[digiKam-users] Compilations

[pinasse]

Hi!

Using digikam 6.1.0 I'm missing an essential feature of a DAM. I tend to
call this a 'virtual album' or 'collection', but since both phrases are
already in use in digikam let's call it a 'compilation'.

This are the minimum requirements of such a feature:
- Compilations are virtual, no item is moved or copied
- A compilation may have an infinite amount of items assigned
- Any catalogued item may be assigned to any compilation
- A compilation may be assigned to any other compilation (sub-compilation).
- The sorting of a compilation is user defined (not on basis of any meta
data)
- Compilations are separated from other tags. It must not be mixed with any
other tag.
- A batch processor is needed to export the assigned items of a compilation
into a folder
- Items assigned to sub-compilations should be exported into sub-folders

A compilation has it's own meta data:
- a name of course :-)
- the date of creation
- a state if it is finished
- the date(s) of exports
- the purposes of exports
- for multi user environments: name of maintainer of the compilation
- for multi user environments: name of maintainer of an export

Does such a feature already exist in digikam; am I missing something?

Thanks for reading, pinasse



--
Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[Remco Viëtor]

On jeudi 6 juin 2019 17:31:06 CEST pinasse wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Using digikam 6.1.0 I'm missing an essential feature of a DAM. I tend to
> call this a 'virtual album' or 'collection', but since both phrases are
> already in use in digikam let's call it a 'compilation'.
>
> This are the minimum requirements of such a feature:
> - Compilations are virtual, no item is moved or copied
> - A compilation may have an infinite amount of items assigned
> - Any catalogued item may be assigned to any compilation
> - A compilation may be assigned to any other compilation (sub-compilation).
> - The sorting of a compilation is user defined (not on basis of any meta
> data)
> - Compilations are separated from other tags. It must not be mixed with any
> other tag.
> - A batch processor is needed to export the assigned items of a compilation
> into a folder
> - Items assigned to sub-compilations should be exported into sub-folders
>
> A compilation has it's own meta data:
> - a name of course :-)
> - the date of creation
> - a state if it is finished
> - the date(s) of exports
> - the purposes of exports
> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of the compilation
> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of an export
>
> Does such a feature already exist in digikam; am I missing something?

Don't use disposable email addresses (like from domain byom.de) for feature
requests, hard to get follow-up... Like: what's the practical use of the
feature you request here (aka use-cases)

Remco

[Sveinn í Felli-2]

Þann 7.6.2019 11:38, skrifaði Remco Viëtor:

> On jeudi 6 juin 2019 17:31:06 CEST pinasse wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> Using digikam 6.1.0 I'm missing an essential feature of a DAM. I tend to
>> call this a 'virtual album' or 'collection', but since both phrases are
>> already in use in digikam let's call it a 'compilation'.
>>
>> This are the minimum requirements of such a feature:
>> - Compilations are virtual, no item is moved or copied
>> - A compilation may have an infinite amount of items assigned
>> - Any catalogued item may be assigned to any compilation
>> - A compilation may be assigned to any other compilation (sub-compilation).
>> - The sorting of a compilation is user defined (not on basis of any meta
>> data)
>> - Compilations are separated from other tags. It must not be mixed with any
>> other tag.
>> - A batch processor is needed to export the assigned items of a compilation
>> into a folder
>> - Items assigned to sub-compilations should be exported into sub-folders
>>
>> A compilation has it's own meta data:
>> - a name of course :-)
>> - the date of creation
>> - a state if it is finished
>> - the date(s) of exports
>> - the purposes of exports
>> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of the compilation
>> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of an export
>>
>> Does such a feature already exist in digikam; am I missing something?
>
> Don't use disposable email addresses (like from domain byom.de) for feature
> requests, hard to get follow-up... Like: what's the practical use of the
> feature you request here (aka use-cases)

I think he means something like a 'playlist'; a list of files to process.

I for one, suggested many, many moons ago if it was possible to create
such 'playlist' for slideshow purposes, ideally in a standardized
XML-format, to be shared with image-viewers like Gwenview (and possibly
others), preferably reorderable by drag-drop, etc. This kind of list
could also be loaded into BQM, right?

