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[sraymond]

The concept of photo tags has been brought up in a few other (long) threads, so I thought I'd put it here in the hopes of getting a definitive answer.

The more I think of it, I agree completely with JeffreyK that playlists are a poor way of tagging photos.  The tags should be storable inside the photos.  Fields would seem the way to go.  But (as I've said before) it is very inefficient (bordering on impossible) to create a separate field entry for every permutation of "tags".

JRiver:  Any chance of making multiple selections on the list (i.e. a multi-value enumerated list)?  This would make fields work perfectly as tags.  Not to mention the new VS modifications working great as well.

This is the last issue that's keeping me from leaving Adobe Photoshop Album and moving all my photos to MC.  JRiver has answered the mail on my other two issues (getting at the EXIF data and acquiring from my Kodak camera).  I've got my fingers crossed!

Scott-

[Matt]

JRiver:  Any chance of making multiple selections on the list (i.e. a multi-value enumerated list)?  This would make fields work perfectly as tags.  Not to mention the new VS modifications working great as well.

I'm slow today.  Any chance you could give a play-by-play of what you're hoping for?  You can multi-select in browser columns if you hold down Ctrl or Shift.

And JeffreyK brought up good points about needed "List" database field type improvements.  Right now, using a "People in a Picture" type field isn't super easy.

Thanks.

[sraymond]

Matt,

Using a list field for tagging is a bit of a kludge.  If I have, say, a "People" field to denote the subjects in a photo, and I have three subjects (Scott, Sabina, and Brian), I can use a "list" of the following:

Scott
Sabina
Brian
Scott and Sabina
Scott and Brian
Sabina and Brian
Scott, Sabina, and Brian

so:  "Scott;Sabina;Brian;Scott and Sabina;Scott and Brian;Sabina and Brian;Scott, Sabina, and Brian"

This gets ugly quite fast!

It'd make more sense (I think) to have a list field with the values "Scott", "Sabina", and "Brian" (so Scott;Sabina;Brian) - with the ability to choose none, one, or more of the values.  I'd consider this a multi-valued enumerated filed (from database terminology)

If it worked with the new VS (where selecting more than one of the field list values restricts the selected files with "AND"), it would be great!

Scott-

[Wobbley]

Matt, Steve, et al., here are my ideas for how Media Center could handle library organization of image files (if a later point contradicts an earlier point, or vice-versa, forgive me, I'm stupid):

Allow me to input the names of people I know (Not really sure what the input form/screen/method would look like).  Afterwards, I could then build views kind of like I do smartlists.  I'd create a view scheme called, say, "People".  Now, each item in the "People" list would be equivalent to an "Artist" for a audio file. And, I would treat pictures with multiple people in them (as most pictures have) in a similar way that MC treats albums with multiple artists.  I'm a long-winded as mofo (as you can already tell) at times, so I'm gonna leave out alot of what I'm thinking and head straight for a mock scenario.

1. I select the "<click to add view>" sub-node and create a view called "People / Photo Album", chosing the fields "People" and "Photo Album"

2. I have the ability to pre-enter names of people that I know (i.e. "Chris", "Stephanie", "Mom", "Dad", "Tamara", "Natalie", etc.), and for each name I enter, I have the ability to enter "AKA" names.  For example, my name is Chris, so I enter "Chris" as a value in the "People" field.  I can select "Chris" and enter comma-delimited (or something like it) values (in some other field, not the "People" field) that I might use to refer to myself in picture tags in case I don't use "Chris" when I tag them (i.e. a picture with the "People" field filled with values such as "Me", or "Wobbley", etc.).  I might run into this if someone else takes a picture that includes me, and they tag the picture with "Wobbley" instead of "Chris", then they send that picture to me and I import it.  With the "AKA" ability, it'll automatically show up in the series of pictures displayed when I select "Chris" (or "Me", or "Wobbley", etc.) from the "People" pane. So again, for me, I might enter "AKA" values such as "Me", "Wobbley" (a nickname), or my buddy Jon, who often goes by "Duvet" - "Jon" would be the value in the "People" field and "Duvet" would be entered as an "AKA" value.

3. When I select the view scheme I've created, the upper pane splits, showing "People" in the left pane(which lists all legitimate "People" values, as well as all "AKA" values that I have entered - and the display of "AKA" values would be controlled in the "Tools...", "Options...", Images..." window, where I can turn on or turn off the option to "Show 'AKA' names in 'People' pane"), and "Photo Album" in the right pane.

