[Feature Request]: IPTC import

[simone]

I tag all my pics with IPTC information in Lightroom. Would it be possible to import the most important (and standardised) pieces of information, such as location, description, title into phoca?

Cheers
Simone

[Jan]

Hi, I have no idea what is IPTC and lightroom

[simone]

You know what EXIF is? It's information about the camera settings that get written into the .jpg when the picture is being taken. You will get information like f=2.8, shuttertime=1/30", focus lenght= 210mm.

IPTC is kind of an extension to this, it lets the photographer write information into the JPG, like location where the pic was taken, title, caption, photographer etc.

At the moment, I user Gallery2 for to present my pics on the internet. If I upload pics, Gallery2 reads the IPTC information from the .jpg and uses it as a title in the gallery. The other information (including EXIF) gets shown as well, which gives quite a good overview about all the details of a picture.

Software that is used to catalogue pictures on the PC (like Adobe's Lightroom or Photoshop Elements, or Apple's Aperture etc.) is normally able to write EXIF and IPTC information into the .jpg. This allows for the photographer to quickly search his collection for keywords. It this information can be taken over by the online-gallery, of course this saves a lot of work, because there is no need to re-type the information such as title, caption etc.

Gallery2 can do all that, but as you can guess from my posting here, there are other disadvantages to the system. There's a lot I like about phoca, but having to re-enter all the information that is already stored in the .jpg is a real burden of course.

Check this pic:

http://ueberwasser.eu/v/Reisen/2008Fran ... 2.jpg.html

below, you got Photo Properties, this is IPTC information. If you press "details" you get even more of it.

Cheers
Simone

[birdie]

Hi Jan,

I can't help as to second that: The lack of IPTC and EXIF support will many (semi-)professional photographers to use phoca gallery. It is a MUST feature for this class of users!

What is IPTC, what is EXIF? Take a look here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTC-NAA-Standard
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif

OK, not to forget the latest standard, XMP:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible ... a_Platform

Chances are, your graphics library already supports them both!

Best wishes,
birdie

[Jan]

Added into feature request list...

https://www.phoca.cz/documentation/index ... re-request

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I have looked at php and it shold be makeable... do you have any idea where to display this information in the site?

Jan

[simone]

Thanks for adding this to the list.

Personally, I will only be happy once "No Popup view" from the feature request list will be available as well and that will also make placing the information easier. As things are now, I don't have enough experience.

maybe Birdie has an idea.

[Jan]

there is no "no popup" solution yet, it is planned but what about displaying the information:

- in detail window (e.g. through some icon link - like download link, zoom link)
- or as overlib (mouseover the image - https://www.phoca.cz/phocagallery/demo/i ... ransparent )

Jan

[simone]

Personally I'd prefere a detail window. The overlib might get easily crowded.

Also: who can select, how much information shoud be displayed, me or the user or both? I guess, the common user might want to see, where the pic was taken (i.e. location and country) as well as the title and caption. But the interested photographer might also care about the EXIF details such as shutter-speed, focal lenght etc. Maybe two different pieces of information which are selectable by the user, while I can define, how much information I want to display in detail and in full?

[Jan]

There is no question how much information should be displayed. This can be set in Parameters. The question is where to display them?

Jan

[birdie]

Jan,

where to display the exif information is not so easy to answer. There are many possibilities, and not every site will want the same. In a site without popups you can display it under the picture in single picture view, like e.g. in www.pbase.com. Let the user switch full exif on or off.
In a site with popups and / or overlibs, I think both may be places to display exif / metainformation. Of course, this must be configurable in the backend. What about a hot spot under the picture, something like an icon or a box with "exif" text in it, and when the user hovers the mouse over it, the overlib shows exif infos.

BTW, as nobody mentioned it, it is crucial that if a new pic (or multiple pics) are uploaded, phocagallery title and caption and copyright and tags and geotags etc should be filled from metainformation in the picture file automatically. That's more efficient for the photographer, and many have a workflow where they add metainfo per photo anyway. So this information is in the picture file, ready for phoca to use.

HTH
birdie