There are similar requests, like in
<https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91562> and in older posts on this
list (e.g. in "Re: [Digikam-users] how do you select images for slide
show?" from 9.05.2013), but until now people have generally used tags to
cicumvent the need for this.

Nevertheless; being able to obtain a list of selected images, even just
to paste from clipboard, would be nice.

But in the end there's the coding part ;-(

Best,
Sveinn í Felli

[digikam-2]

I'm already using this with a combination of tags and stored
searches. As for these tags being different from the regular tag, I
use "group (main tag actually called: 'group') | each
subgroup (sub-tag)"

BTW, I should have called it 'groupings' but I haven't tried the
renaming yet.

It could be done like in Lightroom, but:

1. To me, I already have the functionality.
2. I'd like to keep the devs on working on other stuffs, like less
dependencies on KDE (although I'm using KDE)

Thanks


On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 10:31:06 -0500 (CDT)
pinasse <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Using digikam 6.1.0 I'm missing an essential feature of a DAM. I
> tend to call this a 'virtual album' or 'collection', but since both
> phrases are already in use in digikam let's call it a 'compilation'.
>
> This are the minimum requirements of such a feature:
> - Compilations are virtual, no item is moved or copied
> - A compilation may have an infinite amount of items assigned
> - Any catalogued item may be assigned to any compilation
> - A compilation may be assigned to any other compilation
> (sub-compilation).
> - The sorting of a compilation is user defined (not on basis of any
> meta data)
> - Compilations are separated from other tags. It must not be mixed
> with any other tag.
> - A batch processor is needed to export the assigned items of a
> compilation into a folder
> - Items assigned to sub-compilations should be exported into
> sub-folders
>
> A compilation has it's own meta data:
> - a name of course :-)
> - the date of creation
> - a state if it is finished
> - the date(s) of exports
> - the purposes of exports
> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of the compilation
> - for multi user environments: name of maintainer of an export
>
> Does such a feature already exist in digikam; am I missing
> something?
>
> Thanks for reading, pinasse
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from:
> http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

--
sknahT

vyS

[pinasse]

Hi!

I thought such a function to be a pretty obvious need  for a DAM; which at
least Lightroom, ACDSee and Capture one have in some manner. Here's two
links to blog post describing use cases for LR:
https://scottkelby.com/how-i-use-lightrooms-collections/
https://www.creative-photographer.com/organize-photos-lightroom-collections/

But since both blogs describe a need different from mine, let me describe my
workflow in more detail. This is going to be long, sorry :-)

After moving the image files into our computers we all import them into the
digikam db and tag them with lots of descriptive meta data. We add keywords,
captions, locations and many more meta data. For this digikam does a great
job! But all this tags just describe the image, but not it's usage.

Many hours a day I create compilations (sets of my images) for online
galleries, print services and publishers. Browsing folders, timelines and
searches help me to find appropriate images, and I select a few of them and
add them to my compilation. I never add all found images, just the suitable
ones, suitable for a specific online gallery, book, magazine or whatever.
What is suitable constantly changes and can not be expressed within the
descriptive tags or by any kind of rating - an image, which is just perfect
for one compilation often is improper for another one.

With time an image may be assigned to many compilations or none, this does
not depend on image quality, it depends on requests, fashion, ... - reasons
out of my control. In the last 15 years  I've created several thousand
compilations out of my 350,000 images. In total all my compilations contain
over a million assigned images.

I sometimes reuse an old compilation: Make a copy, rename it and assign some
new or drop  some old images. I never change a compilation after export.

Export a compilation means to make copies of the images in formats suitable
for the usage: E.g. TIFF with AdobeRGB for printing, full size JPEG for
magazines and resized JPG with sRGB or even PNG for online usage. Also often
the meta data of the exported images gets partly changed. Exported images
leave the house, they are not catalogued in the db, they even usually are
deleted after delivery. All what's kept in the db is the compilation with
additional meta data: when did I deliver it, who was it send to and what was
it used for.

