[Feature] Stacked Photos

[mirisbowring]

The feature

Immich has become really great and has some "killer features" in contrast to other solutions like librephotos or photoprism.
Still there is one feature missing i really liked in photoprism.

It's the Photostack.
When i e.g. shoot an Image with my Sony A6500 i can configure the camera to output RAW+JPEG.
The Files will be named ABC001.ARW and ABC001.JPEG (same name except file extension).
If i edit this image on Lightroom e.g. The result is exported as ABC001-1.JPEG (another iteration as ABC001-2.JPEG, etc.).

As far as i understand immich right now, I would have the same photo (example from above) 3 times in the timeline assumed that #2156 is resolved.

Instead, i would like to display only the latest iteration e.g. (...-2.JPEG) as thumbnail and have the option to show all versions in the detailed view.

This Feature would also apply to high frequency photos. Imagine you shoot a fast scene with multple shoots per second and you end up with 30 Photos. You don't want to have each frame separately in the timeline. Instead, those images could be stacked and shown as "single image" with the option to show them all in details.

Besides, thank you for this great work and product and have a nice weekend!

Regards

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[bo0tzz]

Can you check the EXIF data of those files and let us know whether there is a matching UUID or such between them?

[jrasm91]

I think there are some related discussions around burst photos from phones. I think they are similar with many pictures but only a single "primary" thumbnail/target image. I've wondered if this could be "solved" by adding the option to link photos to a "parent". That would allow tracking relationships between assets, being able to pick a "primary" one (for the thumbnail), etc. Separately, and probably more difficult, would be figuring out how to link them (automatically). This is a bit how live photos works. A motion and a still are linked, then the motion is marked as hidden and not shown in the timeline.

[mirisbowring]

On the paper you are right. Those are linked photos. Technically, i would display / mark photos (-groups) that contain a RAW Image separately to directly identify them. In short term they should be "mergable" manually.

An automatic approach would still be preferred (probably we could adapt the photoprism approach for this) - like same Filename (with an ascending number) and same camera model, etc.

Especially when shooting many Photos with RAW+JPEG it would be very beneficial. Manually Mapping hundrets of photos is a nogo unfortunately :)

[akoen]

As a first pass combining photos (especially RAW+JPG) with the same base filename taken at the same time would be a killer feature as Immich grows to accommodate DSLR/mirrorless cameras.

[mirisbowring]

I would also add the Camera Model to the comparison - just to make sure :)

[AngelaDMerkel]

I would like to caution against using a file naming technique to handle burst images, because there are many instances where two separate and distinct images could be taken in close sequence and display an incremented filename, but ought not to be stacked. I see the usefulness of this though, and it depends on how each user names their files. In my case, it would cause a serious disruption if automatic, so perhaps a toggle to enable this feature?

[lorenz]

I would also very much appreciate this and would be willing to work on it as soon as we come up with a design. All photos shot with my camera are typically JPEG+RAW. My typical workflow is that I import them and like to have the JPEG visible, but the RAW available for download. If I see particularly good photos (or ones which the camera did a poor job) I download the RAW, develop it into a JPEG and would like to upload that JPEG as the new image to show, keeping the attached RAW image. What would also be great is if I could attach profiles (XMP, PP3, ...) which are small (usually text) files containing the settings used to develop a RAW to the JPEG so that if something needs to be changed later or a new RAW development is needed, I can pick up from the development settings of the last JPEG.

[mirisbowring]

Another Case from me:
I have JPEG+RAW and improve the images in Lightroom. Sometimes i don't have "this final image" Its more like "I cannot decide between those 2 or 3 versions - why bot keep them"

Therefore the stack could contain multiple "production fotos" (monochrome, color, etc.)

It should be easy to see all images that are in the stack.

[lorenz]

Yeah, I'd think it would be useful to design with multiple stacked images in mind from the beginning as that will definitely come up.

[mirisbowring]

Probably via an accordion within the sidebar when the stack was opened 🤔

[pensivescow]

I would also like to be able to manually stack photos. In case you use Immich to save drawings, there are slightly different pictures that I would like to stack them.

PhotoPrism didn't do a good job of this, its AI couldn't handle the drawings so it required to rename the file before uploading, which was very annoying.
I think it's very difficult for AI to handle drawings correctly at the moment, so allow user to manually stack photos.

Tysm.

[SiriusBlue5120]

I could be wrong, but I don't think PhotoPrism stacks images by perceptual similarity. Is that what you were referring to as 'AI' here? It does stack by filename, yes.

[SiriusBlue5120]

I did some peeking into the EXIF data from a burst taken on an iPad and found that there is indeed a matching UUID called a Burst UUID in the EXIF data. I assume its similar for iPhones as well.

I also found some documentation regarding Apple Tags here.

Here's an example:

135A10E2-A933-42EF-B411-EB1FBA003C12.JPG

and

2FD9EEAD-BA17-4813-9EBF-D44FFDAFA0C0.JPG

Note that the Burst UUID is exactly similar while the Sub Sec Time tags vary.

My two cents is to only rely on UUIDs for matching and stacking photos - I've had issues with PhotoPrism stacking unrelated images due to similar filenames (e.g. Hello.JPG and Hello.MP4 and even Hello_1.MOV into the same stack, if I recall correctly) and stacking unrelated screenshots due to them being imported using PhotoSync at roughly the same time (since they lack Date/Time Original).

A UUID would ensure that none of these conflicts happen, but would be limited to cameras that do write a Burst UUID or similar into EXIF. Alternatively, photos could be manually stacked if the user so desires.

[lorenz]

We'd still have to see if RAW images typically have such an identifier. If yes, that would be optimal however with the wide range of RAW formats available I think it's likely that at least one common format doesn't. So we still have to have a solution if that's not possible.

[lorenz]

So I checked and for my Nikon camera there is no such UUID, at least for regular photos (haven't checked burst, don't think I have any of these in my library). But the EXIF metadata is (mostly) the same between the RAW and the JPEG, so I think camera model + serial number + 10ms accurate creation timestamp all hashed together should produce good results.

[Rydberg95]

Semi related to
#1885

, which also involves handling/using EXIF Burst info.

[sibbl]

I'd also like to move my photo library to Immich but have a bunch of raw files next to jpeg files, which are currently displayed as 2 separate images.

Would love to get this feature 🙏

[ebbyb]

So back in my youthful photography career, I amassed an Aperture vault of 2TB of RAW, JPG, and Photoshop files. (That was pretty good back then) Aperture grouped all these copies/versions into Stacks and made it so easy to find and manage files. I've been waiting for somesort of stacking feature for years and this is the main reason I haven't fully adopted any online solution yet.

It would be amazing to have versions grouped together. If you need more sorce/EXIF data to test, I can provide some more images.

So a big +1 for this feature form me. Thanks for all your hard work. It's great watching this software evolve and grow over time.

[klaus1k]

A thing that has to be considered for this feature is how downloads should be handled.
For my use case that would mostly be stacking of raw + jpeg. The jpeg in front. If I share these as an album with friends, they are only interested in the jpegs, which should in my opinion be able to download.

Or make it possible to choose from options:

• download front files/images only
• download all files
• maybe even: download base files/raws only

[klaus1k]

This sounds like a good solution!
Best would probably be the highest level of arbitration: In the end it shouldn't matter how many images are stacked, what format they are in, or why they are stacked (burst shot, google like "top" shot, developed image,...)

[AngelaDMerkel]

There should be a good default behaviour for handling stacking. A lot of users are discussing this feature in the context of importing their entire lives' photo libraries including RAW and manually reviewing each stack isn't practical. If there is a stacking feature it should involve an automated behaviour on import with clear, fixed rules.

[lorenz]

By default I'd just pick the latest developed image.

[klaus1k]

I also think that this should be there right from the start of this feature - we could start with stacking by filenames as a standard. Later on this could be expanded to ML stacking or whatever...

[jrasm91]

One idea is all files are individual assets that go through the same default pipeline, this makes it really simple.

Then we can let an asset l have a "parent" referring to another asset. This is essentially how live photos work.

Stacked photos are just multiple photos all belonging to the same parent.

We can exclude assets with parents in the main timeline.

We can, during metadata extraction, come up with a way to auto create stacks. We could have some configurable options for what gets automatically linked, etc.

[mardom1]

Not sure if this is implied, but please also allow grouping of files that are in different directories (import library). I have my raw files in a subdirectory to the edited ones.

I.e.

some-album/
  raw/
    IMG_0001.CR3  # Camera RAW
    IMG_0001.JPG  # Camera JPG (if present)
  IMG_0001.jpg  # Manually edited JPG

[ebbyb]

EDIT: welll... sorry, I tried to get that indenting working like mardom1. Failed pretty good. Hope it still makes sense.

I like mardom1's structure, though if I may offer some suggestions:

storage_template/
stack_IMG_0001/ #1
.hero #2
.thumbnails #4
IMG_0001.CR3 # Camera RAW
IMG_0001.JPG # Camera JPG (original in this example)
IMG_0001-20230926.jpg # Edited JPG version added to stack #3
IMG_0001-final.psd # Photoshop version
IMG_0001-final.jpg # Manually edited JPG

Changes and reasoning:
#1 stack_* identifies a folder to process as an image set containing all files and variations.
#2 .hero file specifies user selected display version; defaults to newest created (JPG for easy processing?) file.
#3 versions with duplicate filenames would have creation date appended. (Probably not going to run into that too often, but crossed my mind with the above example)
#4 I don't know if you really need a thumbnail folder, some raw files have built-in thumbnails that may be extractable, but just in case, I'm guessing those of us with a tiny NAS CPU's don't want to process thousands of RAW files more than once. It might be handy just in case. ;)

Anyways, thanks for reading!

[ebbyb]

allow grouping of files that are in different directories

I don't know why that didn't click, but I just did a facepalm. My suggestion is exactly not that.

My stacks are more media management, while your stacks are more (I'll call it something different to reduce confusion) groups. Moving files together suits my needs better, but I totally get the merits of groups.

I've also been thinking about the pros/cons of phashes. (Yeah, just daydreaming) Groups would be better suited if there were some phash detection as groups could be modified easily without moving files. Both could be displayed the same in the UI.

[Willena]

Stacking RAW and JPEGs would be nice. I would make my library cleaner.
Here is what I think it could look like in the library to be able to identify assets with "linked" content

[ebbyb]

Oh! That looks nice with that little icon!

[AngelaDMerkel]

I think it would helpful if there were different stack iconography to indicate (for example) burst images and RAW+JPEG stacks maybe through the inclusion of the aperture blade icon often in use when representing raw files.

[ajnart]

Some kind of badge (RAW + JPG) like on iOS photos app would be very nice

[archerne]

I am really loving this stack feature since my phone save the RAW+JPEG. Would it be possible to auto-stack those photos though? I have many many months of photos to go through and stack manually and it has become a major time-consuming adventure. The photos have the same name but different extensions. abc123.dng and abc123.MP.jpg

[ajnart]

Also would love this stacked feature, I always shoot in JPG+RAF (Fujifilm RAW) so it would be nice to have all the files accessible as one inside of immich, like how Photoprism does it or Apple photos showing a RAW/JPG badge on top of the image when you view it in full size, then when you click on the information about it you can download the "original" which is the raw file

[Ember-ruby]

(pixel 7p, default app) i checked the exif, but there doesn't seem to be anything directly relating the RAW and JPEG, but the filenames are the same, other than the extension, wouldn't that be good enough?

[FibreTTP]

The Camera app (at least on Pixels) now saves JPG and RAW files in the same directory (which is fine, but) with the naming format: PXL_YearMonthDay_HourMinuteSecondMillisecond.RAW-<01.COVER.jpg | 01.MP.COVER.jpg | 02.ORIGINAL.dng>

• JPG: PXL_20231225_041836351.RAW-01.COVER.jpg
• RAW: PXL_20231225_041836351.RAW-02.ORIGINAL.dng

Where the date and time is in UTC (I think... the time is at least).

There still doesn't seem to be any EXIF tags that denote which raw file belongs to what JPG (and vice versa).

[gabemcg]

Yes, this is causing raw and jpg to not be auto stacked when uploaded. I also noticed a strange bug on my wife's phone where the Raw (DNG) files don't have the correct orientation when uploaded from her Pixel 6 Pro (taken with the default camera app). The Jpg files and thumbnails for both jpg and dng files appear with the correct orientation but when you open the dng file in the android app they show up rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise. They appear correctly oriented when viewed in a web browser, and even via partner sharing on my phone. It seems to be just her phone's immich app that displays the wrong orientation for raw files. The Google Photos App on her phone shows them correctly as well.

[aisbergde]

and what about assigning each item a fingerprint for similarity detection (which is on the road map) and give an option to stack by similarity? Then this could be a setting and stacking could happen for different users by their own threshold.

This should be additional to stacking by a burst id or some other id, detecting related pictures.

[lgrawet]

This is how photoprism is doing it according their documentation.
This would be a good start!
https://docs.photoprism.app/user-guide/organize/stacks/

1. Files that have exactly the same file and folder name are always stacked, for example /2018/IMG_1234.jpg and /2018/IMG_1234.avi
2. Files with related, sequential names like /2018/IMG_1234 (2).jpg and /2018/IMG_1234 (3).jpg may be stacked as well (optional)
3. Pictures were taken at the same GPS position and second (optional)
4. Image metadata contains the same Unique Image ID or XMP Instance ID (optional)

You can change the behaviour for 2 - 4 in [Settings > Library](https://docs.photoprism.app/user-guide/settings/library/).

[lgrawet]

Totally agree with both of you. However, file name is meant to cover most of cases.
For the rest, there is "Place & Time" and "Unique ID" are selected by default in photoprism ("Sequential Name" is not).
What it means is file name is not an option but you can alter defaults for the rest.

[mirisbowring]

But filename does only work if you have an existing folder structure. By default immich stores this in "a database".
Like when i upload today IMG_1 (which was shot 10 years ago) it will be processed and everything is fine.

Tomorrow i go to the store and buy a new camera. I make a test shot and upload it! Unfortunately the camera just used the default naming and this image is also named IMG_1!

According to your approach, immich would import it, check the filename, will see that there is another one with this name (luckily deduplication is based on checksums and not names) and would stack them - falsely!

So there must be metadata verification. Just because photoprism is doing it this way, does not necessarily mean this is the correct way for implementation! Especially since photoprism and immich have an different view on how to organize things.

[ajnart]

But filename does only work if you have an existing folder structure. By default immich stores this in "a database".
Like when i upload today IMG_1 (which was shot 10 years ago) it will be processed and everything is fine.

Tomorrow i go to the store and buy a new camera. I make a test shot and upload it! Unfortunately the camera just used the default naming and this image is also named IMG_1!

According to your approach, immich would import it, check the filename, will see that there is another one with this name (luckily deduplication is based on checksums and not names) and would stack them - falsely!

So there must be metadata verification. Just because photoprism is doing it this way, does not necessarily mean this is the correct way for implementation! Especially since photoprism and immich have an different view on how to organize things.

I think you are mistaken, what @lgrawet demonstrated is that photoprism only uses metadata to stack its photos, with Time and location information. I believe this makes the most sense, names are really arbitrary. Then there is the option to stack them with a unique id (if it exists on the metadata that is) and optionally to merge copies of the same photos (IMG_4302(3).png for a photoshop export for example)

I believe having the stacking feature for edited pictures would also be great, it's what Lightroom does when you do an edit using photoshop

[lgrawet]

More precisely, in their approach they first match "Files that have exactly the same file and folder name" (mandatory) then they try other subsequent optional criterias. This may help to save cpu time...

Immich doesn't save assets in DB. They are stored on disk according this default storage template until v1.92.0

{{y}}/{{y}}-{{MM}}-{{dd}}/{{filename}}

Starting from v1.92.0, all assets remain by default in the upload directory for new installs. See corresponding release notes

[cole21771]

This would be amazing

[WarlockFish]

When will this feature be added? When raw photos cannot be recognized, purple photos will appear 。After Stacked Photos, JPG photos can be directly displayed。
in immich

in photoprism

[odedia]

I don't know if it's the same feature request, but if I'm importing from iCloud a set of images that is RAW+JPEG, I only see the JPEGs in immich. It's as if the RAW is ignored during import.
If it's just a RAW file and not RAW+JPEG in Apple Photos, then the RAW file IS being imported as expected.

[pascalbrunner]

I would really really love the stack option. Perhaps thats something for immich v2.0? :P

[karldonteljames]

the idea of stacking images so that raw and jpg's is brilliant. being able to open/view access either one by selecting the thumbnail is great. We have a few cameras in our house, and often save both RAW and JPG Files, mostly they are Nikon and Sony, but have some Olympus images in my catalogue. They are almost always saved with the same file name - although before they are imported into immich (on a schedule) they are organised as follows (which I guess wouldn't make a difference as the exif data would match.

-Folder1
--Picture1.jpg
--Picture2.jpg
--RAW Files
---Picture1.NEF
---Picture2.NEF

Would love to see this implemented if possible.

[tuupola]

Stacking atleast RAW and JPG files is a feature I am also looking for.

[NIronwolf]

I would also love to be able to stack bracketed pictures. Right now for a 3 bracket picture I'm getting 6 images since it's starting with JPG+RAW then the over and under exposed from the bracket. :D

[alyssadev]

I'm not sure if stacking is a feature recently introduced into Immich, or if the community just doesn't know about it yet. It's in the dropdown menu for any selected items.

I figured out how to stack files based on filename using the API. This code is minimally tested and I take no responsibility for use without understanding it fully (MIT license). It gets all files with .mp4 extension and a matching .jpg, and stacks the mp4s under the jpgs, because in my case they're all motion photos that google pulled the videos from. Change mp4 to raw or adjust the code to collect multiple files based on matching filenames and put them all into the ids array in the data variable.

from os import environ
from requests import get, put
headers={"x-api-key": environ["IMMICH_API"]}
ASSET_URL = "http://localhost:2283/api/asset"

assets = {a["originalFileName"]:a for a in get(ASSET_URL, headers=headers).json()}
for fn,a in assets.items():
  if fn[-3:].lower() == "mp4" and fn.split(".")[0]+".jpg" in assets: # change mp4 to raw or whatever you need
    print(fn,assets[fn.split(".")[0]+".jpg"]["originalFileName"],end="")
    data = {"ids": [a["id"]], "stackParentId": assets[fn.split(".")[0]+".jpg"]["id"]}
    print(": success" if put(ASSET_URL, headers=headers, json=data) else ": failed")
    break # remove if working as expected

[Willena]

The "manual stacking features" is available for quite some time now. It currently lacks something automated that can at least suggest stacks.
Until something is implemented in immich, I've started a project gathering tools / script that at some point helped me at https://github.com/Willena/immich-tools
The stacking implementation I made is a little bit more complex (based on some of the exif properties). Hopefully it can help someone.

[lgrawet]

This was merged in October but it is currently partial implementation and only works in timeline.
See #4198

Stacking is only handled in the main timeline. All other views such as Favorites, Archive, Albums etc always shows individual assets.

[NIronwolf]

I think this is where I got tripped up. I'm moving in old photos that were previously in a dated folder so each is around 1 event so I've been going straight into Albums and just never encountered this as a feature. I'm hoping it gets expanded to other views.

[2001Y]

I would also consider an automatic stack function to be useful.

Also, currently, when you shoot RAW on iOS, only the RAW is backed up.
I think JPEG/HEIF should be backed up first, and if you want, RAW + JPEG/HEIF should be automatically stacked and downloaded together.

#9283 Edited HEIF/JPEGs should be backed up, even when shooting RAW on iOS.

[2001Y]

You should have got a preview of the RAW without JPEG/HEIF, not only when RAW + JPEG/HEIF.
In other words, the following steps/conditions would have solved the problem.

1. use a high quality embedded preview JPEG of the RAW (useful for many cameras including iPhone)
   [Feature] Add option to use embedded preview for RAW images #5758

2. if there is no RAW high quality embedded preview JPEG, but there is a JPEG with the same name/meta information, "Stack" it.
   [Feature] Stacked Photos #2479

3. if none are available, use the current RAW to JPEG conversion using Sharp.

We think that the current "When shooting RAW with iPhone, only the RAW is backed up and previewing is done using Sharp's RAW to JPEG conversion" is not good anymore.

[justin13888]

A simple question...so is anybody working on automating stacked photos currently? If not, I might just write an experimental PR to work it out

[bo0tzz]

Auto stacking will be covered by #1673, which is in the works.