I simply can't get tags to work fully on Opus and that is costing time and my hair.
Example:
doe.jpg tagged with: john;mary;david
Search for mary, result = found.
Alright, I'm happy and think Opus is my go to for tagging and went and spend hours tagging a good amount of my files. Only to realize that Opus is not returning/finding or displaying the result.
The same doe.jpg file, I have it in an eps, psd, ai and tiff versions; tagged with the same exact words: john;mary;david. Opus is not finding them when I search. And, that's for all psd, ai, eps, etc... files except jpg..
My obvious big question: WHY? Opus can only find and retuen tags in jpgs only?
Opus will let you tag any file format on an NTFS drive, but for "non-common" formats it stores the tags in a proprietary ADS (alternate data stream). Windows doesn't index those tags which is why they won't show up when you search. If you use the Opus Find Files function they will, however.
They are tagged with DOpus.
After a deeper test, I realize it's a bit more complicated than I thought. Especially with Jon noting below you in his comment that "Opus will let you tag any file format on an NTFS drive, but for "non-common" formats it stores the tags in a proprietary ADS (alternate data stream)". That makes it worst for me since all my drives are NTFS.
I tagged a few image files in DOpus and search them in ACDSee, Adobe Bridge and Windows Explorer. I found that the only files that shows everywhere is the jpg files.I assume it is because the IPTC metadata field "Keywords" that jpg uses is universally supported by all these software?
Well, maybe if this is possible then it would fix my situation for a while until a universal tagging system comes along: Can I create a button that would allow me to search tags without having to always go to the Advanced search area to do all these "If" "And" "Match". I mean, just set it in the button and that's it? If so, can any of you (Jon/Leo) please be humble and tell me what that code for the button is?
I was a bit disappointed to see that DOpus doesn't manage "metadata" in a standard way, since it does so many file management tasks so well!
Apparently DOPus uses NTFS Alternate Data Streams. ugh! -- not so good as discussed by Symantec as a security risk: symantec.com/connect/article ... ta-streams
And, it depends on Microsoft to be compliant with open standards - which they often are not.
The industry standard way to manage photo metadata is XMP an ISO standard, which is used by Adobe Lightroom, ACDSee and other mainstream photo managing programs. There are too many overlapping standards, but XMP seems the main one.
Also, Windows manages JPEG comments in non-standard ways.
I've found there are significant problems with using Windows 7 Explorer (also likely Vista or XP) to enter JPEG comments.
(1) The JPEG comments read/written by Explorer in Windows XP, Vista or 7 are different from the normal JPEG comments typically accessed by other utilities. Comments written by Windows are typically not readable by other utilities, and vice-versa.
The confusion stems from both being called "comments", and Windows displaying those alongside other JPEG header fields -- which implies they are JPEG comments. In fact they are MS-Windows comments, stored in the JPEG header but distinct from regular JPEG comments.
(2) Windows "JPEG" comments are not searchable by Windows 7 search. Since they aren't typically accessible by 3rd-party utilities, this effectively means you can't search on photo comments entered by Windows Explorer. It's really a deplorable situation.
There is one command-line utility ExifTool that can read & update both jpeg and "XP" comments entered by Windows Explorer: ExifTool by Phil Harvey.
Provided you know all this, the solution is simple: just don't use Windows Explorer to add JPEG comments, and don't use Windows Search -- use a 3rd party utility to enter/search the JPEG comments. You also must always remember those comments won't show up in Explorer -- the comments field will just be blank from the Windows standpoint.
Also, what Windows calls "Title field," ACDSee Pro 6 calls "Image Description"
The absolutely universal standard today is the IPTC fields as defined by the IPTC Core Schema for XMP and further refined / clarified by the Metadata Working Group. ACDsee, like most other photo editing applications, follows these standards. It seems that Windows is not using these standards. If that is the case, I'd recommend not using Windows to add metadata to any images, and if there is metadata in images already added in some sort of non-standard way by Windows, you find a way (perhaps the free ExifTool / ExifToolGUI utility) to copy the info from wherever Windows is putting it into the standard IPTC/XMP fields.
The attache screen shots show how adding comments in DOpus Metadata pane, does not insert them in IPTC or EXIF, but in some JPEG/Alternate data stream.
That isn't true. Opus does manage JPEG metadata in a standard way: EXIF tags. The problem is, there are several standard ways. EXIF is pretty much the lowest-common-denominator, though. Most tools which understand other JPEG tag formats also understand EXIF. You may run into problems with files which have tags in multiple formats which don't all agree with each other, where Opus looks at the EXIF tags but another program might give priority to some other tag format.
If I take a JPG without any tags and then set (say) the Author tag on it using Opus, and then load that JPEG into Adobe Photoshop, the Author tag shows up there as you would expect.
Opus does not use NTFS ADS for things which can go into JPEG EXIF metadata. NTFS ADS is only used as a last resort when applying tags to file formats which do not have their own way to store those tags (or at least which Opus does not know about). For example, if you add an Author tag to a plain text file, there is no way to store that tag in the file data itself, so it gets stored in NTFS ADS. If you do the same to a JPEG file, it goes into an EXIF tag and ADS is not used at all.
ADS are not a security risk at all, and I do not think the Symantec article is saying they are, from a quick skim. (If it is, Symantec are talking out of their behinds, to be frank.) ADS, like many other things, can be used by other things which are a security risk, ADS itself is not a security risk at all. In fact, these days malware scanners pay particular attention to ADS (since it's a simple way to hide things from people looking around their drives manually), so putting data into an ADS will in fact draw attention from malware scanners to that data, rather than hide the data from them.
ADS are also used by several components of Windows itself, including Internet Explorer (which marks that files have been downloaded from the web using ADS) and a bunch of other things. There's absolutely no security risk from things using ADS.
I'm not sure what you are referring to there.
It's just one of the standards. Photo tagging is a complete mess of different standards, unfortunately.
[quote]I've found there are significant problems with using Windows 7 Explorer (also likely Vista or XP) to enter JPEG comments.
...[/quote]
Let's keep the discussion to what Opus does. If you've got problems with what Windows Explorer and Windows Search do then this is the wrong place to air them as we aren't Microsoft and so we can't do anything about them, except in some cases where Opus actually ties into their functionality (but I can't see anything relevant to Opus in this part of your post).
Leo - thanks for thinking about my questions/comments. I spoke too soon; it appears some of the DOpus 'document properties' are entered into the EXIF metadata. You're right there appears this doesn't enter anything into the NTFS Alt.Data stream [based on a scan with "AlternateStreamView v1.35" nirsoft.netchecker]. I assumed it was, in hunting for the 'missing' field(s) (see below).
I agree the situation with overlapping EXIF/IPTC/XMP is clearly ambiguous (as discussed by metadataworkinggroup.org/); however it appears overlap problems come with these four: Description, Artist/Creator, Copyright and Date/Time. It seems DOPus does write them to EXIF.
I agree with you that external programs will display metadata fields variously. My photo program ACDSeePro6 now emphasizes IPTC/XMP, so it didn't display the EXIF fields the same, which confused me, until I used some other Exif viewers; 'Title'=Description, 'Authors'=Artist/Creator, Copyright, so that mapping is now clear.
However, just be clear about what DOPus is doing, can you tell me where the DOPus "Document properties : Subject" field is mapped within the EXIF specification? I don't see it anywhere using EXIFtool viewer (see attached screen-clip).
The rest I've figured out I think, so I'll clearly understand what is happening if I use DOpus to modify properties, in respect to other tools. Thank you.
