Embed Picasa Tags

A CLI program to embed picasa tags from .picasa.ini into individual image files

Description

Picasa (desktop version) doesn't write tags to PNG or any other files except JPEG. Instead, it stores the tag information in .picasa.ini files (per-directory). This script allows you to read these tags from .picasa.ini and write them to individual image files in EXIF, IPTC and/or XMP formats. It will do this recursively for every directory. It can also optionally convert the images to some other format.

Requirements

• PHP 5.1 or higher (tested with php-5.3.15 / Linux)
• php-gd extension.
• exiv2 or higher (tested with exiv2-0.23), OR exiftool 9.x or higher (tested with exiftool-9.43)
• (optional) ImageMagick's convert command for format conversion

Picasa ini files must be generated by Picasa 3.9.12 or newer (tested with version 3.9.137 (Build 69) under Windows 7).

Tag support by various programs:

• Picasa does not support any tags in PNG files (probably any files except JPEG).
• Picasa will read both MWG and WPG faces, but will write only MWG.
• Windows Photo Gallery supports only WPG.
• DigiKam (as of 3.5.0) supports reading Picasa-written MWG (but not exiftool- or exiv2-written files) and WPG. Writing is in development.

Usage (Linux CLI)

php embed_picasa_tags.php <input_directory> <output_directory>

.picasa.ini files will be searched for in the input directory.

Configuration

Configuration constants are defined and described in the beginning of the script.

Copyright

(C) 2013 Alexander Shaduri ashaduri@gmail.com

License: Zlib