Spotlight and iPhoto metadata?

At 7:26 AM -0800 2006/01/17, deemery wrote:
>So does anyone have an idea where/how iPhoto stores its Metadata?

        Have you looked inside the iPhoto library? Drill down by date
to find your JPEG. I see an .attr file for each of mine (along with 3
versions of the JPEG at different resolutions) and another non-.attr
file. I presume the comments go there.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

> Have you looked inside the iPhoto library? Drill down by date
> to find your JPEG. I see an .attr file for each of mine

That's why I refuse to use or recommend iPhoto despite loving its
interface.

I organise my photos using plain-old folders and JPEG metadata (using
GraphicConverter)--that way I'm not locked into a single product or
at risk of losing photos and/or metadata from bugs in iPhoto.

I wish iPhoto operated like iTunes, taking advantage of metadata and
folders in the file system. I've made this suggestion to Apple.

On 18 Jan 2006, at 11:15 , Tom Robinson wrote:
>> Have you looked inside the iPhoto library? Drill down by date
>> to find your JPEG. I see an .attr file for each of mine
>
> That's why I refuse to use or recommend iPhoto despite loving its
> interface.
>
> I organise my photos using plain-old folders and JPEG metadata (using
> GraphicConverter)--that way I'm not locked into a single product or
> at risk of losing photos and/or metadata from bugs in iPhoto.

First off, iPhoto stores pictures in plain old folders as plain old
jpeg (or raw/gif/etc) files.

Second of all, metadata in OS X is not stored within the file
Metadata for photos is stored where all the metadata is stored. The
exception is mp3s where metadata is stored in the ID tag portion of
the file.

> I wish iPhoto operated like iTunes, taking advantage of metadata and
> folders in the file system. I've made this suggestion to Apple.

iTunes and iPhoto have nearly identical trees for storing files.
iTunes is Artist/album/song and iPhoto is year/Month/Day/photo

what's the issue?


--
Hamburgers. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.

> First off, iPhoto stores pictures in plain old folders as plain old
> jpeg (or raw/gif/etc) files.

That's good to hear, but what's been happening when people's
libraries become corrupted? I've read a number of reports where
people have actually lost their photos. Do all changes (brightness,
cropping, etc.) get written back to the actual file on disk, or are
they stored separately?

> Second of all, metadata in OS X is not stored within the file
> Metadata for photos is stored where all them etadata is stored. The
> exception is mp3s where metadata is stored in the ID tag portion of
> the file.

Wrong, EXIF data for picture files (GIF, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) is stored
inside the file itself. OS X merely indexes this+. I can backup and
e-mail my picture files and the metadata goes right along with them.
The downside is the whole file gets rewritten when data changes,
which may be why Apple chose this route.

The only metadata external to a file is the Finder's Spotlight
Comments*--which have been unreliable ever since they were introduced
around System 6 somewhere.

> what's the issue?

As above.

+EXIF data for TIFF files either isn't indexed or only partially
(can't remember which)
*File system attributes like creation date, owner, etc., excepted.

Yeah, it sure seems as if there are too many metadata systems floating around out there. If we can't converge onto a single storage mechanism, the next best thing would be to advertise the various mechanisms that Spotlight, iPhoto, iTunes, etc can read to allow the user the ability to provide his own unification approach.

dave

On 18 Jan 2006, at 19:29 , Tom Robinson wrote:

>> First off, iPhoto stores pictures in plain old folders as plain
>> old jpeg (or raw/gif/etc) files.
>
> That's good to hear, but what's been happening when people's
> libraries become corrupted? I've read a number of reports where
> people have actually lost their photos.

People sometimes loose photos OUT OF THEIR IPHOTO LIBRARY. I haven't
heard of anyone having had photos deleted by iPhoto.

> Do all changes (brightness, cropping, etc.) get written back to
> the actual file on disk, or are they stored separately?

The original image is always left untouched. It is used to make a
copy that is shown in iPhoto. This is why you can always "Revert to
Original".

>> Second of all, metadata in OS X is not stored within the file
>> Metadata for photos is stored where all them etadata is stored.
>> The exception is mp3s where metadata is stored in the ID tag
>> portion of the file.
>
> Wrong, EXIF data for picture files (GIF, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) is
> stored inside the file itself. OS X merely indexes this+.

I was referring to the spotlight metadata referenced in the original
post, which is NOT stored with teh file, but in the spotlight index.


--
This is our music from the bachelor's den, the sound of loneliness
turned up to ten. A harsh soundtrack from a stagnant waterbed and it
sounds just like this. This is the sound of someone losing the plot,
making out that they're OK when they're not. You're gonna like it,
but not a lot. And the chorus goes like this...

> People sometimes loose photos OUT OF THEIR IPHOTO LIBRARY. I
> haven't heard of anyone having had photos deleted by iPhoto.

I've known somebody personally, read reports (MacFixIt? This list?),
plus do a Google search on 'iphoto corruption'.

> The original image is always left untouched. It is used to make a
> copy that is shown in iPhoto. This is why you can always "Revert
> to Original".

