Enhancement: Write Title to IPTC Headline / Title field?

[GoogleCodeExporter]

(First off -- this program is a god-send. Thank you so much for creating and 
sharing.)

Is it possible to have the iPhoto titles written to the IPTC Title or Headline 
field?

When exporting files via the built-in iPhoto exporter, there is an option to 
embed Titles in the file. When I upload those files using Flickr uploader, it 
is able to extract that title -- and not the file name -- as the title 
displayed on the site.

This is a slight issue for me for two reasons:

1) I have tons of pictures that are titled exactly the same. I'd like the 
titles to stay "clean" (i.e. without a _12 tagged to the end), regardless of 
the filename.

2) For titles that contain any sort of character -- "Hawai'i", for example -- 
export with spaces and underscores for filenames, which end up the only "Title" 
identification.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by nzia...@gmail.com on 12 Dec 2010 at 5:36

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, I'm working on an enhancement that uses templates for the file name, 
title, and caption fields. That will give you choices such as this.

Original comment by tsporkert on 12 Dec 2010 at 6:13

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Fantastic! It's the last thing I need to complete a digitizing project that has 
gone on too long. Happy holidays!

Original comment by nzia...@gmail.com on 22 Dec 2010 at 10:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Phoshare 1.4 adds a template for the caption. You can specify
   {title}
for the caption in the Phoshare app, or if you are running it as a script from 
the command line, add
   --captiontemplate "{title}"
to your existing call.

Original comment by tsporkert on 4 Jan 2011 at 7:21

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I don't think "captiontemplate" is the same thing as the title.

I've attached an example. I took an image, gave it a title in iPhoto, and then 
exported it two ways. (1) Using Phoshare with caption set to {title} and (2) 
Using iPhoto Export and selecting "Include TItle". Looking at the EXIF of 
iPhotoExport.jpg, there is a "Title" field with the correct title. Phoshare.jpg 
has no title and the title in the caption field (along with an extra line break 
at the end).

Are there any plans to allow editing the EXIF "Title" field (or the IPTC Title 
field)?

Original comment by nzia...@gmail.com on 20 Apr 2011 at 12:08

Attachments:

• iPhoto.jpg
• Phoshare.jpg

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I spent some more time looking into this (sorry, I should have done that 
initially). I don't see a "title" attribute as part of the EXIF specification. 
I'm not sure what iPhoto is writing. Perhaps the better alternative is to use 
the IPTC Title field (although the spec is really unclear on which is right, 
Headline or Title).

Original comment by nzia...@gmail.com on 20 Apr 2011 at 12:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Phoshare's --captiontemplate option controls what gets written into the 
iptc:caption-abstract field. It follows how many apps and services (like 
iPhoto, Aperture, Picasa, PicasaWeb, Facebook) read and write image captions. 
Many of these only offer a single text field, and that always maps to 
iptc:caption-abstract. Apple has some recommendations in the Aperture manual 
(http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=11%26s
ection=8):

Caption (2000 characters): A long-form description of the subject and related 
information in a natural-language caption
Example: Mayor Alvarado addresses a crowd at the first soccer match of the 
season.

Title (64 characters) - A unique identifier, used by an agency or organization 
to catalog images
Example: mt52642j

Original comment by tsporkert on 20 Apr 2011 at 1:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I guess I'm referring to writing the {title} in iPhoto to the IPTC Headline.

Headline (256 characters): The headline published with the image
Example: Mayor Alvarado Opens New Soccer Season in San Jose

But ... maybe I'm not using the software for its intended purpose :) 

My two needs are merging multiple iPhoto libraries (so a lot of exporting and 
importing) and Flickr, both of which have separate "title" and "description" 
(or "headline" and "caption") fields. I don't use captions, but I do use 
headlines. ...Sounds a bit like MY issue, not yours :)

I really appreciate your following up.

Best,
Nate

Original comment by nzia...@gmail.com on 20 Apr 2011 at 1:43

Attachments:

• flickr.png
• iphoto.png

[GoogleCodeExporter]

For the iPhoto library merging part... are you aware of iPhoto Library Manager? 
I've never used it myself, but I've heard good things about it. It can do 
merging at the library level. Or consider switching to Aperture, which is now 
only $80 in the app store. Not only can it import iPhoto libraries, but it can 
also merge and split libraries at any time, and gives you full access to the 
image metadata. 

The primary motivation for developing Phoshare was to allow migration of iPhoto 
libraries to Picasa. Picasa doesn't expose the title, so there was no need for 
Phoshare to deal with it. Adding support for title is not too difficult, but so 
far, yours is the only request for it. I'll make a note, and consider it next 
time I work on a new Phoshare release.

Original comment by tsporkert on 20 Apr 2011 at 2:21