[TYPO3-dam] Writing Metadata back into files - any experiences?

[t3lists-2010 at thorstenindra.com]

Hello List,

I want to second the notions of Torsten 
> At least it would be really cool to have an easy and extensible matching mechanism between embedded metadata and DAM fields.

Beyond the Dublin Core fields I am using my own set of metadata fields in managing photos (offline). This data is then extracted via the exiftool service in Typo3 and repurposed for display as captions (language dependent) etc. in smoothgallery. (www.thorstenindra.com/photos contains some galleries, but only a portion of the images are captioned yet). 
If this mechanism was made easier/ extensible/ customizable, that'd be a real winner for photographers.

> 1. Any files generated for display on the website by TYPO3s imaging mechanisms (typo3tmp files). At the moment, embedded metadata is basically lost since it stays with the 'original' in DAM/fileadmin.
Metadata is crucial for images, at least for a photographer. Any metadata in images (or any files) should be retained and any stripping that is happening should be optional/ customizable.

> 2. Files in DAM. At the moment, embedded metadata get's out of sync when records are updated in DAM. It could be an interesting feature to have things written back to the file as soon as a DAM record is saved.
I agree. For example, my galleries are based on categories and images are grouped in this way. I assign them offline, and as images are indexed in Typo3, the assigning to the various galleries happens. 
Yet any kind of necessary metadata changes or fixes on the webserver - be that categories, captions or any other fields - currently requires a re-upload. At times I also provide HiRes data to clients, which makes a re-upload of 30 files of 8 MB each somewhat impracticable and time-consuming (at least with our connection here), yet at times unavoidable. 

I believe metadata will only continue to increase in relevance in any kind of media, so any measure to retain and make working with metadata easier is well worth the effort.

Thanks,
Thorsten Indra