So are the changes written to another picture file, or kept
separate? If the latter, only iPhoto knows how to reapply the
changes. If the linkages break or you switch to another product, the
changes are gone.

> I was referring to the spotlight metadata referenced in the
> original post, which is NOT stored with teh file, but in the
> spotlight index.

True, but you wrote 'Second of all, metadata in OS X is not stored
within the file', which I was correcting. Spotlight Comments are
only a tiny part of all OS X metadata, most of which is stored within
the file.

I still believe it's much better to use the standard EXIF fields for
user data, instead of either iPhoto's custom format or Spotlight's
unreliable Comments.

On 18 Jan 2006, at 20:41 , Tom Robinson wrote:

> So are the changes written to another picture file, or kept separate?

um.. Yes? (it does both)

> If the latter, only iPhoto knows how to reapply the changes. If
> the linkages break or you switch to another product, the changes
> are gone.

Actually, if your linkages break or you switch to another product you
end up with two pictures. The original and your most recently
modified version. I JUST ran into this, in fact, when I combined n
alternate iPhoto library into my own iPhoto library by--and you'll
laugh--Dragging the "iPhoto Library" folder into my current iPhoto.
I ended up with several pictures with the same name, one the original
unmodified picture and one the cropped version.

As for people 'losing" photos I had one experience with a customer
who claimed to have lsot photos (I think this was iPhoto 3 to iPhoto
5). The original photos were not, it was true, in his iPhoto library,
but they were still on the hard drive in the right year/month/day
folder. I simply took dragging them back into iPhoto.

Now, I can't say that's the case with everyone, but I certainly
suspect it is. iPhoto has no reason to DELETE files it doesn't
recognize, now does it?

--
BILL: I can't get behind the Gods, who are more vengeful, angry, and
dangerous if you don't believe in them!
HENRY: Why can't all these Gods just get along? I mean, they're
omnipotent and omnipresent, what's the problem?

On Jan 19, 2006, at 12:40 AM, Google Kreme wrote: > The original image is always left untouched.  It is used to make a > copy that is shown in iPhoto.  This is why you can always "Revert to > Original". Nope, you cannot always "Revert to Original"....... found out the hard way if you export photo to Photoshop Elements or Photoshop without first saving a original and change it when it is imported back into iPhoto Library it is Changed! Lori Abrams Rauchwerger http://dogsbylori.com/ http://www.abrams.org/lori/ http://homepage.mac.com/dogsbylori/Menu10.html

On 19 Jan 2006, at 07:16 , Lori Rauchwerger wrote:
> On Jan 19, 2006, at 12:40 AM, Google Kreme wrote:
>> The original image is always left untouched. It is used to make a
>> copy that is shown in iPhoto. This is why you can always "Revert to
>> Original".
>
> Nope, you cannot always "Revert to Original"....... found out the
> hard way if you export photo to Photoshop Elements or Photoshop
> without first saving a original and change it when it is imported
> back into iPhoto Library it is Changed!

Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was talking about iPhoto's
behavior, not the behavior of other apps.

iPhoto keeps the original picture through all edits. Whether <fill in
program here> does so is not under discussion.

--
I leave symbols to the symbol-minded - George Carlin

At 10:15 AM -0800 1/18/06, Tom Robinson wrote:
>I wish iPhoto operated like iTunes, taking advantage of metadata and
>folders in the file system. I've made this suggestion to Apple.

iPhoto 6 does have an option in Preferences > Advanced to NOT copy
files to the iPhoto Library folder. I haven't played with it yet to
see exactly how it works or if it helps Spotlight in any way.

cheers... -Adam

When I got Tiger I got access to the Schiller demo. He showed Spotlight searching a huge photo library. Great, I thought. Except that I tend not to edit the photo names, but store them in descriptive folders. If I say search for photos of my dog, I would like all the photos in folders with my dog's name to show up. They don't. With multi-thousand photo libraries, I am left wondering if users are really supposed individually to rename (or add comments to) each individual photo, or if I have missed something?

Alex

On Jan 25, 2006, at 5:29 PM, Alex Johnson wrote:

> With multi-thousand photo libraries, I am left wondering if users
> are really supposed individually to rename (or add comments to)
> each individual photo, or if I have missed something?

Aside from the obvious issues with Spotlight and various forms of
metadata, you don't have to add comments individually. You can add
comments to entire batches of images, selecting whether or not they
replace existing comments, or are appended to the existing comments,
if any, using "Photos --> Batch Change" from the menu bar. Thus, you
can add 'Pets' to all photos that have pets in them, and then append
'Kitty' to a subset of those selected with images of your cat.

At 3:29 PM -0800 2006/01/25, Alex Johnson wrote:
>When I got Tiger I got access to the Schiller demo. He showed
>Spotlight searching a huge photo library. Great, I thought. Except
>that I tend not to edit the photo names, but store them in
>descriptive folders. If I say search for photos of my dog, I would
>like all the photos in folders with my dog's name to show up. They
>don't. With multi-thousand photo libraries, I am left wondering if
>users are really supposed individually to rename (or add comments
>to) each individual photo, or if I have missed something?

        Sounds like you should use the Batch Rename feature to set
titles from your album names.


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>