Improved export + some other questions

[talvistup]

Hi,

 

I am a new user to Daminion and in fact am still checking out all the features. I am looking for a photo archival tool for an art museum because the option that we are trying to use now (from a company whose name starts with "Ex" and ends with "sis") is just so cumbersome and problematic (poor customer support is another feature). From what I've seen of the program and of the quick fixes that you offer on the forums, it seems that Daminion might indeed be the right way to go (especially with the option of later migrating to server). Thus far I have tested out the features by adding about 200 images to the program and making the interface display only the fields that I need and I do have to say that everything works like a charm!!!

 

But... there are some problems/shortcomings that I have encountered.

 

1) By far the biggest problem is that I cannot find a way to export the data associated with the selected images. Let's say I have selected 20 images that I want to use in a project and want to export them to a folder (with 1200dpi scans and huge photos that is the only way to go). The dialogue that opens even allows me to convert the files to smaller size (if I should need that). But there is no option for me to export the data associated with the files! I would like to see the dialogue ask me for whether I want to export the data as well, offer me some formats (txt, csv, maybe xls) and ask for the fields that I want to export for the files (this could maybe also be a preconfigured option somewhere). And most definitely the choice of fields should contain the ones that don't show up in the tree (like description, comments or custom text tags).

 

2) I think this might be a bug: Every time that I add a new person that hasn't been added before the "People" tree on the left hand side jumps open even if I have explicitly closed it before. Soon this becomes so annoying that I chose to hide the "People" while adding new images. Can this jumping open feature be turned off?

 

3) I'm not totally sure how Daminion handles the thumbnails that it creates and shows. Are they created on the fly each time or are they stored somewhere? If they are stored, shouldn't I be able to specify which directory to use for storing them?

 

Other than that, the program is indeed a joy to work with!

[Murat]

Talvistup, thanks for your feedback and for your kind words! Please find my answers below:

 

1) By far the biggest problem is that I cannot find a way to export the data associated with the selected images. Let's say I have selected 20 images that I want to use in a project and want to export them to a folder (with 1200dpi scans and huge photos that is the only way to go). The dialogue that opens even allows me to convert the files to smaller size (if I should need that). But there is no option for me to export the data associated with the files! I would like to see the dialogue ask me for whether I want to export the data as well, offer me some formats (txt, csv, maybe xls) and ask for the fields that I want to export for the files (this could maybe also be a preconfigured option somewhere). And most definitely the choice of fields should contain the ones that don't show up in the tree (like description, comments or custom text tags).

 

So you need to export Tags from each file to appropriate text documents along with original Images? Or just export Tags to text documents?

 

Could you please create and send me a sample output text document that you need to support at daminion.net or publish it here into the forum?

 

I'll try to collect similar requests from our issue-tracking system to add your request into our roadmap.

 

2) I think this might be a bug: Every time that I add a new person that hasn't been added before the "People" tree on the left hand side jumps open even if I have explicitly closed it before. Soon this becomes so annoying that I chose to hide the "People" while adding new images. Can this jumping open feature be turned off?

 

It was a feature rather than a bug until you told about this :) We can automatically turn this feature off when a root Tag is closed, and turn it on for expanded root Tags.

 

Does anybody have some thoughts about this bug/feature?

 

 

3) I'm not totally sure how Daminion handles the thumbnails that it creates and shows. Are they created on the fly each time or are they stored somewhere? If they are stored, shouldn't I be able to specify which directory to use for storing them?

 

For local catalogs it stores in the same folder where your catalog is located. The folder named as ~Thumbs.

 

For shared catalogs it located in:

C:\Users\DAMINION_SERVER_USER\AppData\Roaming\Daminion Software\Daminion\Temporary\ThumbnailCache

 

You can't change it location in the current version. Cache size on disk is approx: 600 MB per 10k imported file, or 6 GB per 100k imported files.

[Mammut]

Does anybody have some thoughts about this bug/feature?

 

I like that it automatically opens the tag tree, because when I add a new person, I'm working with them, so I need the tree, too.

Perhaps we could set it in the options. :)

[talvistup]

Hi,

 

Thank you for a quick reply! I will do my answer in reverse order of the questions I posed:

 

3) Yeah I discovered that now, it seems that the system I was using didn't display hidden folders.

