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How to start with Kalimages software

What is IPTC/IIM ?

The IPTC (International Press and Telecommunications Council) is an international organization created in 1965 to develop and promote standards for the interchange of news data. It is based in Windsor, UK. In association with NAA (Newspaper Association of America), IPTC has defined a global data model called IIPTC-NAA  Information Interchange Model applicable to all types of data. (version 4 of October 1997 is known as IIMv4). This model was used as a basis for Adobe company to define their own metadata structures for textual information associated to images in its software Photoshop. Sub-elements are generally called IPTC information (or metadata or fields or headers). The 33 internal metadata fields that are embedded in Photoshop, JPEG, or TIFF files allow to describe images using text fields (Title, Author, Keywords, Categories, Copyright, etc. ) according to IIM data structure.

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Benefits of using IPTC/IIM:

Images described with IPTC fields will be transferred together with their related metadata (title, author keywords, copyright, news category etc.) when downloaded, copied or replicated because IPTC data is contained in the image itself. Therefore you can communicate in a single image file a textual description that can be managed by any software that supports IPTC. You can as well easily change from one search or catalog software to another, even create or rebuild an image metadata base from images themselves like Kalimages does. 

You can customize colors for tool tips for the slideshow via the menu Configuration + display options or using shortcut F4.

During the visualization let the cursor on one margin or corner of the screen to always show related picture information while the  Kalimages slideshow is running.

Limitations of IPTC/IIM:

• IPTC/IIM data set is fix and non standardly extensible. So, it is not possible to present in an easy way an important non  standard information like report concept; it was not included in IPTC/IIM data set.
  However, it is possible to define customized IIM information and non standard fields( see below ) but there is a risk that this information will be lost when image is processed by a software that does not support non standard fields. Kalimages allows you to manage 16 IIM customized fields.
• Multilingual descriptions are a little difficult with IPTC/IIM standard.
• Finally, you may experience some problems with headers not written using Latin characters sets or accents ( see below ).

New techniques such as XMP can bypass these limitations. Details on our French page: Métadonnées: une initiation (section XMP) . Few software support XMP, but despite these limitations,  IPTC/IIM information are largely used by professionals and will certainly stay a long time.

Why to prefer IPTC/IIM information rather than EXIF for images descriptions?

Following the example of IPTC/IIM information, EXIF information is also internal metadata stored inside image files. This is information about the photo and the camera used:  model, exposure, date, resolution, flash,  etc. Domains for use of the 2 different sets are distinct:

• IPTC/IIM: descriptive metadata for image semantic that is human added (Author, keywords, Copyright, etc.)
• EXIF: technical metadata automatically provided by digital cameras that generally and do not need modification. EXIF metadata should not be modified after the photo was taken.

IPTC/IIM standard was defined before digital cameras appeared and is being used since several years to describe digital images that were not created by digital cameras.

What is a customized non standards IIM information?

IPTC/IIM standard describes 33 metadata types(Title, Author, Keywords, etc.). Each type is defined by an english and a  number named DataSet between 1 and 254: Mot-clé = Keyword =  25, Titre =  Headline = 105, etc. [voir notre page Métadonnées: une initiation (section IPTC) ]. It is therefore possible to define IIM information using DataSet numbers that are  between 1 and 254 but different from those used by the standard: this is the customized non standard information.
You should use this information with care because you might loose it if the software you use to process your image does not include support for that.
Kalimages allows you to manage 16 different IIM customized fields per image and to define the DataSet number you want to allocate for each field. You can give meaningful names to your IIM customized fields in relation to the usage that you want:  Menu Configuration/IPTC Edit Options, click on Edit customized field names button.

How to manage IPTC/IIM Information?

You need to use an application that supports this standard to be able to display and edit image IPTC IIM information

A non exhaustive software list is available from our page: Métadonnées: une initiation (fin de la section IPTC) .(in French)
To use IPTC information for image classification and search purposes you must use an applicable that is able to create a database upon information embedded in your image collection because it is not possible to do an efficient search processing images one by one. Kalimages software solution allows you to:

• Create the database from IPTC headers from your image collection
• Rapidly search images based on IPTC information.
• Edit each IPTC information of an image (including non standard information) for example for Genealogy - Captioning Photos.
• Mass IPTC information edition for an image set using predefined templates.
  IPTC image data modified by Kalimages is also updated in its integrated data base to be consistent with information included into images themselves.

Operating systems supporting Kalimages photo indexer and searchable database software:

Kalimages is a Windows application running in Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003.
To allow an optimized thumbnails storage low resolution you need Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003 ( See below ).

Is Kalimages independant from KaliNews ?

Yes. Kalimages is a standalone application. You can use it to manage IPTC descriptions and as a very flexible search engine to find and manage your photos.
However, Kalimages is also integrated in KaliNews editorial system for an easy image attachment to a story managed by  KaliNews using a simple drag and drop from your photo database. Image legends and credits are automatically inserted into thee story from correspondent IPTC fields (Title et Credit).

• Kalimages Basic v1 is free, allows image search using  IPTC fields. It analyzes word occurences and generates exports to XML, HTML et PDF formats. The application then relies on existing IPTC data. You need a third party editor to manually modify image text data before updating your Kalimages Basic database.
  
• Kalimages v2 is the commercial version that allows you in addition to all search and analysis functions, to edit all kind of IPTC image fields, to set or mass update IPTC information for an image collection with the help of predefined and customizable templates. Kalimages provides also 16 champs IIM customizable fields per image. IPTC data updates managed with Kalimages are automatically synchronized into the internal database and consistent with IPTC information contained into images themselves. It includes support of the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I & II of Library of Congress

Which databases is used by Kalimages ?

Kalimages uses SQLite database technology. You can easily create several databases to managed different sets of images.
One single Kalimages database can have descriptions of photos stored on different foders. You choose which folders you want indexed in each database.

Is the image deteriorated when I modify IPTC information with Kalimages?

No. Kalimages IPTC integrated editor only updates IPTC fields that are like an object envelope. Nor the image neither any  EXIF data that may exist are changed. Image file is obviously updated as this information is an embedded internal metadata associated to the image that does not not affect the quality of the picture. If you need to archive image files before editing IPTC text with Kalimages you can select them and make a copy to an archive folder. But Kalimages provides parameter to do it: you can automatically save your original images when using IPTC edit functions by setting this option active via the menu Configuration/IPTC Edit Options, checking  Save original files in the following folder.

I have uptaded IPTC data associated to an image using Kalimages but I cannot see it using another application.  What happens?

Some applications doesn't provideIPTC/IIM data management. If for example, you add a field Contact to an image using  Kalimages and after you open this image using IrfanView (plugin IPTC), the field Contact is not displayed. If you edit the other IPTC fields using IrfanView and after open it in Kalimages, the field Contact will disappear because the plugin used by  IrfanView does not manage this field.
Remember that few IPTC editors keep the customized non standard IPTC data because they just support standard IPTC fields ( see upper ).
Conclusion: if you need to transfer described digital images, it is recommended to avoid use of customized non standard fields and to use the standard IPTC set managed by almost applications: Object name, Edit status, Urgency, Category, Supplemental categories, Keywords, Date created, Time created,  Author, City, Province/State, Country Code, Country, Headline, Credit, Copyright Notice, Caption.

Is Kalimages compliant with standard IPTC/IIM standard?

Quite! In fact as far as we know there is no application completely compliant with  IPTC/IIM. According IIMv4 document, the following fields can be repeated: Référence Service (n° 45), Byline (n° 80), Byline title (n° 85), Contact (n° 118), Writer-Editor (n° 122). It is not the case for Kalimages like all IPTC editors that follow what Adobe implemented in  Photoshop: only  Keyword (n° 25) and Supplemental Category (n° 20) fields are repeatable. According IIMv4, Category (n° 15) and Supplemental Category (n° 20) are obsolet. They are however often used by professionals and Kalimages manage them. FinallyLocal Caption (n° 121) field is not described in IIMv4 document; it is however used  by several IPTC editors and Kalimages supports it as well.

Maximal field lengths are also specified in IIMv4 document. Several IPTC editors do not stick to that limits. With Kalimages you can control the fields length according IPTC/IIM standard: menu Configuration/IPTC edition options, check Control fields length according to IPTC standard.

• Thumbnails display on low definition: JPEG, TIFF non compressed, PSD (Photoshop), BMP, GIF, PNG, etc.
• Display and search based on IPTC fields: JPEG, TIFF non compressed, PSD (Photoshop).
• IPTC edition: JPEG.

Where are the thumbnails low definition created by Kalimages stored?

