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image tagging solutions?

grand marshal polycounter
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pior grand marshal polycounter
Hey all,

Like everybody here I tend to collect a bit of reference imagery. Most of it I store in my Dropbox for easy access from anywhere. I usually dont create complex folder categories, except when I come accross a pack of say, 20 images from one specific artist in which case I usually put them in a dedicated folder.

However when browsing images for reference I sometimes stumble upon something I want to index for future use. I don't need many categories : things like "mech", "weapon", "engine", "Maria Osawa", the good stuff.

I understand that many advanced picture viewers allow for image tagging. I tried it, it was pretty neat ... however I want to do two specific things :

- I want to store the tag information in the file. It could be inside the file itself (exif data?) or simply in the filename as an added prefix or extension. For instance I find that picture on a drive, called "sewers001.jpg" and I decide I want to tag it as environment. It would go like so :
"sewers001_ENVIRONMENT.jpg"
or
"ENVIRONMENT.sewers.jpg"
but no xml list ala itunes. It needs to be remotely accessed easily, see below :

- The tagging must be app independant, meaning that no matter where I access the file from, I can still perform an efficient regular folder search and find what I need without the need for any content management app to be installed.

-It is less important to be able to tag from everywhere. I would mostly tag things on one workstation (home). So I don't really mind installing an app just for this. But app-free would be nice. My viewer of choice is XNview.

Any idea on how to do this? I suspect that it could be very possible to add a tagging item in the rightclick dropdown in windows. I know that irfanview can perform actions from there (renaming, duplicating pictures and so on). I am just not very versed in that. However the best would be to able to tag pictures from within XnView, while browsing.

Mockup !

tagging.jpg

Thanks guys

Replies

  • gaganjain
    I think this will work for you nice place to collect reference + tag them [but it is on web]
    http://vi.sualize.us/
    Here is mine http://vi.sualize.us/gaganjain/
    Worst part is if source image is remove then image lost....
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    I usually use windows photo gallery in vista to add tags, it's small, easy, and works nicely. Tag you add, tag you save in your jpg files (IPTC Keyword). You also can rate images as in Acdsee and see all tagged images in groups. Ratings are also saved in the file, like happens with mp3 files.

    For batch renaming, acdsee that is what i use, is very nice :D.

    For XP users: http://download.live.com/photogallery

    Picasa is also an alternative...
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    It's OZAWA not Osawa... 小澤

    As for the rename solution, I just use TheRename. It's a badass little app、many functions.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    See? That's why I need a way to rename stuff easily :P

    More seriously : the more I think of it, the more I feel like a solid keyboard macro would do the trick perfectly. Okay so is there a program out there that let me record the following :

    'press F1 > go to the beginning of the file name > type m > e > c > h > _ > press enter' ?

    I could see this being assigned to ctrl-F1,ctrl-F2, ctrl-F3 and so on. Twelve categories wold be a perfect number actually.

    Thanks!
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    This reminds me I need to short my downloaded cg related images folder.
  • Asthane
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    Asthane polycounter lvl 18
    pior wrote: »
    Okay so is there a program out there that let me record the following
    I believe AutoHotkey is what you're looking for. That, or a decent macro keyboard.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Hehe Asth, the funny thing is that I have that exact keyboard laying around, but I stopped using it some time ago because I felt like it was taking too much desk space. Also the placement of the macro keys was messing with my muscle memory :P

    So I just went for AutoHotkey and now have a little script that does just what I want, by pressing Win+numpad keys. And it works in almost all image viewing programs too! Now I just have to come up with good enough categories... and just a mere 10 of them!


    0 Anatomy_
    1 Mechanical_
    2 Costume_
    3 Weapon_
    4 Environment_
    5 Lowpoly_
    6 SubDiv_
    7 Sculpt_
    8 Sketch_
    9 Painting_
    #Numpad0::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Anatomy_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad1::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Mech_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad2::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Costume_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad3::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Weapom_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad4::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Environment_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad5::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Lowpoly_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad6::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Subdiv_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad7::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Sculpt_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad8::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Sketch_{Enter}
    return
    #Numpad9::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}Painting_{Enter}
    return
    #NumpadMult::
    Send {F2}^{NumpadHome}X_{Enter}
    return
    

    Good stuff
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    And it works!!!
    pior_image_taggin.jpg
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    I got 18 keys I need to program!
  • Rhinokey
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    Rhinokey polycounter lvl 18
    is your keyboard taped to the top of a cintiq?
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Yeah but just for typing. I have a regular one on the right for 'blind' shortcuts.
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