 

2) I'm talking about an archive that has about 200 years' worth of photos and digitizations of artworks (tens of thousands). Whenever a new item is added the people who it represents or who made it will also be tagged. Over the course of these years the number of people who may appear is staggering. Hence new names get added all the time and the popping open of the tree is annoying (to say the least). An option somewhere to remember the state of items in the tree (open/closed) while updating would be most welcome

 

1) Let's say I'm using the aforementioned archive to do research for a publication or exhibition. I gather together tens of different types of images (artworks, archive photos, archive documents, etc) into a temporary collection (thus far using temp collections seems to be the best way to do this). When I have finished, I want to export the whole collection to a new folder on the HD (or maybe something external). However, part of the research is contained in the meta-data of these files (description, people, keywords, categories, custom fields). Currently I would have to copy this information out manually. But I would like to see an option while exporting that would let me copy out all the necessary information into one file (txt, csv or xls). This option should let me choose the file type, the deliminator between the fields, and the meta-data fields that I want to use. So, let's say I choose csv (name the file "research.csv" somewhere in the dialogue maybe), ";" as deliminator and the fields "description", "keywords", "category" and "custom field one" as the ones I want to export. When the image files themselves get exported the meta-data file gets written (using the file names as identifiers). The final file ("research.csv") could look like this:

 

file0001.tif;description;keywords;category;custom_field_one

file0002.tif;description;keywords;category;custom_field_one

file0003.tif;description;keywords;category;custom_field_one

etc..

etc..

 

I think that some deliminators (maybe comma) should be reserved for delimiting multiple values inside a field itself (picture that has 20 people on it).

 

Hopefully this all has explained my idea somewhat better.

[Murat]

2) I'm talking about an archive that has about 200 years' worth of photos and digitizations of artworks (tens of thousands). Whenever a new item is added the people who it represents or who made it will also be tagged. Over the course of these years the number of people who may appear is staggering. Hence new names get added all the time and the popping open of the tree is annoying (to say the least). An option somewhere to remember the state of items in the tree (open/closed) while updating would be most welcome.

 

Talvistup, do you use Tags tree or Properties panel to add new peoples?

 

We try to avoid adding extra option until we can't live without it.

 

I can suggest to Highlight a newly added People (or other similar tags) only if you added it from the Catalog Tags context menu. And do not focus it in tags tree when you added it from the Properties panel.

 

Any feedback/comments are welcome!

 

 

1) Let's say I'm using the aforementioned archive to do research for a publication or exhibition.

...

When I have finished, I want to export the whole collection to a new folder on the HD (or maybe something external). However, part of the research is contained in the meta-data of these files (description, people, keywords, categories, custom fields). Currently I would have to copy this information out manually.

...

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation! This feature could be incorporated in the future Daminion versions as an Export Plugin (via Daminion API).

 

Btw, sorry for bothering you, but why do you need this "research.csv" file?

As I can imagine someone might to export tags to an external text file for mass updating metadata fields, lets say in Excel, and then import them back again into the Daminion.

What's a your use case?

[talvistup]

I have set up the Properties panel to only show the fields that I need to fill in for all the files, so I'm using that to add all the information (the self-filling people field is especially handy if some captions only contain parts of names). So yeah, when I add a new person this tends to make the people tree jump open. As I mentioned I currently keep it hidden in the tree while adding massive amounts of data, but it would be nice if it didn't jump like that.

 

The reason why I'm asking for metadata export is that it is needed when you are sending files between institutions (other museums, archives, publishers) because that information is then used to make labels or added to books, etc, etc. If we don't send the information along with the digital files, it would become a huge hassle to put all the data together again (imagine manually copying the information from Daminion to create such file).

 

But the mass editing would probably also come in handy for somebody.

 

Peeter Talvistu

[Murat]

I have set up the Properties panel to only show the fields that I need to fill in for all the files, so I'm using that to add all the information (the self-filling people field is especially handy if some captions only contain parts of names). So yeah, when I add a new person this tends to make the people tree jump open. As I mentioned I currently keep it hidden in the tree while adding massive amounts of data, but it would be nice if it didn't jump like that.

 

1. As I said above: we'll highlight and focus a newly created tag only if it will be created from the context menu of the Tags tree.

 

2. BTW, thanks to ExifTool utility from Daminion Installation you can export Daminion tags to an external .csv file right now. Please save this. bat file somewhere in your computer, for example on your desktop.

 

Dropping a folder with images (20-50 images per folder) to this file by Windows Explorer will create "out.txt" in the folder.

 

You can edit this file to specify different output columns. Possible keys are:

People: -PersonInImage

Keywords: -Subject

Event: -Event

Place.Location: -Location

Label: -Label

Title: -Title

Description: -Description

etc

 

Make sure that you Wrote Tags to Metadata by Daminion before starting export.