I often split compilations and make sub-compilations, often several levels
deep.

As workaround I could keep copies of all experted images, but this would
blow up my storage within weeks. I also could use hard/symlinks to the
files, but what should I do if I need to move a part of a digikam-collection
to a different drive? I also can't use saved searches, because not all
findings make it into a compilation.

Compilations simply help me to keep track of what gets done with my images.

Here's another use case I can imagine: Think of a competition photographer.
He creates a compilation of some of his best images every fortnight and
presents them for discussion in his club, or he sends them to a photography
contest. He will surly want to keep track of this uses and also note the
success of his images. He could track down all this by making copies, but if
he will want to browser his master collections for suitable images for a
contest.

Hmm, I will stop writing at this point, much more could be said but I think
you will catch the idea :-)


Thanks for reading, pinasse





--
Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[gkeraudren]

Hi Pinasse,

I have tried to freely think about your description. I did not browse your suggested webpages.

Your goal could be achieved using the tag hierarchy even though you might loose some link when resynchronising metadata between files (pictures or XMP) and the DB. Main drawback: It might soon be messy when it comes to hundreds of collections.

I am no developer but a better solution could be to duplicate the tags tables and management processes to support « collections tracking » with the difference that nothing should be written to files. Assumption: links relate to the original pictures and not to the on-purpose generated versions.

Doing so, one should be able to ser
- the pictures belonging to a selected collection
- the collections a given picture belongs to

Is it what you meant?

Cheers

Guénolé

> Le 10 juin 2019 à 08:33, pinasse <[hidden email]> a écrit :
>
> Hi!
>
> I thought such a function to be a pretty obvious need  for a DAM; which at
> least Lightroom, ACDSee and Capture one have in some manner. Here's two
> links to blog post describing use cases for LR:
> https://scottkelby.com/how-i-use-lightrooms-collections/
> https://www.creative-photographer.com/organize-photos-lightroom-collections/
>
> But since both blogs describe a need different from mine, let me describe my
> workflow in more detail. This is going to be long, sorry :-)
>
> After moving the image files into our computers we all import them into the
> digikam db and tag them with lots of descriptive meta data. We add keywords,
> captions, locations and many more meta data. For this digikam does a great
> job! But all this tags just describe the image, but not it's usage.
>
> Many hours a day I create compilations (sets of my images) for online
> galleries, print services and publishers. Browsing folders, timelines and
> searches help me to find appropriate images, and I select a few of them and
> add them to my compilation. I never add all found images, just the suitable
> ones, suitable for a specific online gallery, book, magazine or whatever.
> What is suitable constantly changes and can not be expressed within the
> descriptive tags or by any kind of rating - an image, which is just perfect
> for one compilation often is improper for another one.
>
> With time an image may be assigned to many compilations or none, this does
> not depend on image quality, it depends on requests, fashion, ... - reasons
> out of my control. In the last 15 years  I've created several thousand
> compilations out of my 350,000 images. In total all my compilations contain
> over a million assigned images.
>
> I sometimes reuse an old compilation: Make a copy, rename it and assign some
> new or drop  some old images. I never change a compilation after export.
>
> Export a compilation means to make copies of the images in formats suitable
> for the usage: E.g. TIFF with AdobeRGB for printing, full size JPEG for
> magazines and resized JPG with sRGB or even PNG for online usage. Also often
> the meta data of the exported images gets partly changed. Exported images
> leave the house, they are not catalogued in the db, they even usually are
> deleted after delivery. All what's kept in the db is the compilation with
> additional meta data: when did I deliver it, who was it send to and what was
> it used for.
>
> I often split compilations and make sub-compilations, often several levels
> deep.
>
> As workaround I could keep copies of all experted images, but this would
> blow up my storage within weeks. I also could use hard/symlinks to the
> files, but what should I do if I need to move a part of a digikam-collection
> to a different drive? I also can't use saved searches, because not all
> findings make it into a compilation.
>
> Compilations simply help me to keep track of what gets done with my images.
>
> Here's another use case I can imagine: Think of a competition photographer.
> He creates a compilation of some of his best images every fortnight and
> presents them for discussion in his club, or he sends them to a photography
> contest. He will surly want to keep track of this uses and also note the
> success of his images. He could track down all this by making copies, but if
> he will want to browser his master collections for suitable images for a
> contest.
>
> Hmm, I will stop writing at this point, much more could be said but I think
> you will catch the idea :-)
>
>
> Thanks for reading, pinasse
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[pinasse]

Hi!