Kalimages uses the NTFS technology (alternate streams) to store image low definition thumbnails. Thumbnail is the a kind of "sub-file" nammed :thumb attached to the image file. More information (in French) on page: Windows 2000 et les fichiers Macintosh, section Les streams NTFS .
This technology is available on the following Windows versions: NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and when images are stored on NTFS drives that are not set as read only access. If one of this is not available (images not on NTFS drives or in read only mode or if you use Windows 95, 98 or Me) thumbnails low definition are recalculated on each display/preview what of course is less powerful.
We choose this technique instead of storing thumbnails into database to keep good performance both for searching by words, displaying thumbnails.

Are my images deteriorated when I create thumbnails low definition?

No not at all. A low definition thumbnail is stored as an alternate stream NTFS relative to the image file but distinct. Consider the alternate stream as a cache memory of your image where your thumbnail is saved. If you copy an image file that have a thumbnail to a FAT drive (that does not support alternate streams), Windows will send you a warning to inform that you will loose the stream names :thumb, ie the thumbnail but of course the image itself will be copied with any corruption or deterioration to you FAT drive, with any IPTC information it might have embedded.

How to add a new language for user interface of Kalimages?

Available languages from Language menu of Kalimages correspond to files with  .lng extension stored into the sub-folder - Language of Kalimages. To add a new one for example German copy an existing one to German.lng in that folder. Open that file created using a Notepad or any other text editor and translate eall the messages to German. The new language (German) will automatically appear on your Language menu next time you launch Kalimages.

Why a lexicographical analysis tool into Kalimages?

The lexicographical analysis tool allows a better knowledge of the vocabulary used to write IPTC descriptions. Significant words used in IPTC text data are classified by number of occurrences. You can avoid to count words such as the, with, of, from, on, etc. considered as non significant or called Empty-words. Significant words with a big number of occurrences for an image set can be not very relevant and create confusion when searching. On the opposite side, words with a low number of occurrences - low rank - will allow you more accurate results when searching.
Kalimages allows you to highlight  unknown words not recognized by the orthographical corrector of Word (if Word is available on your computer). You can also display these words, probably wrong, preview the images where they are mentioned and update with right information using double-click on the word to easily correct those IPTC legends.

My photos or images have IPTC information created by a Macintosh application and accents are not well displayed in Kalimages. How to correct this?

Some IPTC editors available for Macintosh use specific character coding of Macintosh (before System X). Legends are then displayed with bad characters on an editor like Kalimages that uses Windows Character set. Don't worry, you can automatically switch to the other display mode choosing option Macintosh Accents instead of default option Windows Accents when you are IPTC editing with Kalimages.

If you need to work on a large number of images that you received and that have IPTC texts with accents created by a Macintosh user you can use our software CrossIPTC for a mass conversion of images descriptions with accents to Windows character set properly displayed for PC users.

How to manage documents in PDF format?

Here is an example of a PDF presentation created  by Kalimages (883 Ko): 
Generating a PDF document requires the following steps:

• Select images to process - image set should not be empty of course (selection Result number should be different from 0)
• Create an XML export ex.:Kalimages.xml under XML sub-folder of Kalimages:
  • menu Tools/XML Export, and click XML Export button. The program creates also the thumbnails under Thumbs folder.
• Format your XML export with XSL-FO transformation XSLT . Formatted document called Kalimages.fo:
  • In the same dialog box of Tools/XML Export, select XSL-FO+PDF transformation using drop down list box and click on Display XML.
    
• The transformation of your document Kalimages.fo into a PDF document  Kalimages.pdf uses a FOP processor (Formatting Output Processor). This step is done by the Fop.bat procedure automatically launched after the previous  XSLT step.
• Display Kalimages.pdf (automatic after previous FOP step).

You need to have previously installed the 2 following programs:

• MSXML 4.0 : XML free analyzer from Microsoft. It allows to transform the XML export created by Kalimages into a  XSL-FO document according the  XSL transformation (provided by Kalimages, but you can modify it).
• FOP : free program (GPL license) from Apache allows to convert XSL-FO documents to PDF. It is a Java program; a virtual Java machine should be installed on your computer
  You need to install FOP in a folder C:\Program Files\Fop or change the path to call OP in the procedure Fop.bat delivered with Kalimages if FOP is installed in another folder.

Yes, Kalimages let's you add standard keywords using predefined keywords catalogues, IPTC subject codes or Thesaurus for Graphic Materials from Library of Congress:

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