Re: Terminology

[Warren Baird <photogeekmtl gmail com>]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I see that the time has come to define certain terms for our own
> internal use. Please review my suggestions for definitions of these
> terms, and we can make them official.
>
> Plugin/Extension: This is any third-party addition to F-spot. We need
> to pick one name and use it- I vote for "Plugin"

sounds reasonable.

> Photo: One image that was produced by a digital camera, graphics
> program, or scanned image. An alternative word is "picture".

Also sounds reasonable.

> Tag: An arbitrary word or phrase added to a photo (by an end-user) to
> decribe the photo. A photo may have multiple tags, and a tag can be
> assigned to more than one photo.

Yup.

> Album: A group of photos that are kept together. A photo belonging to
> a particular album is said to be "in" the album- thus the same photo
> cannot be in any other album. If the user wants to have the same image
> (the visual part of a photo) in more than one album, then he must
> duplicate the Photo containing the image and place the duplicate in
> the second album. Furthermore, every image must belong to an album.

I disagree quite strongly here with the idea of each photo belonging to 
exactly one album.   This seems very artificial, and would be *very* 
annoying to me.

Conceptually (to me at least), I consider an album to be 'a sorted 
collection of photos suitable to present to someone'.   I would use 
albums to organize photos I might upload to flickr, or photos that I 
want to show to someone in a particular order to highlight a trip or a 
particular photo project.   I **WILL** regularly need to have a single 
photo represented in multiple albums - but I definitely do not want it 
duplicated, both for disk space issues, and because if I touch it up in 
one album, I don't want to have to manually find and update all of the 
other copies.

I'm also not sure why every photo needs to be in an album.   When I'm 
uploading a set of new photos, I might not yet have decided which albums 
each photo should go in.

I've described what I think is a very reasonable use case at the bottom 
of this email highlighting  why photos need to be in multiple albums.

> Library/Collection: A group of albums. This would contain all the
> photos that a particular installation of F-spot is designed to handle.
> We need to pick one name and use it- I vote for "Library".

Makes sense - I also like "Library".    An important thing to note is 
that I think the 'Library' is the right place to put the photos.db file, 
not the album as you suggested in a previous email.   moving photos 
between albums in a library needs to be quick and easy.    Moving photos 
between libraries needs to be possible, but it can be slower and more 
complex.

> Touchup: A change to an image that is made to correct camera error,
> such as red-eye reduction.
>
> Modify: A change to an image that is made to alter the content of the
> photo, such as removing your aunt from the photo.

Hmm.   The distinction here seems blurry...   Is adjusting the 
brightness/contrast a touchup or a modify?   By these definitions it 
depends on the intent of the change --- if I adjust the brightness cause 
the camera took a picture that is too dark, it's a touch up...  but if I 
adjust the brightness so that the person hiding in the shadows isn't 
visible any more, it's a modify.

What's the point of this distinction?  why do we need two terms for a 
change to a photo?

> Please let me know if these definitions are fitting, and could we
> ratify them? I think that common terminology is critical for
> communicating ideas between users and developers. If someone will open
> for me an account to the wiki (username "dotancohen", please) then I
> will maintain the terminology list.

I agree completely that having a set of agreed upon terms is very 
important.   I agree with most of the terms you've set up.   Album is 
the only one I really strongly disagree with.


> See bug #352669 for ideas about organising the albums (ie: organising
> the library) in F-spot. One question still remains, however. What
> should we call the group of photos that arise when modifing a photo,
> for example with red-eye remover?

I'll look at this bug when I have net access again...


Warren


Album Use Case

Fred takes a trip to the botanical gardens.   He takes several hundred 
pictures of the gardens.  There are a lot of pictures of flowers, and 
some pictures of his wife.   He had forgotten to upload the 50 pictures 
he had taken of some flowers in his back yard before going to the gardens.

Fred uploads all of the pictures into f-spot

Fred already has an album entitled "Great Pictures of Betty" (his wife) 
- he takes the best 4 or 5 pictures of his wife from the gardens and 
puts them in this album as well.

Fred puts the first 50 pictures from his back yard in his "Pictures from 
the back yard" album.

Fred takes the best 5 or 10 pictures of flowers from the entire set of 
new photos (his backyard *and* the botantical gardens) and puts them in 
his "Best Flower Pics" album.

Fred creates an album of photos representing his trip to the botanical 
gardens - he puts all of the photos from the botanical gardens in this 
album.





> Dotan Cohen
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