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Thread ID: 86592 2008-01-21 22:27:00 ACDSee Captions Thomas01 (317) Press F1
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632650 2008-01-21 22:27:00 ACDSee is the only photo program I know that allows you to give each photo a caption. You know "Aunty Bett at Brighton 1927"
Many programs have some sort of similar attributes but insist on changing the caption to "Aunty, Bett, at, Brighton, 1927,
Bit daft really. But ACDSee went rapidly downhill after version3 - I even got my money back from them for I think it was v7 when I found it took twice as long to find photos and missed half of them compared to the free version 3 that came with my first printer.
I wonder if any programs come with the ability to accept the ACDSee version3 files that show the captions and change them to their own version.
I am considering trying Linux but need to be able to still have access to the 7000 plus captions I have already written.
Tom
Thomas01 (317)
632651 2008-01-22 00:53:00 Does it store the captions in the IPTC data or does it make some sort of attached text file?
Most imaging programs store captions/keywords/dates etc in IPTC data within the image.
Photoshop does this, as does Irfanview if you want something free.

In Linux, digiKam and F-Spot photo manager both use IPTC data to store captions and other info.
racepics (7812)
632652 2008-01-22 02:14:00 Does it store the captions in the IPTC data or does it make some sort of attached text file?
Most imaging programs store captions/keywords/dates etc in IPTC data within the image.
Photoshop does this, as does Irfanview if you want something free.

In Linux, digiKam and F-Spot photo manager both use IPTC data to store captions and other info.

ACDSee (old versions) scan the drive and place a file called descript.ion in each folder containing photos.
Later versions used one single data file and this was an utter and complete failure although I believe v9 manages to get things up and running again (again using a data file).
Tom
Thomas01 (317)
632653 2008-01-22 06:06:00 Thats unfortunate. You can bet that Descript file is what holds the index of image captions.
There is a linux program that does that sort of thing too ( gThumb ) its excellent in every respect apart from the captioning.

The industry standard these days is to put the caption and associated image-info into the IPTC data. That way it goes with the image wherever you send it ( for example a magazine or newspaper )
They open it in Photoshop and they have the caption..

You may well find that ACDSee has created a proprietary format of captioning only used by itself.. Which is useless if you want to switch applications..

Will ACDSee let you edit IPTC data ?
racepics (7812)
632654 2008-01-23 05:21:00 Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) by Google is a great ACDSee replacement and has a "captions" feature as well as a keywords feature too (which is what you're referring to when other programs mess with your caption). Very nice app to use and generally regarded as the best program for organising personal photos and albums. sal (67)
632655 2008-01-23 19:50:00 Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) by Google is a great ACDSee replacement and has a "captions" feature as well as a keywords feature too (which is what you're referring to when other programs mess with your caption). Very nice app to use and generally regarded as the best program for organising personal photos and albums.

I have had Picasa ever since it first came out and kept up to date with the various versions. And I still fail to understand its logic. Its fun I agree to play with but incredibly weird. Probably the worst thing I have used for organising and working with photos. But it started to use captions as well as keywords and if I remember correctly uses a similar method to store the info that ACDsee started off with. I got in touch with Picasa as I considered that if people could convert from ACDSee files to Picasa it would be an advantage to them.
They felt my suggestion was interesting and they would look at it - but I very much doubt that anything was actually done. Because it is free, because it is run by Google, because it is fun to use I feel that its many other faults will be forgiven and it will be with us for a long time when other programs have been forgotten. Which is why I felt it may be worthwhile me switching - if only I take my ACDSee captions with me and also try to understand the strange logic and complicated way of working.
Tom
Thomas01 (317)
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