Tags – almost there

My previous entry about tags generated quite a few comments. It is one of these areas where “things are happening”, where standards are here, libraries are usable and their integration into end user applications is on its way.

Tags are a very powerful tool to organize your images and search through them. Tags contain much more information than anything you could do with “clever filenames” so it is a very important last step in the photographic workflow.

On the other hand, tagging is a long and tedious process (to say the least). So it would be handy not to have to redo it from scratch every 3 months because we picked the wrong standard last time… Tagging should be a function offered by the image viewer / manager, but that is obviously not the only task of an image viewer.

Tag standards

• XMP (wiki) – is a relatively new standard developed by Adobe. It can be directly included in the file or its datas can be added in a .xmp file (sidecar file). Because of its extensible XML nature, it can contain extra information such as RAW files development settings (used by Adobe in Lightroom).
• IPTC (wiki) – this is the historical metadata system. It is only supported by JPEG files.
• application specific

As Hub pointed, the logical choice today  is to go the XMP road. But since it is not supported in all applications, we will also take a look at IPTC – a conversion is doable in an automated way if necessary. I don’t see any good reason to go for an application specific tagging system.

Libraries are available for both IPTC and XMP support: libiptcdata (IPTC), libexempi (XMP) and  libexiv2 (both)

Application support

For this entry, I have tried to see how XMP and IPTC tags are supported in the most advanced (in this field) photo viewers / managers. To get an idea of the applications capabilities, I put a JPG file with both IPTC_test_tag (as IPTC format) and XMP_test_tag and one TIF file with XMP_test_tag. For each application, I see if I can see the tag(s) and if I can write one and whether it is then recognized as IPTC or XMP (or if it is an application specific format).

I wouldn’t claim this to be the upper scientific test, but it seems good enough to see what program can do what.

I also include a screenshot and a few words of comment for each application

JBrout

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG IPTC write: yes

no XMP support

Jbrout is a python / gtk image viewer. The tagging / metadata side is in pretty good shape with a particular mention of the tags management (grouping) but the rest of the viewer is not quite there yet.

GThumb (2.8.10 compiled with libiptc)

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG IPTC write: yes

no XMP support

I am so used to GThumb that I have recompiled a version with IPTC which I use for now (waiting for XMP) – to me GThumb does really well all one could expect from an image viewer, and even a bit more. Still my current favorite.

GThumb (SVN version)

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG XMP read: yes

TIF XMP read: yes

Tag writing would crash GThumb

My GThumb fanboyism is showing up again: I compiled GThumb from SVN and would be using it daily if it wasn’t for this crash on any attemp to write any type of tag. Fair enough, that is a development version…

Geekie

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG XMP read: yes

TIF XMP read: yes

Tag writing is currently a Geekie special format.

Geekie has a special place in my heart since it is based on the GTKView codebase, my first ever Linux image viewer. It is good to see an older project picking up some renewed interest, and I am indeed looking forward to the day the “save tags in XMP” item on their TODO list is implemented. I may even get used again to the single click navigation and use Geekie as my main image viewer, who knows??

F-Spot

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG XMP read: yes

TIF XMP read: yes

JPG XMP write: yes

TIF XMP write: no

Now that I have found a way to have f-spot NOT copying my files around (thanks FX), I am starting to appreciate it although I don’t quite feel at ease with its emphasis on “simplicity”. F-Spot is probably the most complete image manager currently available on Gnome when it comes to tags support.

Mapivi

JPG IPTC read: yes

JPG XMP read: yes

TIF XMP read: yes (experimental)

JPG XMP write: yes

TIF XMP write:yes (experimental)

Believe it or not, Mapivi is the most feature complete tool when it comes to tags management. I would use it in a breeze if it wasn’t for a GUI that looks like it is coming from the last millennium…

Gwenview + Digikam

At the time of writing, Ubuntu Hardy doesn’t install the KDE4 version of these two. Both currently support IPTC writing and reading via a kipi plug-in. But support for XMP is there in the new KDE4 version which is getting more and more usable every day…

Here is what the kipi IPTC plugin looks like under Gwenview:

And a few others…

Hub Figuiere is also working on Niepce Digital which could turn into a nice piece of software. Sagittarius, from Vivosz also aims to offer seamless metadata management (including XMP & IPTC). There is also XMP_manager which aims to offer right click xmp access in Nautilus.

Conclusion

It’s coming. My guess is that the next release most of these applications will support XMP tagging as a standard. That will be one more box ticked on the Linux and Photoraphy list. In the meantime, we have to make-do somehow. My choice is to use IPTC tags and then find a way to convert IPTC to XMP (via exiv2)

The closing image is a black and white from Paris: