Automated discovery, assignment, and submission of image metadata to a network-based photosharing service

1. An automated metadata discovery and assignment system, comprising:

at least one client capable of communicating with a server over a network, the client configured to store a plurality of digital files and an automation application, wherein, when executed using the client, the automation application is functional for:

downloading a plurality of metadata fields from the server,

discovering any pre-existing metadata values associated with a first image file and using the metadata values to automatically populate corresponding downloaded metadata fields,

displaying both the pre-existing and automatically populated metadata values to the user for viewing and editing,

recording the metadata values assigned to the first image file for use with a next image file, and

using the values assigned to the first image file to automatically populate a portion of the metadata fields for the next image file.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the automation application is functional for analyzing the content of the first image file and automatically populating one or more of the downloaded metadata fields with respective metadata values based on the analysis.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the automation application allows the user to perform edits on an image included in the first image file.

4. The system of claim 1 comprising: a graphical user interface (GUI) for displaying the metadata values to the user and for displaying forms by which the user can enter and edit metadata values.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the GUI displays the metadata values in a manner that visually distinguishes various categories of metadata for the user.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the automation application includes a plug-in interface.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the automation application provides built-in support for a plurality of image file formats, the system including: at least one file type plug-in for interacting with the automation application through the plug-in interface to enable the automation application to support new file formats.

8. The system of claim 1 comprising: at least one image recognition plug-in configured to analyze the content of the first image file, wherein the automation application is functional for automatically populating one or more of the downloaded metadata fields with respective metadata values based on the analysis.

9. The system of claim 1 comprising: a history repository for recording the metadata values assigned to the image.

10. A method for automatically discovering and assigning metadata for digital image files, the method comprising:

downloading a plurality of metadata fields;

selecting a first image file and parsing the image file to extract metadata values therein, and using the metadata values to automatically populate a portion of the downloaded metadata fields with the extracted values;

displaying a list of the downloaded metadata fields and the corresponding automatically populated values that were extracted from the first image file;

allowing a user to fill-in unpopulated metadata fields and to edit the automatically populated metadata fields;

recording the metadata values assigned to the first image file; and

retrieving a next image file and using the values assigned to the first image file to automatically populate a portion of the metadata fields for the next image file.

11. The method of claim 10 , comprising:

using at least one image recognition application to automatically analyze the image file;

associating the image file with a particular category based on the analysis; and

automatically populating at least one of the downloaded metadata fields with a value indicating the assigned category.

12. The method of claim 11 comprising: allowing image type plug-ins to interface with an application for performing the method through a plug-in interface to increase a number of image file types supported by the application.

13. The method of claim 12 further including: allowing the user to edit an image depicted in the first image file using the application.

14. The method of claim 13 further including: providing rotation, color correction, and cropping as image editing functions.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein when displaying the downloaded metadata fields, the method comprises: indicating to the user which ones of the metadata fields are automatically populated with metadata values extracted from the first image file, and which ones of the metadata fields are to be manually entered by the user.

16. The method of claim 15 comprising: displaying different categories of metadata differently as a visual aid to the user.

17. The method of claim 10 comprising: indicating to the user which ones of the metadata fields are optional fields and which are required fields.

18. The method of claim 10 wherein the metadata values assigned to the first image file are recorded in a history repository.

19. The method of claim 18 comprising: providing the history repository as a plug-in to an application for performing the method.

20. The method of claim 10 comprising: placing the first and next image file and corresponding metadata in a queue for uploading to a photosharing service.

21. An automated metadata discovery and assignment system, comprising:

at least one client capable of communicating with a server over a network, the client configured to store a plurality of digital files and an automation application, wherein, when executed using the client, the automation application is functional for:

downloading a plurality of metadata fields from the server,

analyzing the content of the first image file and automatically populating one or more of the downloaded metadata fields with respective metadata values based on the analysis,

discovering any pre-existing metadata values associated with a first image file and using the metadata values to automatically populate corresponding downloaded metadata fields,

displaying both the pre-existing and automatically poplulated metadata values to the user for viewing and editing,

recording the metadata values assigned to the first image file for use with a next image file, and

using the values assigned to the first image file to automatically populate a portion of the metadata fields for the next image file.

22. A computer readable medium containing a computer program for automatically discovering and assigning metadata for digital image files, the computer program comprising executable instructions for:

downloading a plurality of metadata fields;

selecting a first image file and parsing the image file to extract metadata values therein, and using the metadata values to automatically populate a portion of the downloaded metadata fields with the extracted values;

displaying a list of the downloaded metadata fields and the corresponding automatically populated values that were extracted from the first image file;

allowing a user to fill-in unpopulated metadata fields and to edit the automatically populated metadata fields;

recording the metadata values assigned to the first image file; and

retrieving a next image file and using the values assigned to the first image file to automatically populate a portion of the metadata fields for the next image file.