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We are operating a Synology 1517+ NAS which is responsible for storing images (PNG, JPEG etc.), however there are other non-photo/video files stored as well.

We are looking for an organisational tool to store images, categorize them and filter them. This tool/solution must run on Windows and OSX.

Ideally, it would help with the management and searching for photo's as well as videos (photo's are both tagged with e.g. the persons in it, the date on which it was taken and the location in which it was taken).

Functions which would be ideal:

  • Face recognition;
  • Search-option (maybe with filters?);
  • Ability to give a photo multiple tags (date, location, persons) to search easily.
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  • Hi Lisa! I edited your question to make it slightly more readable. Are you (or your father) comfortable with CLI tools? Do you have budgets? I've added an "answer" with a few potential approaches, and hope it helps. Please comment if you're unsure and I'll review the answer. – DankyNanky Jan 27 '18 at 17:18
  • Thanks for the edit! Probably for me and my dad CLI tools are okay, but as my sisters, brother and mother have to use it from time to time, it's probably better to not use those (that said: they are just a terminal-like interface right? I had to google haha). Budget wise: I actually don't know. I assume 'normal' program rates should be fine (<€100 at least!), but I'll share this link with my father so we can discuss the answers given! – Lisa Jan 27 '18 at 20:32
  • Did you find a solution for this question? – DankyNanky Apr 6 '18 at 14:28
  • As you speak of a NAS, another option would something running there and offering e.g. a Web interface to be used from the browser. There probably is something like that for Synology, as that brand is quite wide spread. – Izzy♦ Apr 6 '18 at 14:43
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Why not use the Photo Station app provided by Synology?

  • Face recognition; It has face recognition although it's still in beta
  • Search-option (maybe with filters?); It has tags and you can search by filtering date, filename etc.
  • Multiple-tags; this is also possible eg. France-Paris

It's accessible through WebUI and it's included from free on DSM. The Web UI it's accessible from any OS that has an up to date browser, I guess even mobiles, but haven't tried it.

You may have a demo here https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/feature/photo_station

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So what you're looking for, simply, is a DMS (Document Management System) allowing you to save filters for common search files using tags, filters, Created Dates and other friendly tags- so some sort of Metadata Editor may also be required.

For the Windows portion, I would suggest XYPlorer, however it fails to meet the OSX requirement. If this was of use, you can see my answer here on the product.

What I personally do, is operate my own local gallery via the LAN (use your NAS as the destination. A rather helpful guide on how to perform this can be found here, but this isn't all you'll need. This topic requires a rather technical approach.

EXIV 2

This is a command line tool capable of editing metadata on files. The descriptor is as follows:

Exiv2 is a Cross-platform C++ library and a command line utility to manage image metadata. It provides fast and easy read and write access to the Exif, IPTC and XMP metadata and the ICC Profile embedded within digital images in various formats. Exiv2 is available as free software and is used in many projects including KDE and Gnome Desktops as well as many applications including GIMP, darktable, shotwell, GwenView and Luminance HDR.

Of course, this too will require some CLI (Co-mmand Line Interface). A great guide can be found here. For example, adding a meta-tag of "mytag", you would need to exucute the following command:

exiv2.exe -M "add Iptc.Application2.Keywords String mytag" myphoto.JPG

This tool is considered a more stable replacement to EXIFutils, which has been discontinued.

I assume accessing the NAS on OSX and Windows is simple enough (I think OSX uses smb://IP/SHARE/...right?) so all we need to do now is ensure when a file is added, moved, or renamed the metadata is updated.

If you enable Bash on Windows 10 and have an admin account on OSX you could create a CRON Job to identify files with no specific tags/metadata. Assumptions are made and are just "food for thought" though... ;)

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  • Hmm I think this sounds too difficult for the use we imagine it for. I prefer something user friendly, if that's possible. It has to be used by people who aren't very technical. – Lisa Jan 27 '18 at 21:28
  • @Lisa That's fine. Look at the Meta-Editor URL for your own references. – DankyNanky Jan 28 '18 at 5:19

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