@stenis Thank you for your input but I am not sure I understand much of it! While I am no metadata expert I spent a long time in the IT industry and well understand files and databases but do not really understand your comments.
I understand the gist of what you and many others are saying and have been saying from before DxO embarked on the work to update DxPL’s metadata handling capabilities. I am not sure that I have seen more negativity in a long, long time. I do understand the concern that a well respected RAW Developer product was not going to make the advances desired on the photo editing side because resources were being wasted on a “vanity” project, i.e. the metadata handling.
So can I ask for a longer post from you to explain what you have written!
Given that DxO was built to interact with Lightroom is that so surprising? But more importantly why is “borrowing” from Lightroom actually a bad idea, there are only so many ways that you can “skin” the metadata handling “cat”?
Not really, except for the importation of some of of the metadata from where PL4 used to maintain it, i.e. the DOP, PL5 gets the metadata from the image. Yes it stores its own copy in a database, like most of the other products (albeit ones with DAM “pretensions” or DAM “credentials”) and continues with the portability “paradigm” by keeping a copy in the DOP, but that is principally for storing the metadata for Virtual Copies (plus the editing data).
I am not sure how many users will actually want to assign independent metadata values to different Virtual Copies, except perhaps a quick description of the edit, but it was a simple extension to include keywords in the DOP!
The “sniping” at the database should be aimed at Capture 1, IMatch, Photo Supreme, DigiKam, Photo Mechanic Plus, XnView in the image editing/image management arena and countless more in the
field of general cataloguing.
The DOP is a DxPL unique I believe and “belongs” to DxO and they can do exactly what they want with that “metadata” store as they please and as long as they do it well I really don’t care, the key (to me) is the quality of the care they take over that particular item that makes it a valuable resource or a liability.
Is it really not getting close to the sophistication of Capture 1 yet. I don’t see the manual ‘Sync’ command in DxPL but when I read up about that in C1 I am concerned that they both have flaws, nor necessarily the same ones but neither might be perfect in to my mind!?
More explanation please!
DxPL uses xmp, is this another concern over the DOP? The main mechanism for DxPL communicating to other software is xmp, embedded for JPG, TIFF and TNG and sidecar only for RAW. The DOP storage is a convenience for DxPL with respect to Virtual Copies and their metadata. Please stop using its existence as some excuse to dismiss DxPL metadata handling!
By all means use errors in handling of xmp, bugs or lack of facilities but “sniping” at the DOP or the database is just a “cheap shot” to discredit the DxPL metadata handling!
Turn off ‘Auto Sync’ (C1 appears to have that as well) and you have a a uni-directional system, it takes seconds to do and doesn’t require a restart like C1 and you can happily use PL5 to ingest your metadata.
However, at that point the system becomes entirely manual and I would like DxO to add the automatic ‘Sync’ ‘Load’ facility of C1 to DxPL and one of my posts suggests a change to the shape of the single AS(ON) or AS(OFF) option into a series of automatic options that includes my own favourites of ‘Add to image’, ‘Add to database’ and ‘Merge’ plus the obvious ‘Read from’ and ‘Write to’. If DxO added those features it would raise DxPL above even C1 for metadata handling.
It then needs to add multiple database management etc. etc. but …
However, the area where I sympathise with comments that have been made is DxPL putting its own “stamp” on the ingested metadata. I understand why others have complained and there should be a straight through path to leave the metadata exactly as it was and then carry that through to any exports!
Then that makes me a “hobbyist”.
Without an ‘Auto Sync’ ‘Load’ command it becomes necessary to alert the user that data has changed. They may well know that it has changed because they are almost certainly the person that changed it! However, it will become less useful when DxO add the ‘Auto Sync’ ‘Load’ command to the preferences.
This topic was started by me because I also want that icon added to changes made in DxPL, does that make my “hobbyist” credentials even more obvious. I don’t want to have to remember what I have changed externally or internally, that is why I use a computer, it is after all “infallible” (when coded correctly) I am not!
Please stop sniping, start testing, make constructive comments, preferably not one’s like “scrap the database” or “change the DOP” because to do that would change the direction of the product and simply waste time.
I am as “cynical” and as “sceptical” as “doubting Thomas” himself. There are things wrong will DxPL metadata handling but so many of the issues raised are “philosophical” points where the product fails to meet some “ideal”!
I worked in I.T. in one way or another from touching my first computer in 1964 (buttoning in a program via an ICT 1301 console) until I retired in 2009 (after being the project ‘Systems Architect’ for the manufacturer who supplied the Orange Voice Mail system, a project I worked on for the last 16 years of my career) and wrote or pseudo-coded only about 750,000 lines of code albeit COBOL while working on multi-million pound 24/7 real-time, on-line database systems.
Does that make me a “hobbyist”!?
I will admit that photography metadata is relatively new to me but fixing the ills of DxPL will only come from constructive criticism and careful testing and reporting, not some of what I read in the forums.
Thank you if you read this far.