How do I UPload pictures with Captions?

LizardRanch · April 4, 2008

I asked this on the API, Hints and Tricks forum, but I think that was the wrong forum as I got no replies, so I'm trying here....

I'm new to SM and want to make my life easy when I upload. I've been searching everywere I can find, Dgrin, Help pages, Wiki...I know the info is here but boy it's hidden well. Here's my question...

I've used Jalbum before to add captions directly into my pictures. It's stored in the Exif information as a tag (something like that). I use it to autogenerate slideshows with captions sucked out of the picture's Exif info. The captions stay with the photos so if I change skins or application I always have the captions that I worked hard to put in.

I want to do the same thing with SM, i.e. do all my rotate/shrink/captioning at home and then upload to SM and bingo instant slideshow complete with captions. A side benefit to this is that I can still generate CD/DVD based slideshows to send to my friends/family with Jalbum (many of which have either dial up or no internet believe it or not so SM is out of the question).

I found AlbumFetcher, but this does the exact opposite of what I am trying to do. I don't want to download photos with captions, I want to upload the photos with the captions already in them.

I've searched and searched and found only one reference to the "file info" tag in the help file. Will SM use this tag to automatically populate the caption field? Does it have to be in the "file info" tag, is this tag name case sensitive, can I use another tag (like say...caption or Caption)? I believe the version of Jalbum I have can browse through pictures in a folder and stuff in a caption, but I believe it defaults to the "caption" tag (I may be wrong) This has got to be answered somewhere, what exactly are the rules for tags and autoloading of caption on UPload?

Thanks in advance

Andy · April 4, 2008

IPTC Description is read as a caption on SmugMug. So use an editor on your end that puts in an IPTC Description, and then upload

Example, Bridge in CS2. Lightroom. iPhoto. Picasa.

LizardRanch · April 4, 2008

Andy, sounds good, thanks...I figured you supported this. I'm sorry to be so anal about this but I need details, formats, etc.

Is that field "Description" in that case? Is it case sensitive? Can I imbed anything in this tag or just text (i.e. I have put HTML in previous comments, do you support this)?

What other fields might be available for my usage("file info")?

I have found that when using Jalbum I was able to use the IPTC tags entensively (I thought they were called EXIF tags) . Seems like a good idea here too. People could imbed copywrite strings, Comments, DPI descriptions, tons of stuff.

CatOne · April 4, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

Andy, sounds good, thanks...I figured you supported this. I'm sorry to be so anal about this but I need details, formats, etc.

Is that field "Description" in that case? Is it case sensitive? Can I imbed anything in this tag or just text (i.e. I have put HTML in previous comments, do you support this)?

What other fields might be available for my usage("file info")?

I have found that when using Jalbum I was able to use the IPTC tags entensively (I thought they were called EXIF tags) . Seems like a good idea here too. People could imbed copywrite strings, Comments, DPI descriptions, tons of stuff.

IPTC and EXIF are not the same. EXIF is camera data, IPTC data is metadata you add yourself (for the most part).

There is an IPTC specification... have a read :-)

That said, I'd appreciate a pointer to all the fields that SmugMug supports, and what they map to. I'm going to root around, but Andy you could save me some time by a nice RTFM n00b link

I notice that what I use for "Title" does not make it to SmugMug... and wonder whether I should use "Headline" instead. What's annoying is that the "Default" set that Lightroom uses doesn't appear to be customizable, so I have to flip flip flip between different metadata sets to enter all the data if in fact I need to use Headline and not Title. :cry

LizardRanch · April 4, 2008

Yes, a nice table with mappings would be nice. Andy says above that "Description" is the field, I found somewhere on SM that "file info" was the field, you've tried others (that don't work). Before I comment my latest set of pictures (all 529 of them) I'd like to get it right the first time.

Thanks all,

jfriend · April 4, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

Yes, a nice table with mappings would be nice. Andy says above that "Description" is the field, I found somewhere on SM that "file info" was the field, you've tried others (that don't work). Before I comment my latest set of pictures (all 529 of them) I'd like to get it right the first time.

Thanks all,

The reason we are all confused is that while the "official" IPTC tags have names in the spec, the names that appear in each application are not always the same as those. What we really need is a table that says in Photoshop, the field called X becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Bridge, the field called Y becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Lightroom, the field called Z becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Aperture, the field called W becomes the caption in Smugmug and so on. Telling us what IPTC field to populate isn't enough info if the app uses a different name for it in their UI.

Andy · April 4, 2008

CatOne wrote:

Andy you could save me some time by a nice RTFM n00b link

I don't have one

I just use Bridge and add it in the description in bridge

Andy · April 4, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

Yes, a nice table with mappings would be nice. Andy says above that "Description" is the field, I found somewhere on SM that "file info" was the field, you've tried others (that don't work). Before I comment my latest set of pictures (all 529 of them) I'd like to get it right the first time.

Thanks all,

What app are you using?

CatOne · April 5, 2008

Andy wrote:

What app are you using?

I suspect Lightroom and Bridge are the same.

Aperture differs slightly.

