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Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

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Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#91

Post by bloopernova »

damianmoore wrote: post #17

Shameless plug: I'm currently working on a solution called Photonix, though it's still very much pre-1.0 at the moment. https://photonix.org/ Installation is fairly simple with Docker, frontend is web-based (React), backend is Python with a sprinkling of Tensorflow. So far auto-tagging of photos by location, object detection and colour is fairly decent. UI is progressing and is useable on most devices, though quite m…

Does Photonix work with a read-only volume for /data/photos?

I'm looking at the docker-compose.yml and wanted to give it a go, but not allow it any way of deleting anything :)

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#92

Post by mceachen »

bpye wrote: post #86
mceachen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started writing PhotoStructure because I got tired of being burned by failed open and closed source media apps. I wrote more details about it in a top level post, but this blog post describes why I quit my job to do this full time, where the project is currently, and where it's going. https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ I'd love to have you try out the beta and have you share feedback!

I've signed up for your beta. One question though - if you end up feeling it's unsustainable to continue developing PhotoStructure down the line do you have a plan? Obviously we would rather not be burned by it either, you you consider at that point making it open source so existing users can continue and make improvements? Certainly I hope it never comes to it but it's nice to have a little reassurance.

The "photo app" market is a zombie apocalyptic wasteland of failed and undead software. I don't want to get burned again, either, so:

1) There's a corporate mandate to open-source PhotoStructure for Desktop in the event of business closure.

2) Your library consists of industry-standard files. If you choose to do so, your originals are copied into a standard YYYY/YYYY-mm-dd/ folder hierarchy. XMP sidecars are added to hold inferred or novel metadata and store nondestructive edits, like rotation. A SQLite db (with commented schema! it's pretty, honest!) holds asset-file-tag relationships, albums, and other non-file metadata.

3) It's just me, and I love open source, so if I can get to the point where my licensing stream pays for food and shelter, I can open source then.

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#93

Post by pheeney »

mceachen wrote: post #64

Personal plug: I'm working on PhotoStructure, after trying many, many open source photo projects (and being a committer for years of one of the most popular, "gallery.") PhotoStructure is browser-based (using Vue), and scales to hundreds of thousands of assets over millions of files. Your library can be created on a Mac, saved on your NAS, then later opened and managed by a Linux box, seamlessly. Raw images have high…

I have been looking for a photo meta data app for a long time, not sure if this is something you have/will offer.

I am essentially looking to leave the original photos on external drives and have an app that indexes them and stores a customizable thumbnail with the app to view them on my local machine. This way I can browse through all my photos and figure out the original file path if I want to retrieve them. The most important aspect is that I can take the drives offline while the thumbnails and index remains within the app and re-indexing when connected again.

My existing workflow is to import all photos on my mac to the Photos app. I pull them from different devices (phones, camera, etc). The photos app does an OK job at de-duping any matches. I also run PhotoSweeper to further de-dupe which analyzes the photos itself and I can leave the best ones remaining. After that I run some custom scripts to export the data as [year]-[month]/[year]-[month]-[day] [hour].[min].[sec].jpg. I then merge those onto my external drive and kick off my backup process to clone them to other drives and sync to cloud.

The closest I have come is Lightroom which indexed the drive a little bit but the "thumbnails" and catalog is huge. It allows some tagging and other features to discover old photos but some processes are a bit manual. This workflow seems to be common among digital asset management software which is expensive and way more then I am looking for.

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#94

Post by damianmoore »

bloopernova wrote: post #91
damianmoore wrote: post #17

Shameless plug: I'm currently working on a solution called Photonix, though it's still very much pre-1.0 at the moment. https://photonix.org/ Installation is fairly simple with Docker, frontend is web-based (React), backend is Python with a sprinkling of Tensorflow. So far auto-tagging of photos by location, object detection and colour is fairly decent. UI is progressing and is useable on most devices, though quite m…

Does Photonix work with a read-only volume for /data/photos? I'm looking at the docker-compose.yml and wanted to give it a go, but not allow it any way of deleting anything :)

Yep, it should work fine with a read-only photo volume as it doesn't make any changes to photo files by default - it just needs to write to the DB which is configured as another container in the Docker Compose file.

