Google Photo metadata

Hi,

The metadata entered using your app does not appear in the "Info" area within Google Photos.

Ideally I would like to update the date and description from within Autosplitter. If that cannot be done, I'd like to change the metadata from within Windows 10 before uploading to Google Photos. I've looked at the properties and modified all photo related fields (and more). Following an upload to Google Photos, no changes appear in the Info area.

My profession is a Java /Cobol programmer. Can you suggest to me a means of being able to update the metadata, viewable within Google Photo, effectively before uploading?

Thanks.

Hello Ken

Thanks for your feedback. Which output format are you using? For JPEGs the caption info is stored in EXIF metadata. I store the captions into exif property ID $10e, $9c9b and $9c9f. Can you tell me which exif property ID is used by Google Photos? I can take a look later on and extend my software to store data in that property as well.

Regards
Zoltán

Yup I sure can.
EXIF Tags/DateTimeOriginal is used for the Date in Google Photos
IPTC Tags/Caption-Abstract is used for the Description i Google Photos
I'm not sure about the geotagging tags - though it would be good to add too.

If you could add the means to update these two tags, Google photo people would love you.
In addition, I suggest allowing a default or static value for these two fields. When I enter the pictures in, if I know the date I enter it in. If I don't know the date, I then will enter a ridiculous date such as 1900-01-01. At a later time I may update these dates manually.

A static value for the geo tags (if added) would be good too.

Thanks.

Hello Ken

I've released v1.13.1 - please check out if the IPTC support works for you.

Regards
Zoltán

Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention that the IPTC tagging needs to be enabled in the Preferences dialog because it's not on by default. I could not find an optimal solution that would tag the file without extra disc access, therefore this feature will slow down file saving a little bit when enabled.

The text that appears in the photo annotation now appears as the description within Google Photos. This is great

Can the date be populated as well?

Thanks

Ken

Date... ok, I'll see what I can do.
Geotagging: do you want to add textual info there (city names, etc) or GPS coordinates or both? :)
Maybe I'll need to add some kind of flexible user interface for all these settings.

The date is very important.

Geo tagging is “the cherry on top”. I’m not an expert here, but I suspect a text box would be suffice and let google itself resolve the address.

It’s too difficult to put in the coordinates. I realize that if you add a name of a place, the place may not exist in years to come. I’m not sure what the best practice is

The date is very important.

Geo tagging is “the cherry on top”. I’m not an expert here, but I suspect a text box would be suffice and let google itself resolve the address.

It’s too difficult to put in the coordinates. I realize that if you add a name of a place, the place may not exist in years to come. I’m not sure what the best practice is

I see. I'll try to add date handling asap.

Please download the new v1.13.2 and see if it's okay for you.

Awesome work and fast!

In practice the date works nearly perfect. I'll explain
I love the fact that you are using an ISO standard for the date yyyy-mm-dd.
I also like that you can enter just yyyy-mm or yyyy. Fact is, many times the day is not provided. I know you thought that through.

When a date is entered (yyyy-mm-dd, yyyy-mm or yyyy) it appears correctly in the info (properties) area of a picture within Google Photos.
However I have noticed that in the parent screen of the info screen, where all the photos are shown, the date above the picture is one day before. This is consistent for 4 photos I have uploaded.

I believe this is not your problem. I believe it is Google's problem.
Here is an example of what I am finding.
Autosplitter 1997-07-18
Google info area July 18, 1997 Fri, 12:00AM GMT-0300 (that's good)
Parent screen July 17, 1997 (one day earlier)

I modified the date to 3:59AM, no change in the parent screen
I modified the date to 4:00AM, the parent screen now shows July 18, 1997 (Good)

The fact that I modified the time through Google photos lays blame on Google IMHO. It is repeatable.

Awesome work. If you want more suggestions, I can pass it on if you want.

Thanks!! This reduces error by a lot and will make my work go faster.

Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback. The date difference might arise from some timezone issue. I will look into exif tags a bit deeper to find a solution (if there is one) tomorrow.

Hi Ken. Download and install v1.13.2 again. Version number is unchanged, but there are 2 little changes: 1) date all photos will calculate internal dates for all images immediately. 2) now I record the timezone of the local computer into EXIF data. This should correct the dating issue in Google Photos. At least it worked for me. (example image was dated jan 1st in AutoSplitter)
By the way there is no expected date format in AutoSplitter for date entry. It tries to find out what date you have entered, regardless of format. Feel free to send feedback with examples if it can't find out what date you are thinking of.

Hi,

I dowloaded 1.13.2 again
I have reason to believe it is the same version (but updated) because I notice that the 'focus' issue for the date has been corrected. I can enter into the text field easily now. I recommend also that if 970105 is entered then it will be resolved to 1997-01-05. Perhaps if 9701 is entered then it ill resolve to 1997-01-01?

The date issue on google persists. I see no difference in the behaviour with the date within Google Photos. I haven't tried changing the values. I have to leave to get my cat from vet. I'm out of time right now.

Ah, that is a date format I haven't thought about. It's hard to decypher, especially if someone uses this to describe dates at or before 1930, or after 1999. Any number can be just about anything...
Regarding date difference issue: I can maybe try setting the time portion of the date to 12:00 PM (noon) in hopes of avoiding this problem. I'll get back to you when I'm done with this.

Done, yet another v1.13.2 has been released, please download & install to see if it helps.

Hi.

The date works fine for the items I have tested. Great job!

Few thoughts.
The Preview button IMHO should be removed. I don't think it serves a useful purpose. If you leave it in, the word 'Preview' should be changed to 'Full size' or better yet have it appear just above along with the the 3 other options with standard image that indicates maximize with no text.

The 'Save All' would be nice on the right pane to minimize mouse travelling when doing this task over and over.

When I double click on the date, it should perform a 'select all'.
If I enter 98-01-01, it converts it to 1998-01-01 great
If I enter 05-02-03 it converts it to 1700-02-03 bad
980101 should also change to 1998-01-01
050203 should also change to 2005-02-03

As a FYI, when I don't have a date to enter, I put 1900-01-01 so that all these pictures will be groups together with a ridiculous date. At a later time, using Google Photos, I figure out the proper date to change it to. For me it would be nice if the date changed to a default date following a save. I recognize though that I may be the only person doing this.

There is no other product like this that I know of. Turn around time for issues or recommendations is ridiculously quick. Do you sleep?

Hello, thanks for the feedbacks.
* Preview button: Fair point. This button has been added to help people realize these thumbnails are just thumbnails and do not represent the final image quality. I've renamed it to Full size and the preview screen will show 100% by default instead to some kind of fit to window scaling.
* Save all button will also appear right next to the caption all/date all if you have enough space on the screen.
* Double clicking a date or caption text should now select the whole text. There was also a bug that caused loss of data entry sometimes, also fixed. Focusing issues while using TAB also should be fixed.
* YYMMDD, YYYYMMDD style dates should be handled better now. Certainly, there is going to be a Y2K issue unless people spell out year numbers completely :)
Sleeping: sometimes I do. Not when there is work to be done. Maybe it's hard to believe but I don't normally do several releases per day. When there is a major update, I actually A/B test against the previous version which takes 3-4 weeks.
Bumped version to v1.13.3 now.

By the way, how did you find the product? On the day you purchased, there was a huge, unusual rush of Canadian visitors/customers for some reason.

Hi,

Sorry I didn't get to this earlier.

The focus issue on the date works fine now.

I'd like to suggest some logic for the date. When entering thousands of pictures, it make a big difference to reduce key strokes.
This year is 2020 therefore I'd like to see the following translations

200308 - > 2020-03-08
20-03-08 -> 2020-03-08
2003->2003-01-01
20-03->2020-03-01

Since we have 6 digits, assume 2 digit year.
If the 2 digit year if future then we are in the 1900s
If the 2 digit year is present or past then we are in the 2000s
210308 - > 1921-03-08
21-03-08 -> 1921-03-08
2103->1921-01-01
21-03->1921-03-01

980308 - > 1998-03-08
98-03-08 -> 1998-03-08
9803->1998-01-01
98-03->1998-03-01

Pictures are in 1925? No problem, enter the full date
1925-02-3

Auto-Split
Great idea, you have the ability to manually add/move boxes or have it automatically determine it - great. When working with pictures often times I may want to scan some odd sized pictures and then go back to a standard 4x6 size as an example. Can there be a feature so that you can "remember' a preset and then instantly recall it? I scan a lot of 4x6 images. I"m able to put 4 on the scanner at once using Preserve Splits. When I scan odd sized pictures, I take the preserve splits off. I'd like to then push a Recall Splits button and continue my work.

One more thing. Sometimes I mess up and enter the wrong metdata. It would be good to have a screen to review the metdata entered of the folder I'm working on and to be given the ability to change the metadata before uploading.

Here's some credit for you
https://support.google.com/photos/thread/35422900?hl=en

I found your product by searching for generic terms on the internet.

Thanks again.

Ken

Hi Ken. Great ideas once again! What would you prefer?
1) ability to save and restore preserved split presets
2) set the size of the selected split to a standard photo size like 10x15cm or 4x6 inches
Or maybe both? :)

Hi,
I would err on the side of caution and choose #1. If you preset to a specific size 4x6, then the placement of the box may be different on your scanner than it is on mine. I think this setting should not only set size of the box(s) but the placement too.

Here's a thought on how to implement it. I"m sure there are many ways to do it. This is the first one that came to me.
Use your existing checkbox with labeled preserve followed by a box with a 1 then a box with a 2 and a box with a 3. The checkbox works as usual. The first time one clicks on the box, per session, a mesage comes up and says and explains how it works which is to long press it to save the seeting and short press it to use it. My android box tv works that way on selecting movies.
I'm not sold on the idea, it's just a thought. The advantage of this is that it uses very little space on the screen but it uses a new concept that be still foreign to many.

Thanks a lot for your feedbacks again - I'll close this ticket now and will implement some changes regarding preserve splits/4corners method soon. Have a nice day