave the Region coordinates blank. With the influence that Google has, I suspect that this model, perhaps with some adjustments, will become part of the official XMP specification, so why not adopt it now? I'm sure that more and more software will be adapted to search of metadata in Picasa's face specification model.

As for MC's current storage of People and Places metadata, can (and will) you release a specification that details how other software can access it in the photo file? Then, if MC is unwilling to provide a function to copy this data to the Description field or to a Picasa-like XMP model, maybe someone else would do so, as happened with a similar (but much more complicated) issue in Picasa -- see http://www.anvo-it.de/wiki/avpicfacexmptagger:main.

Thanks for your attention to this issue.

[cncb]

However, it is not the "proper" solution -- something like what Picasa has done is getting closer, but probably needs to be adjusted for more flexibility and officially standardized as a defined part of XMP. Only then will most photo search programs be adjusted to take it into consideration. (One reason it is not "proper" is because this is not the sort of information that is supposed to go into the Description field. Another reason is that it is clearly a "cludge" that will not work to, for example, identify the region in the photo where each face is, which is a highly useful feature.)

Keywords are not written to the "Description field".  They are written as individual entries in the XMP "subject" array so in my opinion they are totally appropriate to be written there.  MC has never had "face tagging" so using the People field in MC for this does not seem appropriate to me.

[lawman74]

Keywords are not written to the "Description field".  They are written as individual entries in the XMP "subject" array so in my opinion they are totally appropriate to be written there.  MC has never had "face tagging" so using the People field in MC for this does not seem appropriate to me.

I won't dispute the use of "subject" versus "Description" -- in my view, neither one is correct for the proposed INTERIM use, which is people identification, not keywords.

While I understand that there is a difference between face tagging and people identification (that is, names), logically they should go together whenever the data for both are available. So it doesn't make any sense to have a People field that is divorced from a face location field (assuming, as I am, that the goal is to implement both features).

As I have said, I am new to this particular issue, and I don't pretend to understand all the technical side, and I'm learning more each day -- most of it somewhat distressing! For example, just in the last hour I discovered that Picasa's face recognition metadata in XMP uses a different schema from that used in Windows [Live] Photo Gallery (is that really a surprise???). At the bottom of the page below is a short comment that summarizes my thoughts: "I'm very sad that although Microsoft is a member of Metadata Working Group they've chosen their own approach and name tags in Windows Live Photo Gallery are not compatible with Picasa."
 - (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee719905(v=vs.85).aspx)

In that same hour, I have discovered that this topic has significant -- and rather old, going back at least to September 2009 -- history in MC, having been discussed at length here:
 - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=54119.0

This is distressing because it leads me to believe that getting a true XMP standard for name and face tagging (that is, a common one shared by all) is not likely to happen, and that as a result, JRiver is unlikely to do anything new with its name tagging (after all, it hasn't for more than 4 years).

That reinforces the value -- indeed the need -- for JRiver to provide details of MC's storage of names in photos. (Maybe it has, but I haven't yet found it.) At the least, that would enable search engines to be modified to find it, and beyond that would allow someone to write the proposed INTERIM solution of copying the People metadata to another field such as Subject so that existing search engines can find it without any modification.

At this stage, I have to throw in the towel and conclude that there is currently no application that provides what most users really want -- the ability to embed in their photos, in a vendor-independent standard manner, the information that they or the application(s) they use insert into the photo with respect to the identification of people in the photo. Shame on the major vendors, especially Google and Microsoft, and probably Adobe (this should have been in the original XMP specification)!

The trouble is, having started this whole exploration with the goal of advising my computer-illiterate family members which software they should use for photo management, I don't have a good answer for them! Picasa seems to come closest, but the way it is integrated with Google+ makes it unacceptable to many users (including said family members, who, like me, have no use for social networking sites, especially such confusing and intrusive ones as Google+), and Google has put too many limitations on what is left of Picasa Web Albums (which doesn't require signing up for Google+). And like many users who have commented on this in Google forums, I am suspicious that Picasa Web Albums is headed for the graveyard and thus I don't want to put all my photos in that basket.

[Castius]

I've only been using MC a short time. But I never think any part of this application is unchangeable by the developers no matter how much it been untouched. It just take enough interst by the users. They always seem to impress me in this regard. It may not be the best or the fastest in every aspect. But it always strikes an excellent balance. So the more clear we are about what we need, then it will get prioritized.

Now on to the topic. Yes picasa  is still the best overall photo organizer even if Google has attempts to move entirely to a web based app model. If MC can come close to its features, I'll start to make the switch. But until then picasa is still the way to go.

[lawman74]

I've only been using MC a short time. But I never think any part of this application is unchangeable by the developers no matter how much it been untouched. It just take enough interst by the users. They always seem to impress me in this regard. It may not be the best or the fastest in every aspect. But it always strikes an excellent balance. So the more clear we are about what we need, then it will get prioritized.

Now on to the topic. Yes picasa  is still the best overall photo organizer even if Google has attempts to move entirely to a web based app model. If MC can come close to its features, I'll start to make the switch. But until then picasa is still the way to go.

Yes, I think JRiver does respond well to many user comments and suggestions. However, as I noted, they had a similar suggestion to mine more than 4 years ago and it seems they have done nothing with it, so I would be surprised if they suddenly change MC in line with my and other suggestions about XMP tagging for People and Places. I understand that the confusion in the XMP "standard", especially between Microsoft and Google, is an impediment to adopting either one of those variants. But at least JRiver should provide documentation that allows others to get at their existing embedded metadata for the People and Places fields.