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#95

Post by damianmoore »

mceachen wrote: post #90
damianmoore wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely hear you regarding duplication. This whole project evolved from a script I wrote to do just that. There is a concept of multiple versions (files) of an image so different edits with the same metadata timestamp will show only once and you'll be able to select the preferred one. I prefer to handle things this way to start and then suggest deletions based on same hash rather than deleting up front. I don't…

OMG, me too. @damianmoore, I've banged on this issue for > 2 years now and have a pretty solid deduping algorithm. I'd be happy to share what I've got with you.

Cool, share or PM me a link and I'd love to take a look.

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#96

Post by mceachen »

pheeney wrote: post #93
mceachen wrote: post #64

Personal plug: I'm working on PhotoStructure, after trying many, many open source photo projects (and being a committer for years of one of the most popular, "gallery.") PhotoStructure is browser-based (using Vue), and scales to hundreds of thousands of assets over millions of files. Your library can be created on a Mac, saved on your NAS, then later opened and managed by a Linux box, seamlessly. Raw images have high…

I have been looking for a photo meta data app for a long time, not sure if this is something you have/will offer. I am essentially looking to leave the original photos on external drives and have an app that indexes them and stores a customizable thumbnail with the app to view them on my local machine. This way I can browse through all my photos and figure out the original file path if I want to retrieve them. The mo…

Yes, you can absolutely use PhotoStructure for your use case.

After you install, the second question you should pick "No thanks, I like my photos and videos where they already are." See https://support.photostructure.com/automatic-library-organiz...

Email me at hello at photostructure.com or sign up for the beta. I'd love to hear what you think!

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#97

Post by pheeney »

mceachen wrote: post #96
pheeney wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been looking for a photo meta data app for a long time, not sure if this is something you have/will offer. I am essentially looking to leave the original photos on external drives and have an app that indexes them and stores a customizable thumbnail with the app to view them on my local machine. This way I can browse through all my photos and figure out the original file path if I want to retrieve them. The mo…

Yes, you can absolutely use PhotoStructure for your use case. After you install, the second question you should pick "No thanks, I like my photos and videos where they already are." See https://support.photostructure.com/automatic-library-organiz... Email me at hello at photostructure.com or sign up for the beta. I'd love to hear what you think!

Already signed up, looking forward to trying it. I found this line on your blog:

https://support.photostructure.com/how-much-disk-space-do-i-... > As an example, if you have 250,000 images and videos, your library metadata and previews will consume about a half a terabyte.

I assume this is mostly from the preview image size and not meta data? This is where I was hoping for a configurable image size because I would be willing to have smaller previews to be able to store more metadata.

If the goal is to archive my entire life's photos or even use it for business use then at some point it looks like I would need a dedicated drive / computer just to view the photos on the other drives. If it is configurable then I could push this limitation further.

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#99

Post by mceachen »

pheeney wrote: post #97
mceachen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can absolutely use PhotoStructure for your use case. After you install, the second question you should pick "No thanks, I like my photos and videos where they already are." See https://support.photostructure.com/automatic-library-organiz... Email me at hello at photostructure.com or sign up for the beta. I'd love to hear what you think!

Already signed up, looking forward to trying it. I found this line on your blog: https://support.photostructure.com/how-much-disk-space-do-i-... > As an example, if you have 250,000 images and videos, your library metadata and previews will consume about a half a terabyte. I assume this is mostly from the preview image size and not meta data? This is where I was hoping for a configurable image size because I would be…

There are some knobs you can dial in PhotoStructure to reduce disk space consumption, at the cost of browsing speed.

I just added instructions for you to that post: https://support.photostructure.com/how-much-disk-space-do-i-...

Re: Ask HN: Personal photo library recommendations? Open source, browser-based

#100

Post by damianmoore »

jayniz wrote: post #81
damianmoore wrote: post #17

Shameless plug: I'm currently working on a solution called Photonix, though it's still very much pre-1.0 at the moment. https://photonix.org/ Installation is fairly simple with Docker, frontend is web-based (React), backend is Python with a sprinkling of Tensorflow. So far auto-tagging of photos by location, object detection and colour is fairly decent. UI is progressing and is useable on most devices, though quite m…

I have ~1TB of photos from various sources, including backups of old iPhoto libraries. Therefore I often have one photo available in many different sizes, cropped thumbnails, etc. I'd pay money for working duplicate detection :)

OK, noted ;)
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