Save internally already tagged files

[Djago]

Hi

I have a bunch of jpg that I already tagged. But somebody else will read those files from his user so I need metadata to be internally stored. How can I save all saved metadata in the corresponding files automatically?

Regards

[michel038]

Hi,
When you say "Tagged" ...

Do you mean : "Right click, Tag, Tag current (Ctrl T)" ?
Or tagged with keywords ?, or tagged with Categories ?

[Djago]

Sorry for the delay!
I mean tagged by categories.

I have a large set of photos. I have made a consistent category tree and applied those categories (sorry, I tend to use "tag" instead of category). Now I can search for any file that contains the wanted set of categories I want (for example, place, people, object).

But now my partner wants to access the same files from his computer, so I want to have all the categories that I have in the database written in the files. Is this possible?

Regards

[michel038]

For jpg's you can use iptc, or xmp, or both, or xmp sidecar files
Xmp is more up to date, but iptc is still used and most functions in XnViewMP are working with iptc.
So I suggest you use both. You should also try these operations on a small set of photos for testing.

Go to Settings, Metadata and check "Export DB ..." , "create iptc..." and "create xmp..." options, and apply parent keywords.
If none of these options have been used before, you'll have to make XnViewMP write categories as embedded keywords .
Two ways do do this :
- Select a set of photos , and click "View, update files from catalog" but this method writes only XMP metadata
- Go to categories filter, select a leaf category , select all found photos, go to Categories panel, uncheck this category/ wait a short while / check it again. This will force XnViewMP to write very properly all keywords. But you must do this for all categories that are at lower* level in the tree ( * french translation leaf category, end level, lower level ?)


For raw photos or other file types, using xmp sidecar files is the best choice.

In another computer, bring tagged photos, install XnViewMP, check "Import xmp... to DB categories" in settings, metadata
go to settings, catalog, use "Add folder" button on parent folder for all photos, to make XnViewMP read recursively all subfolders and build the catalog.

I don't know if XnViewMP works properly with photos located in a network drive .

[Djago]

Great, thanks! That would be a good starting point.

What will happen if one of us modify a category? Will the other computer see the change? Automatically? Manually? Not at all?

[michel038]

I tried to work on shared photos a long long time ago... At that time, I didn't know much about the software.
Since I didn't try this again I dont know if that works fine.

But XnViewMp does not updates it's data, unless you browse the folder with "Tools, settings, metadata, import xmp subject or iptc keyw to DB" enabled
Change categories names, or move categories is already a problem in a single computer ... (keywords are not updated automatically ...)
You must be very careful and study each method.

And if you use separate PC's (I was thinking about this case in my first answer) of course updates wont fly by air

[Djago]

haha, ok, fair enough, I didn't cosider "over the air" transmission of metadata, but maybe XnView monitors the folders searching for changes. Picassa does monitor for new files, but does not detect a metadata change.