As for MC becoming a competitor to Picasa, it has never been on my mind. All I want MC to be is a BETTER photo VIEWER than it now is, but in a very limited way -- the handling of metadata, particularly what it holds in People and Places. Unfortunately, my initial expectations about what is really feasible were naive, because I didn't know that there is no real standard for how to deal with these fields in XMP. What people are likely to put in the Places field in MC might properly go into one or another of the Location fields in the truly standardized part of XMP, but I doubt that that could be determined by a program; also, a hierarchical specification such as "England/London/Picadilly" might not work. As for the People field, well, XMP doesn't even have such a field. MAJOR DUMB ERROR! What are the subjects of many, if not most, photos???. The vast majority of XMP metadata is highly technical stuff that is of absolutely no interest to the vast majority of people who take photos, but the names of at least the principal people in them are of great interest, as is a way to identify which name goes with which person.

It seems clear to me that XMP should have had, from the outset, an element such as "People" with a simple subelement for "Group Name" and a list of subelement pairs for "Names" (probably broken down at least to "Family" and "Other") and "Position" (which could have alternative or twin specifications as "string" or "coordinates", with "string" allowing something like "second from left" and "coordinates" allowing for the region that the person's face occupies (similar to what Picasa and MS Photo Gallery now seem to provide for). Yes, there are issues to be resolved if, after this metadata is added, the photo is cropped, particularly if an identified person is thus removed, but that's the way life is -- some things can only be fixed manually by a human.

So I have realized that the problem isn't really with MC -- it's with the lack of a real standard, which I mistakenly thought existed. I also mistakenly thought that MC stored the People and Places metadata in its database rather than in the photo -- no surprise since there seems to be no documentation of this, and no explanation of how to access it outside the MC interface (unless it's somewhere I haven't looked, in which case I would appreciate being pointed to it).

So I still want two main things -- portable and accessible metadata stored in my photos in accordance with a fixed standard, and a viewer/organizer/searcher that makes use of that data. Then I can use whatever editing tools I want (assuming, probably dangerously, that they will at least not mess up my metadata), and I can share my photos with others who use entirely different software and those others can still access my metadata.

Unfortunately, the situation with XMP (and EXIF, IPTC, Microsoft, Google, etc) seems to be so complicated and screwed up that it's even next to impossible to find a competent metadata editor that can deal with it!

So I'm not hopeful that much is going to change in the near future.

[cncb]

So I have realized that the problem isn't really with MC -- it's with the lack of a real standard, which I mistakenly thought existed. I also mistakenly thought that MC stored the People and Places metadata in its database rather than in the photo -- no surprise since there seems to be no documentation of this, and no explanation of how to access it outside the MC interface (unless it's somewhere I haven't looked, in which case I would appreciate being pointed to it).

Click the link at the top of the Tag window for one of your images (text will be of the form "JPG - widthxheight - filesize"). This will open a window with detailed tag information.  See the "MJMD Tag" section which appears to contain the MC tags in XML format.  It seems that a generic external tag reading tool should be able to access this information.

[lawman74]

Click the link at the top of the Tag window for one of your images (text will be of the form "JPG - widthxheight - filesize"). This will open a window with detailed tag information.  See the "MJMD Tag" section which appears to contain the MC tags in XML format.  It seems that a generic external tag reading tool should be able to access this information.

I tried this, but I get no "MJMD Tag" section and certainly no XML. All I get is the categories "People" and "Places" with the text contents of them.

In any case, I think that one would need, at the least, the schema (including content specifications) that MC uses for storing this data either as part of the other XMP data or separately from it. I am currently assuming that what they are doing is creating their own extension to XMP, much as has been done for face recognition in Picasa and MS Photo Gallery. Content specifications would need to include what the valid separators are (if there are any -- I assume there are) and their functions, such as a forward or back slash for hierarchy, a semicolon or asterisk for separating discrete items, etc. For example, People might contain "David Murray" or "David; Murray", with the first being one name and the second being two names. Again, unfortunately, such things do not seem to be part of the XMP standard, and different software uses different separators, or sometimes ignores all but the last one.

Thanks.

[cncb]

I tried this, but I get no "MJMD Tag" section and certainly no XML. All I get is the categories "People" and "Places" with the text contents of them.

Like I said you have to click on the link at the very top of the Tag window to open another window with the detailed file tag information.  You will see XMP details and "MJMD Tag: <none>" if you haven't written any MC tags to the file.  The format is pretty straightforward: an element for each database field and the value for the list types (like People) is stored just like it is in the MC database, hierarchy delimited by '\' and list items delimited by ';'.

In any case, if the goal is to share with other programs, I think one is better off just using a Keyword hierarchy from the beginning and not using the People field at all since this seems to be the only current "standard" that exists.

[lawman74]

@cncb: My apologies for being a bit dense as to the link you were referring to -- I now realize it is the first line below the "Tag" heading, and indeed it provides access to the information as you stated.

It seems we are both of the same view as to the only solution that will work in the current state of XMP, and probably for some time to come -- copy this information into a truly "standard" field where it will be searched by almost any current software, and "Keywords" is probably the best place.

Is anyone interested enough and knowledgeable enough to do this? The routine would need to ensure that it does not create duplicates in the "Keywords" field, so users do not have to be concerned if they run the routine numerous times over the same files. However, if a user crops a photo and removes one or more people who were previously tagged, it would have to be the user's responsibility to remove the appropriate tags as well. It would be really great if the routine provided options to do the same for face recognition data stored by Picasa or MS Photo Gallery!