Need to start using Keywords, I reckon ...

[xpatUSA]

... now there's over 10,000 JPEGs and over 4,000 PNGs scattered all over my HD with only the vaguest hint of organization in folder terms. Not even going to mention TIFFs, GIFs or raws.

I do still have Google's Picasa 3 lying fallow on my HD even though Google killed the on-line part years ago. Looking at that app today, I find that Picasa can add keywords and search for them. A quick test and look in ExifGUI confirms that the keywords are added in the IPTC 'Keywords' Tag.

I am aware of other products that can do similar and I am not interested in anything Adobe, such as Lightroom.

My question is: have I missed something? Is there any glaring reason why I should NOT use Picasa - for the time being anyway?

[pschlute]

I use a program that has keywords and collections. 13 years of digital images and i can find any of them in an instant.

i am very glad I started off using them when i got my first digital camera.

[xpatUSA]

I use a program that has keywords and collections. 13 years of digital images and i can find any of them in an instant.

i am very glad I started off using them when i got my first digital camera.

Thanks for the encouragement. One thing that might be useful is the ability to batch keywords and Picasa, as far as I know, only lets me do one photo at a time. Whereas Phil Harvey's ExifTool (the command-line part) can do everything but slice bread; however, the leaning curve seems horrendous to this old man ...

[george013]

Thanks for the encouragement. One thing that might be useful is the ability to batch keywords and Picasa, as far as I know, only lets me do one photo at a time. Whereas Phil Harvey's ExifTool (the command-line part) can do everything but slice bread; however, the leaning curve seems horrendous to this old man ...

Maybe you can use IrfanView.
https://tng.lythgoes.net/wiki/index....sing_IrfanView
I just tried it and it works. But not yet what I'm looking for.

George

[xpatUSA]

Maybe you can use IrfanView.
https://tng.lythgoes.net/wiki/index....sing_IrfanView
I just tried it and it works.

Thank you, George!

I used to use Irfan long ago. I'll download it and give it a go.

[xpatUSA]

Thank you, George!

I used to use Irfan long ago. I'll download it and give it a go.

Did that, George. It worked. Thanks ...

[odds]

In case you have not already read Carl Seibert's posts in his "Metadata Matters" blog https://www.carlseibert.com/metadata...-blog-archive/ , the post "Keywording – Considerations Before you Start" may be a good first read.

--
Odd S.

[xpatUSA]

In case you have not already read Carl Seibert's posts in his "Metadata Matters" blog https://www.carlseibert.com/metadata...-blog-archive/ , the post "Keywording – Considerations Before you Start" may be a good first read.

--
Odd S.

Thanks Odd, in fact I downloaded that article a couple of weeks ago and read it again today. My question was specifically about Picasa and any possible "cons", not really about the choice of keywords in general. I was once the database guy for an English company equivalent of Kongsberg, so I'm pretty comfortable with that. Thanks again ...

[george013]

It still doesn't work on raw files. And that's what I was looking for.

George

[xpatUSA]

It [Irfan] still doesn't work on raw files. And that's what I was looking for.

George

Yes, I remember that it would "open" Sigma X3F files after some complicated configuration work, but all it did was extract the embedded JPEG with no raw conversion. Haven't tried with this version; these days, I only use the proprietary converter.

[george013]

Yes, I remember that it would "open" Sigma X3F files after some complicated configuration work, but all it did was extract the embedded JPEG with no raw conversion. Haven't tried with this version; these days, I only use the proprietary converter.

They all use the embedded jpg. But that's a "naked" jpg, just the picture itself. All the additional data as exif etc is stored somewhere else in the raw file. When saving a raw file from irfanview that data is added to the jpg.
With nikon capturenx2 by example I could use different edits in that same raw file but only one embedded jpg, the last edit.
Irfanview can read the keywords from a raw but doesn't write them. In my case. When having time I'll try to write keywords with exiftools.

George

[revi]

You might have some difficulty finding a program that writes keywords to raw files:
- several (many?) programs refuse to write to raw files, the keywords are written to a database or sidecar files.
- you might want to use non-ASCII characters in your keywords, many of those can't be written as exif metadata, but need XMP or perhaps IPTC. Not sure those can be written to raw files.

The raw converters provided by the different camera manufacturers are a bit special, as they have access to details about their raw format that are not accessible to 3-party programs...
No idea how good those are as asset managers (which is basically what OP is looking for).

Remco

[pschlute]

I know Ted says he doesn't want to use Adobe, but there is a reason Lightroom (and PSE before it) is very popular.

Any file, including raw can be tagged with multiple keywords. You can tag as many files as you like at the same time.

The "stacking" system also means you can stack multiple versions of the same image (eg. RAW/TIFF/PSD/JPEG) so as you browse the catalogue you will only see the topmost photo in the stack. Unstack to see all your versions of that photo.

Ted, if you don't want to go down the subscription route a stand alone LR or PSE older version would give you all this.

[xpatUSA]

They all use the embedded jpg.

All what, George? I am puzzled by this broad statement.

The statement certainly does not apply to FastStone Viewer which offers either to extract the JPEG or to convert the raw data depending on the preferences (settings).

[xpatUSA]

No thank you, Peter.

Perhaps if I get really, really desperate!

I do have PSE 6 on a CD ...

As to the original post, is there any major reason that I could not use Picasa for the time being? Once thing I noticed yesterday is that Picasa uses asterisks as delimiters between keywords/phrases, according to ExifToolGUI. If that is unacceptable to other viewers, that would sound the death toll for Picasa, I reckon.

[george013]

All what, George? I am puzzled by this broad statement.

The statement certainly does not apply to FastStone Viewer which offers either to extract the JPEG or to convert the raw data depending on the preferences (settings).

Could be. Also with Irfanview.
But I use it as an image browser, meaning I want to browse existing images, not creating them on the fly.

George

[xpatUSA]

One thing that might be useful is the ability to batch keywords and Picasa, as far as I know, only lets me do one photo at a time.

Just discovered today that Picasa can "batch" keywords by selecting more than one file in a view. If I can get comfortable with their search function I'll likely proceed with Picasa for now, while looking at other apps ...

[tao2]

Thanks for the encouragement. One thing that might be useful is the ability to batch keywords and Picasa, as far as I know, only lets me do one photo at a time. Whereas Phil Harvey's ExifTool (the command-line part) can do everything but slice bread; however, the leaning curve seems horrendous to this old man ...

Ye need this , Ted...

https://photography.tutsplus.com/tut...asa--cms-23822

[xpatUSA]

Ye need this , Ted...

https://photography.tutsplus.com/tut...asa--cms-23822

LOL.

Sorry, it told me nothing new (been doing a lot of reading today).

Did you miss the post just before yours?:

Need to start using Keywords, I reckon ...
.

[xpatUSA]

Just discovered today that Picasa can "batch" keywords by selecting more than one file in a view. If I can get comfortable with their search function I'll likely proceed with Picasa for now, while looking at other apps ...

Today, I downloaded BreezeBrowser and found that it only writes XMP keywords. Picasa writes both IPTC and XMP keywords making it forward-compatible with potential future apps.

So, that's it for now. Thanks to all who responded.