When I looked at Digikam for the first time I was surprised: Wow what a
great DAM! But then I was baffle to see, that it did not have collections,
the most flexible way to manage files. Now I'm really astonished to see,
that no one here catches the idea. Has no digikam user ever tried other
DAMs?
I've been using DAMs for my 350000 images for more then 15 years and
couldn't work without them. To me it's the fish in the bowl and the meat in
the stew. I can only encourage you to watch some youtube videos about
collections in LR to learn how photographers use it. W/o such a feature
digikam just is a great fill-in-helper for meta data. Creating collections
is the reason why I fill all the tags.

Thanks for reading, pinasse



--
Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[Simon Frei]

From a quick look it seems that tags are somewhat equivalent to
"regular" collections and advanced search to "smart" collections. In any
case when you compare different programs, it is usually not very
productive to look for features by name, as often different programs use
different approaches or even just different names for the same/similar
thing. It's more helpful to think in terms of use-cases, i.e. explain
what you do with collections in LR that you miss in digikam, and maybe
someone can point you to an approach to do the same or it can become a
feature request.

On 12/06/2019 20:29, pinasse wrote:

> Hi!
>
> When I looked at Digikam for the first time I was surprised: Wow what a
> great DAM! But then I was baffle to see, that it did not have collections,
> the most flexible way to manage files. Now I'm really astonished to see,
> that no one here catches the idea. Has no digikam user ever tried other
> DAMs?
> I've been using DAMs for my 350000 images for more then 15 years and
> couldn't work without them. To me it's the fish in the bowl and the meat in
> the stew. I can only encourage you to watch some youtube videos about
> collections in LR to learn how photographers use it. W/o such a feature
> digikam just is a great fill-in-helper for meta data. Creating collections
> is the reason why I fill all the tags.
>
> Thanks for reading, pinasse
>
>
>
> --
> Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[Rafael Linux]

I thought that "Groups" it's a great way to manage image sets in a quick and
usefull workflow. Even in automatic mode (letting DT create groups by name,
for example) I work in a clearest way with all my photos. It's similar to
collections, despite you can't name groups.



--
Sent from: http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digikam-users-f1735189.html

[Remco Viëtor]

On mercredi 12 juin 2019 20:29:04 CEST pinasse wrote:

> Hi!
>
> When I looked at Digikam for the first time I was surprised: Wow what a
> great DAM! But then I was baffle to see, that it did not have collections,
> the most flexible way to manage files. Now I'm really astonished to see,
> that no one here catches the idea. Has no digikam user ever tried other
> DAMs?
> I've been using DAMs for my 350000 images for more then 15 years and
> couldn't work without them. To me it's the fish in the bowl and the meat in
> the stew. I can only encourage you to watch some youtube videos about
> collections in LR to learn how photographers use it. W/o such a feature
> digikam just is a great fill-in-helper for meta data. Creating collections
> is the reason why I fill all the tags.

Form your workflow, you seem to have pretty specific needs. Among other
things, it looks like you need a multi-user DAM, which Digikam isn't.

Also, a somewhat less aggressive stance might get you more help and interest.
Acting as if the lack of one specific feature you need makes dk a toy *isn't*
going to help. Fyi, I know there are users of dk that started with LR...

So, unless you are willing to discuss your needs in a constructive way, I'm
out of the discussion. A good start might be the name(s) of one or more DAMs
that do all what you want from them. And no, LR doesn't fit the bill, wrt. the
compilation metadata.

Remco

P.S. Did you notice how active the people involved in DK development have been
in this thread?