Photoshop elements to Daminion

[l.miklos]

Hi all,

My friend has more than 100 000 digital photos, organised in Photoshop element.

Is there a way to transfer database informations to Daminion?

 

Thanks

Miklos

[Daria Kotilainen]

Hi Miklos,

 

Is there a way to export files to CSV? Also, if the metadata are written to files, your friend can just import the files into Daminion, and Daminion will recognize the metadata. Can you also clarify what tags are used in PS Elements by your friend?

 

Kind regards,

Daria

[Paul Barrett]

Hi all,

My friend has more than 100 000 digital photos, organised in Photoshop element.

Is there a way to transfer database informations to Daminion?

 

Thanks

Miklos

 

PS Elements tends to hoard data internally so whether or not the tags come across depends on which tags they used. If they have used keywords as their tagging method, then those should be written to the image files and will be recognised by Daminion. The only way to find out is to try, because daminion won't do anything destructive to the image files.

 

Download the free version, create a catalog, import the images and see what the results are,

 

You may find, as I did, that Daminion lets you see the PS Elements tags in a whole new light, and realise how BAD PS Elements is at tagging and how GOOD Daminion is.

 

I use Daminion exclusively for library management, and PS Elements for image editing

 

 

[l.miklos]

Hi Miklos,

 

Is there a way to export files to CSV? Also, if the metadata are written to files, your friend can just import the files into Daminion, and Daminion will recognize the metadata. Can you also clarify what tags are used in PS Elements by your friend?

 

Kind regards,

Daria

Hi Daria,

Tried to write metadata to file but the hierarchy was lost :( (examined with exiftools)

If I export tags to file and after import back to Elements, the hierarchy was lost too. So PS Elements cannot write it correctly and cannot recognise its own tags :(

 

So a lot of manual work to do...

 

Miklos

[l.miklos]

PS Elements tends to hoard data internally so whether or not the tags come across depends on which tags they used. If they have used keywords as their tagging method, then those should be written to the image files and will be recognised by Daminion. The only way to find out is to try, because daminion won't do anything destructive to the image files.

 

Download the free version, create a catalog, import the images and see what the results are,

 

You may find, as I did, that Daminion lets you see the PS Elements tags in a whole new light, and realise how BAD PS Elements is at tagging and how GOOD Daminion is.

 

I use Daminion exclusively for library management, and PS Elements for image editing

Of course we tried it. In Elements there are built-in categories, ie. event people etc. but when I write tags back to file, these categories are lost :(

And yes, Daminion is far more better than Elements. (and elements is extremely slow).

 

Thanks

Miklos

[Paul Barrett]

IIRC, those specific elements tags - people, events etc are stored in the elements catalog, not in the exif? If you enter a test keyword, does that import to Daminion OK?

[l.miklos]

IIRC, those specific elements tags - people, events etc are stored in the elements catalog, not in the exif? If you enter a test keyword, does that import to Daminion OK?

I have two keywords under People and one keyword under Events. PS Elements writes these to file without categories and after import I see only three simple keywords ( in Daminion and with Exiftools too).

 

Miklos

[Paul Barrett]

I have two keywords under People and one keyword under Events. PS Elements writes these to file without categories and after import I see only three simple keywords ( in Daminion and with Exiftools too).

 

Miklos

 

OK, so you can use those keywords to select the images and convert them to Daminion People, Places, Events. It's a one time chore.

 

 

 

[l.miklos]

OK, so you can use those keywords to select the images and convert them to Daminion People, Places, Events. It's a one time chore.

Yes. One long time...

[Paul Barrett]

Yes, it's time consuming but you can at least select all of the images that have imported tag "x" and then drag and drop those onto Daminion's version of the tag

 

But I appreciate that with hundreds of thousands of images you have a lot to convert.

 

You could write some complex exiftool commands to semi automate it but by the time you have written the script, tested it and dealt with the anomalies in such a large library, it will be just as quick to use the drag and drop method. And far less destructive.

 

One tip: turn off Daminion's auto-sync before you start to prevent multiple rewrites of the metadata to the same image.

 

Another: Before you start the conversion process, see if you can pause any keyword management in Elements, otherwise you will go round in circles trying to complete the task

[Paul Barrett]

Yes, but not all of it. Elements stores some of the data in its internal database and does not write it to the image files. Daminion can only import the dats that has been written to file in Elements.

 

Try a sample of some of the 100K images and see what you think of the result.