Most all of the photos that I upload have a description or caption in the metadata.

But when I upload, I have to input the caption separately.

Is there a reason that the caption (description) is not taken from the photo metadata?

Mostly the reason is that this has never been asked for before. I strip all metadata from the images and don't use any of it, mostly for privacy reasons.

when I upload to Flickr or google photos, they display the description as well as most of the metadata related to camera, etc.

Usually, the only privacy issue is with the GPS data. Most programs like Lightroom allow you to delete the GPS data when uploading. Of course, most photos before smartphone photos did not contain any GP{S data...

I think it would be beneficial to include most of the photo metadata on photos uploaded to NGA.

At a minimun, it would save me a considerable amount of time to include the description metadata. Currently, I cut and paste the description from Lightroom to the NGA photo submission page.

Also, you add the photo date assuming upload date and photo date are the same.

I know I can correct the date, but I never do... most all digital cameras record the date and imbed it in the photo image file (metadata). Seems to me that the date a photo was taken is not a privacy issue.

The upload already extracts the photo date separate from the upload date. That metadata is being used correctly for my pictures. For example



I find this feature endlessly useful for various reasons. For example, that aloe (only) blooms in the winter (when the photo was taken). And with pictures I have uploaded to the database, several times I have only been able to find them in my own photo library when I needed them because I could look up the photo date online here.

As for the comment being included from metadata, I would not find that feature useful. When I decide on captions for images in the database, I focus on the particular phenomenon happening in that particular image, which would distinguish it from other images or reveal some useful behavior/interesting feature.

There is a separate area on the plant pages for comments relating to the actual plants, and in my mind that's where the general comments should go. For example

Coral Aloe (Aloe striata)

But that's just how I understand it... @dave can provide some better insight.

I was looking at the database photo

here is one I just posted



my caption has the date of the photo...

That's true, now that you mention it, I do extract the date from the exif data and insert it automatically into the upload area. I do this prior to stripping the exif data. Maybe I can extract the comments/description as well. Frank, could you email me a sample photo that you would upload, that contains the exif data, so I can examine it myself? [email protected]

Never mind the photo, I found what I needed from the EXIF spec and I've updated the code to also pull out the description. Try it next time you post a photo and let me know how it goes!

Description works great, but the date still seems to be current date.

I made another adjustment, Frank. Try again.

Great!

your submit now reads the caption and the photo date.

thanks

Wonderful! Thanks for suggesting this, and following up with the helpful information.

Hi @dave,

I've noticed most photos now have an empty caption with what appears to be a single space in it. I'm wondering if there is a slight bug in the EXIF processing and it populates the caption even when the EXIF description is empty or just whitespace.

I have noticed the same thing. The "empty" caption shows up on the previews like this



but not the actual full-screen image.



And when I go in to enter an actual caption, it seems like there is already some blank text there (spaces?) which I can delete and replace. That was not the case previous to this new change, I think. It may or may not be consistent, I haven't gone through and checked, just noticed here and there.

I have updated the code to trim any whitespace away from the captions when they are posted, so that should resolve the problem going forward.

I also updated the captions that had a single space, to remove that space. Hopefully this resolves the problem; thanks for the report!