4. Let's assume I have already tagged all of my images with only the "People" values (all other tag field values are empty for all of my pictures), and let's say I have some pictures taken in Seattle during 2001 when I was there for business-related reasons.  Again, the "People" pane is showing me a compiled list of all of the unique values used in the "People" and "AKA Name(s)" tag fields found in the tag info of all the image files I have thus far imported.  I might also have the ability to add names ad-hoc because I might anticipate using said names as "People" tag values in the future.  To carry it even further, perhaps there would be an option to  import First Name, First Name / Last Name, or Full Name values from all the contact listings in my Outlook/Outlook Express Contacts folder?...hmmm :-/...

6. I click my name, "Chris" in the "People" pane and the "Photo Album" pane shows two items, "<all>", and "<empty>" because I have not entered any data in the "Photo Album" tag for any of the photo's catalogued by MC.

(continued...)

[Wobbley]

7. I select the "<all>" item in the "Photo Album" pane and all pictures that have "Chris" in the "People" or "Multiple People (auto)" fields (or have a group name in the "Group" or "Multiple People (auto)" fields of which I have been designated a member - see further down this same post for explanation) are displayed as default-thumbnail size images in the bottom pane (horizontal pane that runs underneath the split "People" and "Photo Album" panes).  If I click in any white space between or around the photos displayed in the lower pane, one of the options in the contextual menu that appears could be:

Thumbnail Size > 150 x 150
                           125 x 125
                           100 x 100
                             75 x 75
                             50 x 50
                             25 x 25
                            Custom...
Choosing "Custom" would let me enter my own X and Y values for my preferred thumbnail size (and I could save the settings with a title of my choosing for future reference/use).

8. I pick/create my preferred thumbnail size, scroll through the images and I find 5 pictures taken in Seattle associated with the value "Chris" (or "Me" or "Wobbley" - remember the "AKA" values?), then view the "Properties" pane (wherever it is located, left or right-hand side), and I enter "Seattle" in the "Photo Album" field so that all 5 pictures have the same "Photo Album" tag value (similar to having 5 songs with the same value in the "Album" tag field).

9. Elsewhere in the "Properties" pane is a tag field called "Categories", which is an editable dropdown box that has about 10 or so default values (i.e. "Vacation", "Business", "Holiday", "etc.), and also the ability to enter new categories (and MC checks the spelling as new category values are entered to ensure that I don't absent-mindedly (sp?) enter a category called "Vacation", which already exists, or "Vacatin", which is obviously a misspelling of "Vacation...  

10. After updating the tag info for the 5 selected pictures (with "Seattle" in "Photo Album" field and "Business" in the "Category" field), the screen auto-refreshes, and now "Seattle" is listed as a value in the "Photo Album" pane for the "Chris" value selected in the "People" pane.

11. Because I now have this type of information stored in the pics (tags, if this is possible of course - admittedly I don't know much about tagging image files, i.e. tag structure, available fields, etc.), I can create new Views now, such as "Year / Category / People", or "Year / Photo Album", or "People / Year / Category".  The primary difference between this method of tagging and the method used to tag music files is this:

Music files use "Artist" or "Album Artist" (and let's stick to "Album Artist (auto)" for this).  When you have an album that has multiple artists, you might follow a methodology similar to mine whereby you enter the actual track artist for each individual track, but the "Album Artist (auto" field gets filled with a single value, such as "(Multiple Artists)" or "Various Artists" or "Original Soundtrack", ...you get the idea.  For image files, however, instead of entering a single value in a "People" field for pictures that have more than one person in them, you enter each person's name in the "Multiple People (auto)" field, each name is selected from a dialog box list (much like the dialog box lists that appear when you are creating a filter/search string for a smartlist) by checking a box next to each name that applies to the picture.

12. Now that I think about it, you could also have a tag field called "Group", whereby you could create groups, such as "Co-workers", "Wife's friends", "Three Amigos", "Girls I Have or Want To...", etc., and you could assign multiple, individual "People" names to a group (or groups), and that group name could be selected from/entered into the "Multiple People (auto)" field. The default MC behavior would be to automatically fill the "Multiple People (auto)" field with the value in the "Group" field when a "Group" tag value was present (but the automatically-filled value could be changed). Or, there could be "Tools...", "Options...", "Images...", "Multiple People" settings, of which one of the settings would allow the user to the default behavior of MC when these types of cases occurred.  The "Multiple People" options might be:

Automatic Settings (these would obviously be worded differently):
-------------------------
_
|_| Use "Multiple People (auto)" - checkbox

Default Behavior (applies when a two or more images have different values for "People", but the same value for "Photo Album" **AND** the "Use 'Multiple People (auto)'" checkbox is checked):

    O Fill "Multiple People (auto)" field with "Group" field when value is present - radio button

    O Fill "Multiple People (auto)" field with each unique "People" value (again, for all image files with same "Photo Album" value but different "People" values).

