[Shotwell] storing original and modified photos

[Saturnino Garcia]

Of the three options, I personally like option #3 the best but would
consider option #1 acceptable also.

I would hate to see you do option #2 because it is counterintuitive. If I
import photos somewhere, I expect to be able to go there to find them again.
If I wanted to import the originals into another program then I would have
to specify a shotwell specific directory; this might lead to all sorts of
confusion down the road.

Also, is the plan to have a new version of the file saved for every edit you
make? Or maybe there will be a single edited version that gets updated with
every edit?

- Sat

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Adam Dingle <adam at yorba.org> wrote:

> Shotwell friends/fans,
>
> as you all know, Shotwell is a non-destructive photo editor.  If you
> edit a photo, then today Shotwell writes out a full-resolution JPEG
> including your changes only when you export.
>
> We're considering enhancing Shotwell so that it generates a new
> full-resolution JPEG immediately after you make any edit (this would
> probably happen in the background, so the user interface wouldn't slow
> down due to this change).  This change would have several benefits.
> Since full-resolution modified copies would always be available, we'd
> easily be able to drag/drop to applications other than Nautilus
> (http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1563).  Also, browsing through modified
> photos would be faster than it is today because we wouldn't need to
> apply your edits on the fly each time you move to a new photo.  Of
> course, Shotwell would still keep the original photos and remember all
> edits you've made, just like today.
>
> If Shotwell does store modified copies of each photo, though, where
> should it keep them?  There are a few possibilities:
>
> 1. The original library directory (e.g. ~/Pictures) is unmodified.
> Shotwell keeps each modified photo in its own directory, e.g.
> ~/.shotwell/modified_photos.
>
> 2. Whenever any photo has been modified, Shotwell moves the original
> photo to its own directory (e.g. ~/.shotwell/original_photos) and writes
> modified photos into the library directory (e.g. ~/Pictures) directly.
> When you revert to original, Shotwell moves the original photo back into
> the library directory.
>
> 3. Shotwell keeps original and modified photos side by side in the
> library directory.  We could either (a) keep the original photo
> DSC_001.JPG untouched, and create a new file DSC_001_MOD.JPG, or (b)
> rename the original photo to DSC_001_ORIG.JPG, and write the
> modifications into the original file DSC_001.JPG.
>
> Note that Shotwell would also likely store tag and title data in IPTC or
> XMP tags in each modified photo file.
>
> A potential advantage of (1) is that the original library is
> unmodified.  A potential advantage of (2) is that it might be easier to
> share the photo library with other photo applications: for example,
> photo edits made in Shotwell would show up in those applications
> immediately if they are also viewing the ~/Pictures library.
>
> So, Shotwell users: which of the above approaches would you prefer for
> Shotwell to take?
>
> adam
>
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