Image Metadata Editor

Question

I have been looking for inserting descriptions into my pictures. Unfortunately, there isn't any option to edit Metadata in File Explorers (I tried Thunar and Nautilus). I wouldn't like to have a photo gallery software just to do that, and, by the way, I couldn't find any of those that allows me to edit metadata in a straight-forward way. I have to navigate through a lot of menus in order to do that.
Basically, I was looking for a plugin or other software that enhanced the "Image" tab on Thunar, so I could see and edit all file metadata there. Honestly, I don't know how do you guys keep your photo albums organized without this feature.

Answer 1

I've found Shotwell pretty straightforward to edit tags. However, I personally also use feh + dmenu + a script I found somewhere to view and edit metadata. The latter method I find quite speedy when I've imported a bunch of photos. The script is
image-metadata.sh:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -lt 2 ]
then
echo -e usage: "$0 <action> <filename>\n actions: edit-comment, edit-tags"
exit -1
fi
action=$1
file=$2
if [ "$action" == "edit-comment" ]
then
commentText=$(echo | dmenu -t "$(exiv2 -Pt -g Exif.Photo.UserComment $file)")
if [ $? -ne 1 ] # not aborted
then
if [ -z "$commentText" ]
then
exiv2 -M"del Exif.Photo.UserComment" $file
else
exiv2 -M"set Exif.Photo.UserComment $commentText" $file
fi
fi
fi
if [ "$action" == "edit-tags" ]
then
exiv2 -Pt -g Iptc.Application2.Keywords $file > /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
selection=$(exiv2 -Pt -g Iptc.Application2.Keywords $file | dmenu -sb "#000" -nf "#aaa" -nb "#222" -sf "#509ba6" -fn 'Deja Vu Sans Mono-14:bold' -l 10)
if [ -n "$selection" ]
then
exiv2 -M "del Iptc.Application2.Keywords" $file
while read keyword
do
if [ "$selection" != "$keyword" ]
then
exiv2 -M "add Iptc.Application2.Keywords String $keyword" $file
else
deleted=true
fi
done < /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
if [ -z $deleted ]
then
exiv2 -M "add Iptc.Application2.Keywords String $selection" $file
fi
fi
rm /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
fi
if [ "$action" == "show" ]
then
comment=$(exiv2 -Pt -g Exif.Photo.UserComment $file)
exiv2 -Pt -g Iptc.Application2.Keywords $file > /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
echo -n Comment: $comment, "Keywords: "
first=true
while read keyword
do
if [ $first == "false" ]
then
echo -n ", "
fi
echo -n $keyword
first="false"
done < /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
echo
rm /tmp/._image_keywords.txt
fi
It requires exiv2, iptc, and dmenu. (Also ttf-dejavu, but you can edit out that font choice ) The script is not mine; unfortunately, I cannot remember where I found it.
Then in .config/feh/themes, put
tag --action2 ";/path/to/image-metadata.sh edit-comment %f" --action1 ";/path/to/image-metadata.sh edit-tags %f" --info "/path/to/image-metadata.sh show %f"
Browse pictures with "feh -Ttag *.jpg" for instance, then press 1 to edit tags, press 2 to edit comments.