Upload option "Pre-set Captions with Metadata Caption" inserts "ASCII" as caption instead of IPTC Caption data from JPG
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fotonut
Joined: 2009-02-21
Posts: 74 |
Posted: Sun, 2011-08-21 07:44
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Wow, I tried Gallery Remote several years ago and it would not work. Today I tried it again. This time I used the java applet instead of the stand-alone PC version (that is no longer available?). I allowed Java to access the network via my firewall and allowed the download of the JNPL file for Firefox to open, then received some error message about Java stripping the EXIF data, so I did some research here and found that I needed to install ImageMagik for Windows. I installed it and to my delight, the upload process worked flaslessly, including resizing the photo to 1280M with great quality. Then I suppose I got greedy, went into the options and set up the "Pre-set Captions with Metadata Caption" in hopes that it would use the caption that was imbedded in the JPG IPTC info "Caption". When I checked that option, all the photos got uploaded with a caption of "ASCII" and inserted in each photo's "Title" field. Can this error be resolved? Can I also make a request of you if in a future release it would be possible to allow the IPTC "Caption" to be added as a configuration option to "Title", "Summary", "Keywords" and "Description" , perhaps with check box options to copy the Caption to one or more of these fields? That would be wonderful! Thank you for this nice tool and I am anxious to start using it. I have been manually downsizing my photos to upload to Gallery and this is a real time saver. Thanks again! Thanks! |
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Posts: 74
Let me clarify this request somewhat. After using several online photo galleries in the past, I have found one of the major problems is loss of all photos and comments which can occur due to system error, user error, a company going out of business or as a result of any number of misfortunes. What happens since almost always the captions are contained solely within the online service, there is almost always a total loss of the photo captions since they are not typically saved locally.
That is why I believe it is important to change the work-flow we employ as photographers to include the caption directly inside the JPG instead of solely online. This gives us more flexibility when we, our hosts, or a company buyout or bankruptcy causes all of our previous captioning to get lost forever. Hopefully we still have our images stored somewhere locally and if we have added our captions originally within the JPG itself, then half of the problem is solved. Today there are free tools such as irFanview which can be used to add a caption to a JPG (IPTC Caption) as well as reasonably priced work-flow software such as Photo Mechanic that does the same quickly and a bit more efficiently.
The second part of the problem of adopting this new workflow is to easily get the IPTC Caption data into Gallery. Now I am assuming that task is being attempted here with the option of "Pre-set Captions with Metadata Caption". I am also assuming that this would upload information called "metadata" and that this "metadata" would be drawn from the IPCT Caption data within the JPG. Even with this fixed, this still doesn't address that adding "metadata" is by default a Caption and sometimes Captions need to be inserted in both the "Summary" field of a theme (appears under the photo in the thumbnail views) and added additionally to the "Description" field (appears in the upper right hand corner of the full-screen "slidewhow" display) rather than solely the "Title" field which I believe this feature was originally designed to accomplish. There are also instances where a Caption from the IPTC data needs to be added to the "keywords" section. So here it would make sense to expand this option of Gallery Remote to provide a way to copy minimally IPTC Caption and perhaps other IPTC fields to a selectable or multiple selected fields of a theme.
Today this is not working properly, as the static "ACSII" is added to the theme field of "Title" when the option is checked. I am assuming this is an error and I reporting this here because I believe that Gallery Remote is the most feature rich facility for uploading JPGs, particularly since it provides use in the background of a local installation of ImageMagik to resize photos on the fly as they are uploaded. This is needed more than ever as the density of digital cameras grow and necessary because it is impractical to host galleries containing the ultra large JPGs it its fully sized format. A gallery lined with oversize JPGs can kill the performance of all but the highest speed broadband connections.
Posts: 74
An interesting observation using Photoshop is when a photo is edited and saved, one that has the IPTC "Caption" data set, that IPTC "Caption" gets copied by Photoshop into a new EXIF variable called "ImageDescription" that did not exist before the save.
Using EXIF/IPTC data in its current stage must be simply "nice to know" rather than driving potential to drive further automation. I suppose it's sort of no-man's land since Google doesn't unfold much discussion regarding this topic.
Equally as under-documented seems the competing upload module "Upload Applet", at least where the possibility of tapping from imbedded JPG captions is concerned. There is no real dialogue I can find on the use of its setup variable setCaptionsWithMetadataComment=true. The "Upload Applet" didn't respond to setting these variables either. The caption from within the JPG EXIF/IPTC was not recognized in any of my tests while uploading with "Upload Applet" either. Fields Title, Summary, Keyword or Description were just as blank after the uploaded completed.
Upload Applet settings from admin menu, changing variable overrides:
Variable Action
setCaptionsWithFilenames=false
resizeBeforeUpload=false
autoCaptions=2
setCaptionsWithMetadataComment=true
Variable Action
toSysOut=true
htmlEscapeCaptions=true
Posts: 74
I just had a look at g2remotephp-1.0 from SorceForge which looks like it may be tied somehow to this whole process and although I don't really qualify as a PHP programmer, it looks like "Title" may be the only thing that can be set on an upload, if I am reading this correctly. Now that I think about it, this would make sense that the upload process is separate from knowing anything of the overlying theme. In my small understanding of how this operates, I am guessing that maybe each theme has perhaps it's own area of storage in the SQL database and maybe the "remote module" is not privileged to what fields are available or their names during the upload process.
Update: But this still doesn't explain how "Upload Applet" accepts manual entry of fields Caption, Summary, and Description that are loaded into Title, Summary, and Description of the Cobalt theme respectively.
Otherwise I can't find any more info on what happens behind the scenes.