HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

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greenbone
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by greenbone »

Theliel wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 6:50 pm The main problem here is divided into two parts, one part is the fault of the user, another part of QNAP for not posing it in a much more efficient and intelligent way.

-User
Using a NAS's own Software (whatever it is) to sort / tag tens of thousands of photos is nonsense. There is a multitude of infinitely more efficient and faster software for this. QuMagie works generally well, but cannot compete with applications that have been in the market for many years maturing. Above all, and this links with the second problem, when a large amount of Software does not make the changes in the metadata of the images, but in a DB or independent files, as it does for example GPhotos, QuMagie, Synology ...

-QNAP
Nowadays, the metadata of the images allows practically any type of characteristics to be added to them. To give an example, but not exclusively, facial regions (and labeling)

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This is essential, because if QuMagie could read (and interpret) the metadata of the images), thanks to the EXIF ​​standards for facial regions, labels and others, not only the changes made by QuMagie would persist between different systems, but any software could read them without any problem, and more importantly !! On the contrary also, one could load his entire collection already tagged with any other software and QuMagie perfectly interpret people and others.

Still, it would always be necessary to do a full scan of the entire library and build the training data for faces and object identification from scratch, but this would be totally unattended and automatic, take longer or shorter.

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Personally, I use DigiKam to organize / catalog / tag. Any change made in the labeling of people or of any kind in general, the EXIF ​​standards are used, so if I open said images in any other software, it identifies it perfectly, and work pretty well with QuMagie, except Facial Tagging

QuMagie PERFECTLY detects and interprets the normal tagging of EXIF ​​photos, but unfortunately it does not support the EXIF ​​tagging of facial regions (are interpreted like normal tags, well, at least its something), for me it is the only limitation it has, the day that QuMagie is able to switch to its facial AI engine the EXIF ​​data of facial regions of the photos already tagged, it will be really the king software
While there are certainly alternatives for tagging / AI facial recognition, object identification, etc. my point is that Qnap is misrepresenting their product as useful for these things, when in fact - the effort a user puts into those features, training the AI, populating the tags and people, is entirely at risk. They don't disclose this risk - and lead users into a very costly trap. That's not the fault of the User, that's Qnap's misrepresentation of their features, by commission and omission.

The tagging and facial recognition part was tempting to me because it gave me a way via any device (laptop, phone, tablet, etc) to quickly find / share / post / edit / iterate a photo using the app on any of those devices, or in the web-interface.

I need that integration, particularly after Apple (insanely) removed photo tagging from iOS.

Having that integration with my means of storage, backup, personal cloud access, tagging, etc. - on my own NAS - is exactly why I bought a Qnap device.

I don't want any cloud service provider, tech giant, social media censors, government, between me and my media library, and I want that library quickly searchable - as well as organized by virtue of tagging as the media is added to the library incrementally.

You mentioned DigiKam. I'll check it out, but given what I've described as a use-case, do you think it can work?

I want an end-to-end personal solution, no middle-men, no company oddly taking away the most useful and necessary features to keep a media library organized, reliable, and accessible.
Theliel
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by Theliel »

As I have already said, of course QNAP could have done better (and still can), and it is not a substantial change, it would simply involve writing the metadata related to the facial regions in the files themselves, which would be quite simple to implement. That of course does not prevent that, naturally, the NAS requires a multitude of files locally to optimize and be able to handle the AI ​​engine, but as I have already said in the worst case of a DB reset, the NAS you will only have to rescan the library to rebuild the learning data or the thumbnails, something unavoidable, and on the other hand totally neglected. That is the QNAP issue, and what they could fix.

The rest is up to us, the user, and the "work" flow that each one has adopted.

When it comes to DigiKam, it personally meets my needs "perfectly". Like everything, time can only improve it. For me, the QuMagie + DigiKam combination solves practically all problems. The only thing that I repeat cannot be done (and I even plan to patch QuMagie manually for it), is that QuMagie correctly interprets the facial regions and takes them as "People" (I repeat, with their facial delimiter in each photo) that are in the own metadata of the photos. Currently it only interprets them as labels, which although it is not a perfect solution, for practical purposes it is the same for me, since I can search / filter / sort equally by people

However, I am not using QNAP's facial recognition engine (at the moment). It is true that it is very comfortable, but it still has a lot of room for improvement in face identification / detection. So at present I still use Digikam's AI engine for this activity, which is a pseudo-automatic process, it takes time, but little by little the results are reasonable. Say that I currently have more than 80k face tags, which are not few. DigiKam is an open source desktop software, it does not depend on the cloud or financial interests, and in the worst case, I repeat, the changes are stored (if configured for it) in the photos' own metadata.
saunderspp
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by saunderspp »

Is there any update on this, perhaps in a different thread or post? I would like assurance that I can backup the Photo Station database and restore it in case of failure. I just read another post about upgrading to QTS5 and losing all the data. I am also thinking about eventually changing my NAS, in which case, I need a migration path or plan for a divorce.
Alternatively, I can try 3rd party solution again like ACDSee, CyberLink Photo Director, Microsoft Photos, Adobe, ... I did not have much luck when I tried them all before with the QNAP.
elif_ifelse
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by elif_ifelse »

so far I found a way to pass qumagie face detections to exiftool viewtopic.php?f=21&t=164520
it's rudimental, so help to make it better is welcome
it does not cover pure db backup which is already documented https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/ ... _database/
the challenge is have exif changes seen by qphoto, or define another mobile app to properly display a photo lib with exif in its search criteria
cheenee
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by cheenee »

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dolbyman
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by dolbyman »

why post in other threads if you cannot reply to your post in the first place ?
Laffer
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by Laffer »

I hope that QNAP one day will listen to us. I already opened feature requests on their support system. But I alone have no power. If everybody who wants this function, would make a feature request, then maybe it would get priority.

I understand why QNAP is hesitating, because if they write to the original files, if something breaks, they will be blamed. Maybe if the would make a copy and keep the original, would be a solution?
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dolbyman
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Re: HELP - Backing up all photo data - tags, location, people etc.

Post by dolbyman »

topic closed to prevent further necroposting
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