[talvistup]

1) You are right. I cannot replicate this problem anymore. But I swear I had it before (much like when you change the fields displayed in the properties panel you have to restart the program because otherwise the fields won't display properly and overlap while filling them out)

 

EDIT: Nope, I did a restart and after that the People tree started jumping open once again. Every time I add a new name through Properties panel it jumps open.

 

2) Tested it a bit. Works somewhat. The correct key for description is "ImageDescription". PersonInImage does not seem to work. However this leads me to a more serious problem. Once I tried out writing the meta info back to files inside Daminion, the program changed the images to a considerable degree. The size went down almost two times and as far as I can tell this is due to Daminion not handling 42bit images (yeah, I know that this is a bit overkill, but this is what we get from our government sanctioned digitization lab - besides, this will become more normal in the future). Here is the comparison:

 

Original file

Colors: 16.7 millions (42BitsPerPixel)

Disk Size: 146.35 MB

Number of unique colors: 816440

 

File that had new meta data written to it

Colors: 16.7 millions (24BitsPerPixel)

Disk Size: 73,04 MB

Number of unique colors: 1370143

 

These are taken with IrfanView and I also checked in Windows Explorer. DPI, resolution and everything else remained the same. As you can see the color count actually goes up somehow, but the images appear noticeably different (the new image appears washed out).

 

This basically means that I won't be using meta data writing at this point (interfering with original files in an archival environment is definitely a tough subject) which in turn means that I cannot use the .bat you provided.

 

If you need, I can provide you with the two images.

 

P.S. Daminion itself doesn't update the image size being shown after meta data writing has changed it.

[Murat]

EDIT: Nope, I did a restart and after that the People tree started jumping open once again. Every time I add a new name through Properties panel it jumps open.

 

I meant that we plan to add it, but not added it yet. It will be available today with a new build on the forum.

 

2) Tested it a bit. Works somewhat. The correct key for description is "ImageDescription". PersonInImage does not seem to work.

 

Daminion maps tags into a set of metadata fields according this document. So any of the metadata fields from this list should works with that .bat file. If, course, you have assigned them into the file. Could please send me the file where PersonInImage doesn't work for testing.

 

However this leads me to a more serious problem. Once I tried out writing the meta info back to files inside Daminion, the program changed the images to a considerable degree. The size went down almost two times and as far as I can tell this is due to Daminion not handling 42bit images (yeah, I know that this is a bit overkill, but this is what we get from our government sanctioned digitization lab - besides, this will become more normal in the future).

 

If you need, I can provide you with the two images.

 

Thanks for this information! Yes, please send me these two images. You can upload them to this file sharing service and drop me a message with direct link to support at daminion/dot/net.

 

I guess these are TIFF images?

 

EDIT: I've just wrote metadata to TIFF and PSD files with 48 bits per pixel, without decreasing their file size.

[talvistup]

Rather than starting a new topic I'll put it here:

 

The new build (662) remembers all my preferences/presets, but has forgotten my properties panel preset which cannot be found anywhere. Other than that no problems thus far!

[Murat]

The issue with expanding People (and other tags) was fixes today and a new build will be available on the forum soon.

 

The new build (662) remembers all my preferences/presets, but has forgotten my properties panel preset which cannot be found anywhere. Other than that no problems thus far!

 

If it doesn't available by Window > Properties please follow the next steps:

1. Launch Daminion

2. Navigate to Help > Open Folder with Program Settings...

3. Close Daminion

4. Rename this file in the opened in the above step #2 window:

"1.0\Settings.xml" to "1.0\~Settings.xml"

5. Launch Daminion again

 

Hope this helps.

 

PS. Does it possible to send me your 48 bit files for testing?

[talvistup]

I already sent you the files to support email address via wetransfer.com

[Murat]

Thanks.

[Murat]

I confirm that the problem exists if you write Tags to TIFF files with 16 bits per channel (or 48 bits per pixel) and if "Add compatibility with old programs" option is turned on. This is an issue of an image processing library we use to handle metadata in images.

 

I suggest you to uncheck "Add compatibility with old programs" option in

Edit > Preferences > Metadata window until we'll receive an updated version of the image processing library and update Daminion. This will also significantly increase a speed of metadata updating.

[Murat]

Hi Peeter,

 

The problem with 48 bit TIFF files was fixed. Daminion will correctly write metadata to these type of TIFF files and the number of bits will be displayed correctly.

 

The bug fix will be available on our forum soon.

 

Thank you!