rau Posted July 16, 2017 Report Share Posted July 16, 2017 I've used the most recent version of Windows Photo Gallery (2012!) extensively. I've found it extremely useful as a means to tag photos (People, Places, Captions, Rating, Other Tags) and then to find photos (and video clips as well) based on those tags and other attributes such as Date Taken, etc. As good as that product has been, it is end of life and not officially available for download from Microsoft anymore. There is clearly a risk that it may simply stop working on future versions of windows. So I am looking to find a product which has: - Very similar functionality to Windows Photo Gallery; - A capacity to help Photo Gallery users smoothly migrate to a replacement product. "Smoothly" migrate means that the metadata already collected for the media (be it stored in the media item by Photo Gallery, or in Photo Gallery's pictures.pd6 database)- is "carried across" to the new system in a seamless way. I expected that several companies providing tools to manage digital media assets would have jumped on the idea of becoming the "go to" product vendor for users of Photo Gallery (now that it is unsupported), but I am really surprised and disappointed to find no products at all seeking to fill this role. Where is Daminion placed in terms of its ability to provide the "seamless migration" I mentioned above? If Daminion is pursuing a different market, is there another product I should be looking at? Many Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilfriedB Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 ....be it stored in the media item by Photo Gallery, or in Photo Gallery's pictures.pd6 database)- is "carried across" to the new system in a seamless way. I cannot talk on behalf of the Daminion developers and I don't know anything about Windows Photo Gallery, but I doubt there is a way to import Windows Photo Gallery's database directly. The key question is, whether Windows Photo Gallery has a way to export your tags in a commonly known format. Daminion and many other products are able to read IPTC and EXIF tags, either embedded in JPGs or as XMP sidecars. If Windows Photo Gallery is able to export the contents of its database to IPTC or if you find another program which does so, a migration should be easy. If not, I doubt you will find any other software for digital asset management as a replacement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rau Posted July 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 I cannot talk on behalf of the Daminion developers and I don't know anything about Windows Photo Gallery, but I doubt there is a way to import Windows Photo Gallery's database directly. The key question is, whether Windows Photo Gallery has a way to export your tags in a commonly known format. Daminion and many other products are able to read IPTC and EXIF tags, either embedded in JPGs or as XMP sidecars. If Windows Photo Gallery is able to export the contents of its database to IPTC or if you find another program which does so, a migration should be easy. If not, I doubt you will find any other software for digital asset management as a replacement. Thanks for that. So far, from what I can see - at least for .JPG files - all the metadata looks to be inside the JPG file (some written by the camera, some put there by WPG), so I'm guessing that means migration should be relatively straightforward. Where I think the problem will be is with video clips, as I suspect all or most metadata is in the WPG database(given my understanding that most video formats collected from videocameras, iPhones, etc. don't support much metadata). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lintujuh Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Daminion can also import tags from CSVs, so if WPG can export its database as CSV you might even get your videos tagged. For the JPGs just import your images into Daminion and your images library is migrated. Juha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilfriedB Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 ... all the metadata looks to be inside the JPG file (some written by the camera, some put there by WPG) The metadata the cameras store inside JPG (EXIF) should not be removed (even though some old software in the past did so). However, more important for you is the question what happened to all the tags you manually added to Windows Photo Gallery. Good DAM-software should be able to write it as IPTC into the JPG or sidecars - either automatically or on request ("export"). Unfortunately many of the programs "pretending" to organize your images are not able to do so! And again, I don't know anything about Windows Photo Gallery, so it may or may not be possible. Where I think the problem will be is with video clips, as I suspect all or most metadata is in the WPG database(given my understanding that most video formats collected from videocameras, iPhones, etc. don't support much metadata). True, many media types do not support embedded IPTC. The standard way is to create a "sidecar" for that, i.e. a file with the same name as media with the extension .XMP. Or - Juha just pointed out - a .CSV which can be exported from many of those programs and then imported into Daminion. In any case, why don't you just try out with the free standalone version of Daminion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilfriedB Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 For the JPGs just import your images into Daminion and your images library is migrated. Maybe - maybe not! For sure, you will see all images, but what will happen to all the tags he added into WPG, such as "People, Places, Captions, Rating, Other Tags"?? I doubt WPG wrote them automatically as embedded meta-data, but again, it doesn't hurt to try it. P.S. Thanks for the reminder to .CSV, Juha. I forgot to mention it in my first response Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rau Posted July 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Maybe - maybe not! For sure, you will see all images, but what will happen to all the tags he added into WPG, such as "People, Places, Captions, Rating, Other Tags"?? I doubt WPG wrote them automatically as embedded meta-data, but again, it doesn't hurt to try it. P.S. Thanks for the reminder to .CSV, Juha. I forgot to mention it in my first response I've been examining some sample photos, with those kinds of tags you listed added in WPG, and, according to the viewer available at this link, all the tags show up, and so must be in the .JPG. http://exif.regex.info/exif.cgi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rau Posted July 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 In any case, why don't you just try out with the free standalone version of Daminion? Are these the versions you mean (none are free as far as I know). https://daminion.net/order/buy-daminion-2 I've been looking over the options for a DAM. Daminion, Photo Supreme and iMatch are the contenders. [i hope it's not rude to mention competitor products here? ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilfriedB Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Are these the versions you mean (none are free as far as I know). https://daminion.net/.../buy-daminion-2 No, have look here: Daminion Standalone and Home Server and follow the link Download Daminion Standalone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rau Posted July 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 No, have look here: Daminion Standalone and Home Server and follow the link Download Daminion Standalone. Oh, thanks. Is that a time-limited trial version, or restricted in some way compared to the paid versions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilfriedB Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Is that a time-limited trial version, or restricted in some way compared to the paid versions? Not sure, if the rules are still the same, but in the past the standalone client was permanently for free, as long as your catalog didn't contain more than 15,000 items (images or other media). If you had more, you needed to purchase a license for either 30,000(?), 50,000(?) or "unlimited". However, at the beginning of this year, Daminion stopped advertising the stand-alone version, even though it is still available. So, my understanding is, if you download the standalone version, it will be free as long as you don't exceed the 15,000 items. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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