I think they're both pretty valid... and between the 3 of them, probably cover 70% of RAW conversions. Okay Bridge and LR are 65% but maybe Aperture's #3 :-)

jfriend · April 5, 2008

CatOne wrote:

I suspect Lightroom and Bridge are the same.

Aperture differs slightly.

I think they're both pretty valid... and between the 3 of them, probably cover 70% of RAW conversions. Okay Bridge and LR are 65% but maybe Aperture's #3 :-)

Actually Bridge and CS3 have "Headline" and "Description". Lightroom has "Headline" and "Caption". I don't know what Aperture has. If I had to guess, I'd say that we want "Description" in Bridge and CS3 and "Caption" in Lightroom, but that's just a guess - I haven't tried them all out to see if Smugmug gets the right info in the expected place.

stuartb · April 5, 2008

If you want a nice interface then I would strongly recommend Picasa . . especially as it now has an integrated Smugmug upload button which works BRILLIANTLY! Caption in Picasa and they upload just fine. Picasa also has many other benefits (which would be an entirely seperate thread).

If you are using XP then you must check out http://photothumb.com/IPTCExt/ this is a free IPTC editor that lets you change captions, keywords (multiple) etc just by right clicking on them in your XP folder. It even changes a whole folder of images with one click (for assigning city, photographer name, copyright etc etc.
Captions can also be pretty long (as you will see when you click on that link) although I am not sure what Smugmugs size limitations on display are.
I also have no idea if keywords upload to Smugmug . . you have me thinking now . . time to experiment.

LizardRanch · April 5, 2008

jfriend wrote:

The reason we are all confused is that while the "official" IPTC tags have names in the spec, the names that appear in each application are not always the same as those. What we really need is a table that says in Photoshop, the field called X becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Bridge, the field called Y becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Lightroom, the field called Z becomes the caption in Smugmug. In Aperture, the field called W becomes the caption in Smugmug and so on. Telling us what IPTC field to populate isn't enough info if the app uses a different name for it in their UI.

Whoah... Wait a minute, In a former life I used to be a programmer (now I just manage projects), and it seems to me this is a really easy question with a precise answer (unless computers act differently than when I had my fingers in them).

I don't think it really matters what photoshop, lighthouse or picasso or whatever app uses or creates fields (excuse my ignorance but being a program shouldn't they generate any IPTC field, say like KingGeorge or Xyzzy123boggodeboo as long as it doesn't violate IPTC parsing rules). One more thing, a suggestion of what apps to use is great, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect anyone to use xxx application for whatever reason (besides some of us are ultra cheap) I'm thinking I can use Jalbum, a freebie (for which I have contributed a skin), so that's good enough for me (more than one way to skin a cat, some of which are freebies...and thanks Stuart, I'm going to check out IPTCExt).

What should really matter (and my original question) is what does SmugMug do with xxx IPTC tag or yyy IPTC tag. Someone should know that, even if you have to dump out the code. Is there a programmer out there that can take a look at the source code and tell us? Even if you have to publish the table in coded form, at least that's something we can look at. Then if your particular app to generate IPTC tags doesn't create the one that SM uses then tough luck, find another app or petition SM to include your tag in its parsing of data for captions.

Thanks. So far I love SM, but it does take some getting used to and really could use some better help or Wiki entries. Maybe when I figure things out I'll put something in there as well.

LizardRanch · April 8, 2008

My solution -Eureka !
After messing around a lot with both SmugMug and Jalbum (Chameleon skin) I've hit upon an acceptable and not too complicated solution to the questions of comments. I'm a Windows shop, so Macophiles and Linux Geeks sorry about that (Just like Japanese soldiers marooned on deserted Pacific islands after World War II, they didn't know the war was over either...guess who won the OS war guys...

)

I use iTag for adding all comments. This is a really small, free and simple application with drag and drop and nice GUI that works nicely with no side effects that I can see. You can open the entire folder of a slideshow and one by one add comments to the IPTC fields. There are two fields shown, "Title" and "Description". Description is the key field. Update the Description and it carries up to both SmugMug and Jalbum (Chameleon skin, maybe others).

So my work flow is this....

1. Take billions of pictures (jpeg).

2. Use "Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer" (XP) to walk through all pictures, delete the bad ones (easy to zoom and look) and rotate the portrait ones. The rotate button is a one step button that does not mess with jpeg compression nor Exif info. The resizing to current window algorithm on this tool does the best dynamic resizing I have ever seen and I use this for laptop and projector slideshows. This tool is not only easy to use, it's free and comes preinstalled with Windows XP (I don't know about Vista).

3. Use Paint Shop Pro batch processing to redo jpeg compression. In Paint Shop Pro I have found that a "Compression Factor" of 15 is equivalent to Photoshop quality of 10 which is recomended in many threads here.

4. Edit/Crop photos (I really like Paint Shop Pro, Adobe may be much more suited to graphic artists, but if you are just tweaking photos, even more complicated tweaks then PSP can do everything Photoshop can do at a fraction of the price. I have and have used both and everything I want to do I can do faster, with less clicks in PSP... but thats IMHO... I don't want to start a religious war here.

