I am working with images a lot, and while I got around the rather simple image integration of Obsidian with various plugins and snippets the one thing I still miss is a way to organize them.
When the bases were announced I was quite excited as I hoped that I could create image galleries. But that is not possible unless you create a page of every image which tends to clutter the database.
Being able to tag images would already be a great start. It allows for the creation of image bases and it would make image search much easier. Another way to utilize properties for media would be the addition of sources the image came from. Even if it isn’t displayed in my note, I can still retrace my references that way.
I am also aware that image organization software like Tag Studio or Allusion can be used with the Obsidian folder, but keeping the work inside Obsidian would be great.
+1 I like the idea. Including for attachments like movies or music, so I can organize this media as ideas → sketches → projects as I create it.
But I guess I have no problem making a special template for media to host the properties as a page. The data is going to get stored somewhere. In my mind, it’s almost better if it’s consistent with the format of regular notes.
You can always make filters to exclude these media pages. Your template could include a property that tags it as media. media: [image, audio, movie, pdf] etc. Or you could store all media in a separate sub-folder which could be filtered.
And as Bases gets better, I imagine that integrating templates and grouping will get a lot easier. I saw a video where someone is already using Bases as a template generator. The Base properties become the structure of the template that gets created if you manage these elements through that Base.
Not to discount your idea. I like it. And a plugin could likely make managing this a lot easier. But I don’t see the clutter as a problem that can’t be solved. And the benefit of having a full note for each image means you can store properties, and include arbitrary notes and links in the body, when needed.
Also for example, if I take it back to music, I would typically store multiple versions of mp3 bounces together, as I compose a track. Having a page means they can all be stored in one item. Or separate when needed. (Coming from Trello, where I would add file versions, labels, todo lists, and comments into the single card that represents one “track”, and all its history and discussion.)
Thinking about it, Wikis also usually have their own media pages. This makes sense for stuff like version history, backlinks or some general information about the piece of media.
Also independent of the specific media, if it needs to be replaced/updated. But your plugin idea likely would store the data distinct from the actual file too.
As much as many of us would love some better image management, I would not hold my breath and for a good reason. Images are not markdown files. Obsidian is big on working with MD. If the devs did what you want, they would now be probing images for their internal metadata. And where do you stop? Why not also video, pdf, and every conceivable image format, etc etc. It quickly gets out of hand.
Again, I would love this functionality too; but I think this should stay in the realm of plugins. This is precisely why plugins exist - to allow edge cases to be implemented.
What I would see to make sense would be a plugin use MD files, one per image, residing where the image resides as a sidecar, that would save in it various metadata from the image. If the plugin did this, then obsidian as a whole could use these MD sidecar files and obsidian’s core principles would not be violated. The plugin could scan originally images in your vault and create the sidecars, and then monitor if a new type of image file is pasted into the vault to create the new sidecar.
FYI: this concept of sidecars is already used extensively with any good image management application