Image metadata has been around for a long time. Standards for image metadata however have been trying to keep pace with consumers’ appetite for digital content. As a consequence, image metadata standards have been in flux for a while. It has been very difficult for software makers to adapt both to new standards and customer demands as the two are almost always out of sync.
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How do you verify that your Picasa image metadata is correct?
First, you have to have all metadata (at least everything that Picasa generates) in your JPG images created with Picasa. So, create all metadata available in Picasa: keywords , geo location , and face recognition name tags. Then upload your image to the excellent online tool provided by Jeffrey Fiedl (link at the bottom) .
Then go through every section of the output: EXIF, XMP and IPTC. It is an awesome tool.
Does Picasa save image keywords correctly?
According to current standards and best practices image keywords should be saved both to IPTC and XMP portions of a jpeg image header.
Picasa does indeed save keywords in the right place.
Picasa is saving keywords in the right places: both in IPTC and XMP portions of photo metadata.
Does Picasa save geodata correctly?
Geolocation information shuld be saved in the proper place in the EXIF image header.
Picasa does that correctly as well.
Geographical position is saved in the proper place in the EXIF portion of the JPEG image format.
I need to mention that there is some debate as to whether the Picasa geo coordinates are correct or not, but as far as saving the, Picasa does it right.
How about face recognition name tags
Face recognition name tags are the new kid on the block in terms of metadata standards. Being new, face recognition name tags do not have a place in the old IPTC standard but it does have a proper place in XMP.
Picasa saves face recognition name tags in the correct place again. How awesome is that!
Picasa saves face recognition name tags in the correct place in the XMP image header.
A simple conclusion about Picasa image metadata
Picasa is right on with the most important pieces of image metadata. Picasa saves them all in the right place. Granted, Picasa provides an interface only for a limited set of image metadata elements, but it saves them in the right place.
Resources for understanding Picasa’s photo metadata
- Jeffrey Fiedl’s online photo metadata tool: http://regex.info/exif.cgi
- Learn more about face recognition metadata compatibility between Picasa and Adobe Lightroom by reading this Adobe thread about how Lightroom saves and reads face recognition metadata.
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Not sure how often you are looking at this, but here are my question(s):
1. Specifically, what do the sliders for Cluster Threshold and Suggestion Threshold do? Does it matter if one is high and the other is low? I have 500,000 faces in the “unnamed” section!!! I have many that are of the same people, but Picasa won’t group them together for some reason. I know I have to manually go through and verify them, which is fine, but it sure would be nice to have less to confirm!
2. If the facial tags are stored with the photo, does that change the size of the photo? For example, if I compare a photo with a tag and without a tag, will it show up as a duplicate, or not. (Comparison is based on file size, and content)
3. If the facial tags are stored with the photo, will ACDSee be able to read and import them?
Thanks so much!! Your information is invaluable!
Julie…great questions! I will tell you what I know but it might not answer all your questions.
1. As you identify the faces in the “unnamed” section, Picasa’s AI will get smarter and will automatically group faces together…the more faces you identify the list of unnamed will get much smaller.
2. Yes, the photo files get larger of course as metadata is being added to the photo files. However, metadata is very small and only adds minimal size to your files.
3. I believe ACDsee will read them properly but you can always try it with a few photos at first.
Good morning Vlad. I’m still using Picasa especially for tagging faces. I’m about to convert all the tags to the internal XMP version for several thousand photos. Is there a limit as to the number of tagged faces that one photo can handle? I have some large group portraits with many identified faces. Thanks.
Thanks for the post. It got me interested in using Picasa to organize my genealogy photos.
The face tagging is awesome and would really help me organize and share old photos that I have scanned in. Loss-less data formats are preferred for these type of archival photos. The Library of Congress recommends TIFF, JPEG2000, and PNG in that order. They won’t accept lossy JPEG files.
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/content/still_preferences.shtml
Picasa doesn’t support JPEG2000 at all, so for archival photos, TIFF or PNG are potential options.
After a bit of testing, it appears that while these three types of metadata (keyword, geodata, face) are embedded correctly in a JPEG file, Picasa does not embedded any of these in TIFF or PNG files.
According to Wikipedia, TIFF, PNG and many other file types can support tags like these in XMP, but perhaps the standards are less defined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform
Picasa will keep keyword, geodata, and face information in its own database, so as long as you only use Picasa with your TIFF or PNG files, you are fine. However, many people don’t like being locked into one program.
I thought it was worth mentioning in case someone needs to use a loss-less data format with Picasa and wants metadata added to the image file.
I’ve just gone through the process of tagging faces in Picasa. I had the “Store name tags in photo” box checked. However, when I read the EXIF (XMP) info, there’s no face tag info! Is it possible that I need to do “Tools–>Experimental–>Write faces to XMP” in order to get that info into the file itself?
Never Mind! It’s there. I was somehow not seeing it, even though I looked twice. It’s possible I used a non-updated version of the photo. Sheepish…
Sorry! And thanks for all the info on this page!
Phil…Glad you found it. Face recognition tags are not very straightforward in the standards…at least not yet.
Hi there.
After uploading a photo with on-line tool provided by Jeffrey Fiedl I realized that Picasa is not recording face recognition tags in image metadata XMP, instead it is generating a file “.picasa.ini” in each folder where photos are located with all information for face recognition.
Is there any way to change the way Picasa records the face recognition tags directly to the XMP header in the photo as suggested in the article?
Paulo,
You have to enable name tags in Picasa. To do that go to Options / Name tags and check the “Store name tags in photo “. This will store name tags from face recognition as I have described in my article.
Also for further reference read my article about doing face recognition with Picasa. Here is the link :
https://www.organizepictures.com/2012/10/face-detection-with-picasa Make sure you read all three pages.
Thank you vlad for your valuable support.
I’ve already checked the “Store name tags in photo”, so it will tag faces names for new photos, right?
What about old photos that has been previously tagged as a separated file (.picasa.ini)? How do I force Picasa to look at those old photos and make then to be tagged in XMP header?
Ok. I got it!
I’ve already realized that there is an experimental feature in Picasa (Tools–>Experimental–>Write faces to XMP…) that allow you to rewrite the face recognition tags on those old photos.
That’s a useful feature, however it will take long time to update all photos!
Regards.
Unfortunately, Picasa has a nasty habit of stripping out camera Makernotes from Exif, so it will actively remove some of your precious metadata. See
http://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/sharing-photos/
Good to know Geoff…thank you….for those who use Makernote.