Hi. We haven’t yet looked at the code, but just some high-level thoughts. In short: both concepts seems very useful and have been discussed over the years.

The deletion of images with crops and/or usages: we are in the need of being able to “hide” images from search and further use more forcefully than just by adding Restrictions with Note. Some users are actively destroying all metadata manually, because they are concerned that an image may be used despite messaging. But whether soft deleting such images is the way forward – I don’t know (what about hard-delete then? the reaper?). At the Guardian images with crops and usages MUST not be removed from the system without replacing their usage as usage for us is a live link to the reader-facing platforms. Worth thinking about a solution, though…

Versions: over the years we came up with several use cases for versions (and derivatives). A colour-corrected (or just cropped) version being the most common. Tom started a light-touch approach in #3998. Because the concept is sensible, we think it better be part of Grid proper and not specific to Domain Metadata which is organisation-specific. Let’s hope a common approach can be found, which will be useful for everyone and will set us on the way to full schema for versions and derivatives.

(Only slightly) worth noting that C2PA’s ingredients concept is based on well established xmpMM schema, which we can search in Grid already and find images created eg. from the same Photoshop file manually: ?query="fileMetadata.xmp.xmpMM:OriginalDocumentID":"xmp.did:[ID]". How closely we should follow, whether it’s worth skimming to see if it contains any interesting points or whether it makes sense to integrate it into Grid’s future versions/derivatives – I don’t know.

We also think both issues constitute sizeable problems in themselves and might benefit from being tackled as separate PRs. Maybe it would be helpful to discuss them in a smaller forum too?

I know this isn’t very helpful, but wanted to signal (or – influence if slightly) direction of travel on these two points.

Hi Mateusz, thanks for your feedback - all very helpful. We're aware that this proposal is a compromise designed to address a very specific need. We are also keen to look in more detail at versioning of images and interconnecting images as part of a much larger piece of work - but we need to address the needs of the Archives team in the short term. I think it would be good if we could convene a group to discuss the broader issues of versions, hidden images etc.

In terms of the use of soft delete of the 'old' images - we need to retain the usage information on the old image so that we have a proper history of what version of the image was used by whom and when - whilst at the same time understanding the concept of a 'newer' version. What is happening is the Archives team are re-scanning the original hard copy to produce a better electronic image and in the Capture/Photosales system they are able to replace the old jpeg with the newer one on the same underlying system record - but when they send this new image to BBC Images it creates a new record and we can't just 'replace' the old image - hence the need for this type of functionality. We can discuss this specific short term requirement in more depth at the next Grid hour. Thanks