Products > Programming
Searching For Photos Based On Tags
bostonman:
I had an odd idea, that after some brief research, seems more popular than I thought because various types of software exists (and it can probably be done in Excel).
My thought is to tag several images (JPGs) and create a way to search for them based on a criteria. Unfortunately I think it will be too time consuming but wanted to ask if such a program exists that anyone is aware of.
The idea I had was for a collection of family photos comprised of about 2k pictures. I thought to create a program where I could check boxes that would filter the pictures. The check boxes could be customized so they could be a check box for: mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, car, vacation, etc...
As I check each box, it narrows down the pictures. Say I wanted every picture with mom and car (maybe I have several of mom standing by a car). Then it will give me only pictures with mom and a car whereas I may have a picture of date standing by a car and those would be ignored; unless I checked only 'car'.
I think the part of creating filtering software would be easy, however, tagging each photo individually would be extremely time consuming. Each photo file name would need to go into a database, and associated with the tags. Each photo would need to have a tag for each check box in the software. So I'd have to view a picture, and somehow enter into the database filename1.jpg has 'mom', and 'car', filename2.jpg has 'dad' and 'mom', etc...
Just curious if anything like that exists, but, as mentioned, I think it would be a time consuming process that's not worth it; unless I wanted to take several hours creating the tags.
Analog Kid:
I actually started to write such a program myself (Windows GUI), that would allow photos to be tagged and retrieved in a database. Ended up with just a picture viewer. I'll have to go back and take another look at it.
It's definitely a non-trivial undertaking, but one that would be doable and quite useful.
Hard to imagine that there's not already some software out there that does just that, but I don't know of any.
bostonman:
Wow, so someone else had a similar idea.
As mentioned, I honestly doubt associating every picture with tags to be filtered would be easy. The idea I had (which isn't any easier) is:
The (as you suggested and I visualized) GUI would allow someone to create their own criteria list because everyone would have different needs. Maybe one person wants to use it for family photos (mom, dad, etc...) whereas someone else wants it to organize photography (trees, mountains, etc...).
To simplify it, let's say the criteria is two (mom and dad), then the program displays the first picture and asks: mom y/n. The person selects 'Y' for yes stating the picture contains 'mom' (or 'N' for no) and then displays the second picture asking the same. After it goes through all (say) 2k pictures, then it asks: dad y/n and starts showing all the pictures again.
This would repeat for however many criteria options the person has. If the person wanted 20 options, then they'd have to go through every picture answering Y or N 20 times. If it were 2k pictures, it would be 40k (2k times 20), so most likely few will do this.
The other option would be to display all the pictures in thumbnails, select criteria "mom", and click on every picture you want associated with "mom". Then uncheck "mom" and check "dad" and click on every picture associated with "dad". This would repeat for (as the example above) the 20 options.
I imagine to make it less blinding with the thumbnail options, one could move maybe 25 pictures into a directory and do 25 at a time, then combine them into the one directory (or directories) again.
tooki:
I loved the hierarchical tagging in Apple’s long-defunct pro photo management program, Aperture. You could make entire hierarchies of tags, and searches would correctly include the photos with subordinate tags.
For example, you could have:
-People
- - Friends
- - - …
- - Family
- - - Parents
- - - - Mom
- - - - Dad
- - - Siblings
- - - - Bro
- - - - Sis
…
(Actually there is a separate face tagging function too.)
So if you did a search for the keywords “family” and “Argentina” (assuming you’d made a similar hierarchy for one’s travels), then it would also find photos that didn’t expressly have those keywords but does have subordinate ones, for example a photo tagged “Mom” and “Buenos Aires”.
I still have my DSLR photo library managed in Aperture running on an old Mac Pro. Apple never provided a truly good migration path from Aperture to anything else. :/
DiTBho:
BeFS on Haiku/OS is a "relational filesystem" and can store "tags" in metadata.
I think this is the perfect use for its unique feature! :o
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