5. Use iTag. Open up the entire folder and add your individual picture comments to the "Description" field.

6. Upload to SmugMug. The photos will automatically populate the comments and you are ready for web display of your slideshow.

7. Add folder to Jalbum. Make sure that you have the IPTC box checked where it asks for comment sources. Build the slideshow. Transfer to CD/DVD and you now have an HTML only slideshow to give to your friends/relatives who either have slow connections, hate the internet in general, or have no internet connection available when they want to see your slides.

The combination of SmugMug for web viewing and Jalbum for hard copy to CD/DVD makes your pictures available to everyone except those without a computer. If SmugMug would let you download your slideshows as pure HTML (no fancy Java or other stuff that would make a browser with protections turned on to puke, this used to be the case with previous versions of Jalbum) then SmugMug would have it all. I think someone with more pull than me should push this through...SmugMug for all my photo needs, not just the web based needs.

Have fun.

stuartb · April 8, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

2. Use "Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer" (XP) . . the rotate button is a one step button that does not mess with jpeg compression nor Exif info . . .

I could be wrong but I am not sure that Picture Fax Viewer is lossless when rotating . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Picture_and_Fax_Viewer

http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html

LizardRanch · April 9, 2008

stuartb wrote:

I could be wrong but I am not sure that Picture Fax Viewer is lossless when rotating . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Picture_and_Fax_Viewer

http://sylvana.net/jpegcrop/losslessapps.html

Stuart, it appears you are right. After messing around with a bunch of pictures I find that it does change the size of the file somewhat (sometimes bigger) when you rotate but I have never noticed a loss of info like the Exif info.

In any event what I really like about it is its resizing algorithm when viewing pictures. It does a really nice job when shrinking or expanding a picture, much better than whatever algorithm a browser uses. This makes it nice when I am using my laptop to give a slide show.

I'm really not a microsoft robot, but they can't help coming up with a good product once in a while don't you think?

stuartb · April 10, 2008

LizardRanch wrote:

I'm really not a microsoft robot, but they can't help coming up with a good product once in a while don't you think?

Gosh yes . . Vista is such an improvement on XP !

chrislundie · December 23, 2012

Getting full name in the keywords?
I would like to upload a file: Jack Spitser, Evan Munaretto, Shane Forker, Justin Ferrell, Mark Mulder, Matthew Varraveto, Riley Molina, Sharif Shaker, E01 H07.mp4

Right now when uploaded it create's each separate first and last name into an individual keyword, followed by a comma, but if I paste this in the keyword box on smugmug I get the desired result with each frist and last name becoming a keyword.

Please advise how I should create the file name to achieve the same behavior as the captioning on smugmug.

Thanks!

rainforest1155 · December 23, 2012

chrislundie wrote: »

I would like to upload a file: Jack Spitser, Evan Munaretto, Shane Forker, Justin Ferrell, Mark Mulder, Matthew Varraveto, Riley Molina, Sharif Shaker, E01 H07.mp4

Right now when uploaded it create's each separate first and last name into an individual keyword, followed by a comma, but if I paste this in the keyword box on smugmug I get the desired result with each frist and last name becoming a keyword.

Please advise how I should create the file name to achieve the same behavior as the captioning on smugmug.

To the best of my knowledge the filename keywording option can't be used like that as it doesn't support multi word keywords. It'll only regard each word as an individual keyword.

To have the full name as one keyword, you could only manually update the video's keywords after you uploaded the video.

chrislundie · December 23, 2012

rainforest1155 wrote: »

To the best of my knowledge the filename keywording option can't be used like that as it doesn't support multi word keywords. It'll only regard each word as an individual keyword.

To have the full name as one keyword, you could only manually update the video's keywords after you uploaded the video.

Ok, Thanks Sebastian - Basically I need to keyword video fast and the interface is clunky and slow, I have all the data in a spreadsheet, but each time requires a copy paste which slows down delivery of the video's which I am trying to do within hours of each swim race. Do you know of any programs that can update the keywords based upon a spreadsheet, even if I could just tag ten races at a time that would be awesome.

Thanks for your help!

jfriend · December 23, 2012

chrislundie wrote: »

Ok, Thanks Sebastian - Basically I need to keyword video fast and the interface is clunky and slow, I have all the data in a spreadsheet, but each time requires a copy paste which slows down delivery of the video's which I am trying to do within hours of each swim race. Do you know of any programs that can update the keywords based upon a spreadsheet, even if I could just tag ten races at a time that would be awesome.

Thanks for your help!

Are you aware of the interface that lets you set keywords on as many images/videos as you want all at once? Tools/Many Photos/Caption Keyword.

rainforest1155 · December 24, 2012

chrislundie wrote: »

Do you know of any programs that can update the keywords based upon a spreadsheet, even if I could just tag ten races at a time that would be awesome.

The best way I know of is via the bulk tool that John referred you to. I'm not aware of any way to add keywords to videos on your computer so they would be automatically imported as the SmugMug keyword. As far as I know this is only possible with photos.