I don’t have any proprietary DAM software like Lightroom, PhotoMechanic, etc.
But I do have a browsing app that I am in the midst of writing myself and I have just come to the point of adding in keyword functionality and want to ensure that I stored keywords in a place that most apps could access.
My key criteria are :
- if possible, that the keywords are stored in the image file so that…
- image files could be searched by keyword in macOS Spotlight
- PhotoLab could read them
I can also create XMP sidecars from the image files if I need them for compatibility with other apps.
The bottom line is, for those who are so technically inclined, as long as the keywords are put in the XMP:Subject tag, they are available to both the operating system and PhotoLab. So, for maximum compatibility, you might like to consider a DAM that can write to the image file directly, then you can transfer your files to other locations without having to worry about XMP sidecars as well.