X Camera and Photo information

[redmorgie]

A friend recently was able to use Affinity to identify the camera I used (a Lumix GH5) and the date and settings etc I used to take the picture.I sent him.

How do you do that?

[R C-R]

Assuming the friend used Affinity Photo, the data was probably visible in the EXIF section of the Metadata panel.

[firstdefence]

That information, if contained in the file, will also display above the image in a context menu, in both Develop Persona and Photo Persona, see example images below.

Develop Persona

Photo Persona

 

 

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, firstdefence said:

That information, if contained in the file, will also display above the image in a context menu, in both Develop Persona and Photo

Including date info?

[firstdefence]

43 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Including date info?

No, but it should be, there is plenty of space, maybe have the option to configure what you want displayed within reason.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

there is plenty of space...

Probably not enough space on some smaller displays (or in narrower document windows) for all of the date shot info, depending on the date/time format. On my system, that would be 22 characters long, including spaces, slashes, colons, & AM or PM. 

[firstdefence]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Probably not enough space on some smaller displays (or in narrower document windows) for all of the date shot info, depending on the date/time format. On my system, that would be 22 characters long, including spaces, slashes, colons, & AM or PM. 

Still be nice to have the choice to display extra info if wanted. I use Photo Mechanic and that is highly configurable to display Image info. Sometimes it's the little things that make a workflow feel smoother. 

[R C-R]

Just now, firstdefence said:

Still be nice to have the choice to display extra info if wanted.

Even if it won't all fit in the available space? 

[firstdefence]

56 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Even if it won't all fit in the available space? 

Well, intelligence would suggest you fit in what you can, if it don't fit extra info, there is no point in trying.

I have a 27" iMac and I'm sure a lot of other users have screens that would adequately fit more information, It's not that hard to understand that you know.

People choose the device they use and meter the info on their screen real estate that best suits the space they have, if you buy a small screen device that cannot accommodate extra info then Vulcan logic would dictate you can't have it but that doesn't mean I can't either, you lose out because of your choice. 

Understand?

 

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I have a 27" iMac and I'm sure a lot of other users have screens that would adequately fit more information, It's not that hard to understand that you know.

I have a 27" one as well, but not infrequently for one reason or another I do not use the full width of the screen for the app's document window(s).

Understand what I mean?

[firstdefence]

4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I have a 27" one as well, but not infrequently for one reason or another I do not use the full width of the screen for the app's document window(s).

Understand what I mean?

I have two screens and older imac 27" and use the mac everyday. 

[R C-R]

19 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I have two screens and older imac 27" and use the mac everyday. 

But many users do not have all that screen space available to display the additional date shot data particularly if they are not using the full width of any screen for the app's workspace window. So my guess is the developers decided that adding that would not be worth implementing, particularly if it meant pushing something more important off into a secondary >> menu , making it less accessible.

Besides, how important is it to see date shot info in that window?

[firstdefence]

Doesn't really matter, it will never be implemented and they have far more pressing concerns don't you think.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

But many users do not have all that screen space available to display

So what? Also the bottom Status Bar for instance may contain more text than can be displayed, e.g. with the Node Tool. – Here on a 16" retina screen, 2880 px:

Another similar spot in the UI is the Status item in the Toolbar: it gets auto-cropped depending on the available space left by the other items. Fortunately, it displays the full file name + zoom level as tool-tip when hovering:

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

Besides, how important is it to see date shot info in that window?

When developing in Lightroom I appreciate the option to make various info appear (+ toggle through 2 customizable sets) in the upper left corner by pressing a single key. For instance ISO, time and time correction. Also pixel dimensions or full file name are useful there, or aperture in certain situations, e.g. if variations where shot.

[thomaso]

On 4/9/2023 at 2:11 AM, redmorgie said:

How do you do that?

By the way (though it's answered for Affinity): The free exif Tool lists all these meta data which are stored with an image: https://exiftool.org/

It can be more verbose than the APhoto Metadata panel. Click an item, e.g. a brand name, to get a full list of possible tags: https://exiftool.org/TagNames/index.html

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

So what?

Basically, it is because that info can be accessed in a different panel if & when the user really wants to see it.

[thomaso]

Sounds like an odd argument if we consider that the UI is designed "by design" to display certain info at various, alternative spots. Especially the two Toolbars have items that are available via panels, too. They even can show the (space demanding) Align buttons synchronously as duplicates:

This screenshot also shows that the interface is not really optimized: If two objects are selected the "Lock Children" button is a lot easier to access than with only one selected object – even if one of this two objects has no child at all and would not make the checkbox appear if selected alone. (e.g. picture frame + text frame)

However, I don't miss the exif data, I was just wondering why you literally mentioned screen space as the reason for not being displayed there (which, like file name + zoom, also could be solved via tool-tip on low screen space). Nevertheless, as @firstdefence pointed out, users might want to choose specific info for being displayed there, which indeed would mean a lot more coding, design and developing work.

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, thomaso said:

However, I don't miss the exif data, I was just wondering why you literally mentioned screen space as the reason for not being displayed there (which, like file name + zoom, also could be solved via tool-tip on low screen space).

Screen space is a factor because not all screens (or workspace windows) are wide enough to show all of the date shot metadata so at best it would sometimes have to be truncated in the toolbar or pushed into a secondary popup menu activated by the >> 'show more icon' so it would not be visible anyway.

There is also the possible complication of different date/time formats to deal with to include all the year, month, day, hour, minute, & second data in the appropriately localized format.

So to me, it just seems like it would be a little used addition that I would not want cluttering up the workspace window. Of course, YMMV so if you really want to see it maybe consider adding it as a feature request.

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, R C-R said:

Screen space is a factor because not all screens (or workspace windows) are wide enough to show all of

Again, so what? As mentioned & illustrated above, this factor of limited and different screen spaces is experienced, known, handled and solved "by design" in Affinity for various aspects / spots of the existing interface already, while the existing solutions can be used for future UI items, too. There is no demanding requirement to reinvent the wheel – while additional, alternative solutions aren't excluded of course.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

Again, so what?

As I have said, for me, it is not a useful addition. If you think it would be you could add it as a feature request, but I have no further interest in discussing it, nor would I support such a request.

[thomaso]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As I have said, for me, it is not a useful addition.

You know, I did not refer to any "not useful" idea (I rather said, I don't miss it in APh, too) while we (you/me) only discussed the screen space argument because I was wondering (= did not understand / did not see a need for / a use for in the debate) why you mentioned it both initially + repeatedly, starting here: