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--- services:photomanagement [2024/03/19 14:52] – [The Workflow] willy
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-====== Photos Management Server ======
-Photos (and videos!) are something very important in our everyday's life. They collect our memories and can bring back the emotions that we all experiences just by reviewing the pictures and videos taken back in time.
-Photography has greatly changed over the years. For example i have thousands of photos in the last 20+ years with many different cameras and technologies: film SLRs, DSLRs, phones, disppsable cameras... Also the digital management tools have changed greatly.
-Today the good old paper albums are just collecting dust in the bookshelves, and tomorrow those will be a faded memory of the past. Today photos are shared over instant messaging apps and given for free to big corps like Google and Apple.
-This is how i have changes this for, at least, my family.
-====== The concepts ======
-the goal is to have the family photos neatly organized, sorted and easily accessible by family members, even (specially) the non tech-savvy ones.
-There are three steps to the process:
-  * Collecting pictures and videos from the devices (cameras, phones...)
-  * Organizing them into albums and collections, adding tags if/when possible
-  * Display them all for easy fruition, possibly with Machine Learning for face detection and such
-The workflow will be:
-  * Take photos and upload them to the server (automatically, when possible)
-  * Organize the photos on the server, via a web interface, into albums/folders
-  * Have the folder published to a gallery app that ease browsing, tagging and such.
-===== Long term support & availability =====
-Tehcnology changes, fast. Applications are created new and dies out. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor|bus factor]] is vividly true also for Open Source projects. I have stored photos from 40 years ago, and literally thousands of pictures from 20+ years ago. To be usable they **must** be organized, tagged and properly labelled. Such tagging and organization **must** survive each single app or tool you choose.
-Using a database is **not** acceptable, since as much as logicla it might be organized, you cannot extract and parse the tags&metadata easily after the app that uses it get discontinued, or you die (yes, i am in that time of life where legacy start to be a tought).
-The only viable option (CHANGE MY MIND) is having the photos organized in folders, where each folder is an album, and the folders themselves named in a clear, obvious, album title way. The tags and metadata should be either embedded in the photo files or stored in sidecar files along the photos themselves.
-This is non-negotiable for me. If i didn't follow this rule since i started digitalizing my photos, today i would have nothing still readable and organized. and what about in 10 more years?
-===== Tools & software =====
-Let's be clear: there no tool that let you do that all-in-one, and i have tested almost all of them.
-First of all, i discarded all **local** tools, as i want this done on the server and not on my local laptop. Ideally, every family member should be able to to it's part without //my// intervention.
-(back in the past i used the great [[https://www.digikam.org/|Digikam]] which still rocks, but it's local-only).
-On the **web** tools the landscape is a little bit better than for the [[services:notes|Note Taking]] category, but not that much. There are quite a few tools indeed, but each one has it's pros and cons, and none fits the bill perfectly.
-I have tried (for each one, details in the associated page):
-  * [[services:immich|Immich]] is the most promising, but doesn't support folder-albums (without a complex and not intuitive usage pattern with templates).
-  * [[services:damselfly|Damselfly]] is a Digital Asset Management tool. Very impressive for a single developer, but a bit not user-friendly and limited in what it can do
-  * [[services:homegallery|HomeGallery]] is fantastic gallery with an innovative and intuitive browsing approach. Unfortunately does not support folder-albums.
-  * [[services:librephotos|LibrePhotos]] is nice, but extremely slow in indexing and honestly, it seems a bit abandoned.
-  * [[services:photofield|Photofield]] has some impressive view tricks, but it's way too simple.
-  * [[services:pigallery2|PiGallery2]] is a great gallery, supports tags and such, but it's not able (by design) to manage/move photos
-  * [[services:piwigo|Piwigo]] in theory is powerful and can do it all, but in relaity feels old, dated and ugly. It's been around 20+ years, and in this case this is a downpoint.
-There are many more, which i didn't try because they where either **dead**, **dying** or non really open-source (as i stated many times, i try to steer from projects that are open-source only to generate a revenue).
-====== The Workflow ======
-(i will say photos, but i almost always mean photos and videos)
-=== Step 1: loading photos into staging area ===
-Well, then, how to put things toghether. I have a properly configured storage on my server where all the photos are uploaded (let's call it a **staging area**).
-For mobile devices you cna use different approaches: [[gentoo:syncthing|SyncThing]] is probably the most effective and less invasive one, but also [[services:immich|Immich]] can be used to this goal.
-=== Step 2: organizing the staging area into albums/folders ===
-Periodically, i or any family member, will visit the staging area and sort out photos in sub-folder albums. This can be done in many ways both from web (specially when away from home or from mobile) or using any photo organizing tools from a remotely mounted filesystem exporting the photos.
-=== Step 3: moving albums/folders to the gallery ===
-When photos are organized into albums, the folders will be moved (by a fmaily member, optionally that can be automated TBD) to the **gallery area**. At this point the gallery tool will pick up the new albums, index them and show them on the web gallery app.
-Good galley tools to this scope are [[services:pigallery2|PiGallery2]], that uspports albums, and [[services:homegallery|HomeGallery]] which doesn't, but has excellent tag management. Both tools could be used at the same time
-=== Step 4: backup ===
-Backing up your photos is a **must**. Nothing so far is a //backup//, so check [[selfhost:backup|Backup]] and setup the backup of your **gallery** area. You sohuld probably not backup the **staging** area as it might change too frequently. YMMV, decide for yourself.
-====== Let's put it all together ======

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