Thanks for passing the information.

If someone wants a summary of how various applications stores keywords (or doesn’t!) in photos I am compiling a list that can be found here: http://www.happydigitalphotos.com/photo-management-software/metadata

There is also more general reviews (focused on the use of metadata) elsewhere on the same site.

I’ve been experimenting with this subject also, since I want to get rid of Photoshop Elements (too slow and inflexible with thousands of pictures on a NAS). By default it stores the keywords only in the database. You can have them written to the files (File | Write keywords to files, not exactly sure about the English phrase). However, it will only write the ‘leaf’-keywords, without the hierarchy. The never-enough-praised psedbtool can fix this for you. Mind you, it will only take a whole catalog at once, so if you have thousands of pictures in it, it will take a while. I still have to do it for my main catalog.

In the meantime I’m testing IDImager. It takes a bit getting used to, but then it’s fast and flexible, and is very comfortable with network drives. Plus, it can restore the keyword hierarchy from the hierarchical keywords in the files. Another plus: you can configure it to keep the database and the files’ metadata in sync. Best of both worlds: fast access through the database, robustness through metadata in the files.

With that settled we are left with the incompatible differences for registering lossless changes to pictures. Lightroom, ACR, IDImager and Bibble can all do this. However, they cannot understand each others edits. When will this be standardized?

Thank you for your constructive comments. It reminds me that things always go slowly in any standardization process —as my article has been written near 2 years ago and nothing has really changed since then (sigh).

And since then also, we have a big iMac and, if some time is given to me, the last Windows box will also be changed to another iMac (that’s the reason Windows Live Gallery has been dropped since a few months). That also makes your comments more appealing to our immediate needs.

One license of Adobe’s Lightroom permits you to have both a Windows and a Mac version (provided they are not used simultaneously): you download a PC version and then you download a Mac version for the same license key. And that’s the reason for which we now use Lightroom. We discovered that keywords (even when hierarchical) travel well between both platforms! And Lightroom allows to write in the metadata section of a photo file (menu « Save Metadata to File »), not just in its internal data base.

That’s our standing for now but when time is available (time again…) I will take note of your experimentation for the Mac with your last articles (Keyword DAM on iPhoto vs. Bridge as well as More on DAM Digital Asset Management, iPhoto and Bridge). Both articles appear to cover all aspects to know in this Hierarchical Keyword Madness in Digital Photos!

Unfortunately, I’ve switched over to a Mac (actually, in the big picture that’s a huge blessing, but my only regret is that I can’t use Windows Live Gallery on it). I’m presently using Adobe Bridge to tag my photos because it embeds keywords into the metadata. iPhoto only uses a proprietary database (though you have the choice to export the keywords with photos), and is very difficult to maintain a hierarchical structure. Bridge works okay, but is not nearly as flexible as Windows Live Gallery - if you want to change a keyword from, say, “Chicagi” to “Chicago,” it literally only changes the photo you have selected — it will not intuitively change all instances.

I hope you keep posting about this topic - you clearly understand the issues!

Thanks!

But you need your own server to use such theme. Do not think you could use such theme on LiveJournal!

Very constructive!

Since my post, I’m now using Adobe Lightroom 2 which allows for a nice balance between embedded metadata and an external database.