Windows App for adding FotoNotes

February 7, 2006 3:09 PM

I'm looking for a windows app that will let me attach FotoNotes to my pictures.

Are there any image editors that would let me add information to my photos like Flickr does, but in an offline, non-web based way? Basically something that would allow me to edit EXIF metadata? The best solution would let me add notes to a photo that would be compatible with Flickrs notes.

posted by blue_beetle to computers & internet (4 comments total)

ThumbsPlus exposes every IPTC field. You know you're not really supposed to edit EXIF data. But you can get it to batch read the EXIF data into its database and modify it there, then write it to IPTC fields. Or you can override and edit the EXIF data directly. Personally, I leave EXIF alone and use IPTC or custom fields.

Another good IPTC editor is MediaPro.
posted by meehawl at 5:31 PM on February 7, 2006

The image that you linked to does not actually have any fotonotes attached to it. The notes are in the page source and not in the jpeg file. There are standard media types that do offer this type of functionality, like flash, quicktime movie, etc. I have seen some pretty cool things along these lines done with Quicktime Pro and it may be what you are looking for. It does cost $30 but that seems like a reasonable price if it does do this, not to mention it's other useful functions.
posted by JJ86 at 6:29 AM on February 8, 2006

I've asked the Fotonotes Hacker List what they suggest I know a few things, but not as a desktop web application. Nothing is really standardized yet, either, which makes me sad and hope to change through Fotonotes.

Fotonotes data can be stored in the generic headers of the JPG file, but there isn't an agreed format for how to express that data in IPTC fields (or EXIF) for that matter.

As soon as I get a list, I'll post.
posted by GregElin at 11:05 AM on February 10, 2006

This is not a simple recommendation to make since there are so many differences in how apps deal with metadata. The two that I've tested that do allow you to add keyworks to your photos that pass through to Flickr and and are picked up as tags are - Google's Picasa and Nikon PictureProject. Picasa works with any camera/scanner and is free, PictureProject comes bundled with Nikon's products. With Picasa any caption information you add also gets picked up as a Flickr description. Note: Make sure you use keywords and not "labels". Labels are only used by Picasa for sorting albums and are not written to the file.

Programs that do not seem to work or don't have keyword support are Adobe Photoshop Album, Kodak EasyShare, Microsoft Digital Image 2006. Two EXIF editors I tried EXIF Pilot and Exifier let you add a description that showed up in Flickr's description field but the IPTC tags (sometimes what keywords are called, this is a standard used by photo wire services) did not.

I have a bit of a rant about metadata interoperability here.
posted by mjkboston at 6:38 AM on February 13, 2006