I have to stop now because I want to go home and I am tired of typing.

Wobbley

[Matt]

It'd make more sense (I think) to have a list field with the values "Scott", "Sabina", and "Brian" (so Scott;Sabina;Brian) - with the ability to choose none, one, or more of the values.  I'd consider this a multi-valued enumerated filed (from database terminology)

Media Center already has this.  Create a field with the "List" data type, and then use semi-colons.

However, we're going to make graphically using playlists to do this easier as well.

Stay tuned (Wobbley too) over the next few builds.

Thanks!

[sraymond]

Matt,

I may be missing something (actually, I hope I am!), but using a "list" doesn't let me choose more than one of the enumerated values.

How can I choose Scott and Sabina from the list "Scott;Sabina;Brian"?

Scott-

[Matt]

One way is to drag files to a "People" listing in the new browser area. (assuming "People" is a list data type)

It'll add that person to the list of "People" for the given files.

[sraymond]

Matt,

Sorry I'm being so dense...  but I don't see how this lets me add two people to the same photo.

And now that I think about it, I don't really understand what the multiple artists is all about either.  Is that the source of my ignorance?

Scott-

[Matt]

1) Create a field "People" that has the "List" data type.

2) Show the "People" column.  Type "Matt;Scott" in for one of the files.

3) Create a view scheme that uses "People." See that Matt and Scott show up in the list as separate items.  Clicking either gives you the file from #2.

4) Drag a different file to the word "Scott."  Now it's tagged too.

I hope that makes some sense.  There will be an example of this system in a coming build.

[sraymond]

Matt,

I get it!  I had enumerated the values in the "Type Information" - not sure why I had thought that was needed.  Clearling the Values there lets it work just fine!

I'll play some to see how easy I can now search once I retag all my photos.

Thanks for bearing with me!

Scott-

[Matt]

Cool.  Sorry it's so tricky right now.

And just so you know, this area will change a bit in the next few builds, so don't poor too much time into tagging yet.

We're still debating whether list-type fields or playlist groups are a better approach.

Playlists offer handy graphical selection and multi-level nesting, so we'll probably go that way.  Either way, we'll try to make it slick.

Thanks!

[sraymond]

When building a serach, I notice that a list field isn't shown on the Add Rule, but is listed as an Advance/Add Keyword - even though no keyword is defined.

Is this expected or a bug?

Scott-

[sraymond]

Playlists offer handy graphical selection and multi-level nesting, so we'll probably go that way.  Either way, we'll try to make it slick.

I hear you on the multi-level nesting thing...  I was getting ready to mention that as I'm tagging my "People".  It gets out of hand if you can't use subgroups like "Family" and "Friends", etc.

But I do like the idea of having the "tags" stored in the file.  Can playlists be stored in a file?

I also get a little wound around the concept of adding tags to photos (fields) vice adding photos to tags (playlists), but in the end, I guess there's not much functional difference.

I'm all for "slick"!

Scott-

[sraymond]

Here's what I've been doing with tags.



See http://pages.sbcglobal.net/scottraymond/PhotoTagsBig.jpg for a bigger picture (~200KB).

This seems to work quite well for tagging.  It's not perfect, but it's a good start (I think).  

I've only done a couple hundred photos, and already the field list is growing quite long.  It would be great to add some sort of grouping.

And there's no quick way to do an "AND" filter on a single field nor an "OR" filter across fields (though I don't think that would be too useful).

To get an "AND" on a single field, I can always create a search on keywords - it's a little klunky, but it works.

As I mentioned elsewhere, it would be nice to be able to invert the filter selection for each column.  For example, if I've selected Christmas and I want every People except Scott it would be much better to select Scott then select Invert vice selecting everything except Scott.

Well, that's about as far as I'll go until there's a definitive answer on how MC will encourage photo tags (i.e. field vs. playlist).

Scott-