The Best (Most Universal) Way To Tag?

[yurik]

Hi,

I like the idea of "tagging" my pictures with information so that later on, if I need to find a specific file, I could just search for the term.

I've had a point and shoot cam for 2 years (and 7k+ photos) and I've been using IPTC Captions to tag and search through them.

I just got a Rebel XTi and I was wondering, is IPTC Captions the best, most universal way to tag my pictures? Would it be better to switch to keywords or XMP Keywords or Discrptions?

I'm looking for something that could be read in multiple programs (photoshop, lightroom, iMatch, etc) and that can be searchable.

Also, is there a universal way to "rate" or "label" your favorite pictures that could be seen in different programs?

Thanks.

[wulf]

I rely on Flickr for pictures that I want to tag; the advantages include being available to me anywhere I am at a computer and being easily able to explore what other people have posted under the same tags. Otherwise, I rely on a naming and filing scheme that includes date taken and short descriptions.

Wulf

[nfnitloop]

I've been using iPhoto with about 3k pictures and they're all tagged. I even wrote an Applescript that goes through all the photos to make sure they all had two or more tags. I've just recently started to think "Hey, what happens if I don't want to use iPhoto anymore?"

If I switch to Aperture at some point, I don't think it's a problem. If Google ever ports Picasa to Mac before that though, I'll be the first one in line.

As much as I like the iLife apps and <i>love</i> the Smart Albums in iPhoto, there really needs to be something standard that can get saved <b>in the image itself</b> to be read by whatever operating system or application I want later on. Picasa does this, to the point that you can have multiple people using the same library on a network (sweet) but I don't know how "standard" or "universal" it is.

Another limitation of iPhoto I'm starting to discover with my new XT is that it doesn't show me all the EXIF data. Maybe they'll fix this in the next version.