Extract text from images in MacOS Photos.app using tesseract OCR and update Photo description with extracted text

photos_text.py

""" Extract text from images in Photos.app using tesseract and 
    update Photo description with extracted text """

# NOTE: doesn't currently work well as OCR image needs more pre-processing
# see: https://towardsdatascience.com/optical-character-recognition-ocr-with-less-than-12-lines-of-code-using-python-48404218cccb

import datetime
import pathlib

import osxphotos
import pytesseract
import tinydb
from PIL import Image

import photoscript

photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
library = pathlib.Path(photosdb.library_path)
db_name = f"{library.parent}/.{library.stem}.photos_text_db"

print(f"Processing Photos library '{library}'")

print(f"Loading photos_text database {db_name}")
db = tinydb.TinyDB(db_name)
query = tinydb.Query()

photoapp = photoscript.PhotosLibrary()
count = 0
text_count = 0
for photo in photosdb.photos():
    count += 1
    if db.search(query.uuid == photo.uuid):
        print(
            f"Skipping already processed photo {photo.original_filename}, {photo.uuid}"
        )
        continue
    if not photo.path:
        print(f"Skipping missing photo {photo.original_filename}, {photo.uuid}")
        db.insert(
            {
                "uuid": photo.uuid,
                "date": datetime.datetime.now().isoformat(),
                "text": None,
                "previous_text": photo.description,
                "missing": True,
            }
        )
        continue

    print(f"Looking for text in photo {photo.original_filename}, {photo.uuid}")
    try:
        text = pytesseract.image_to_string(Image.open(photo.path)).strip()
        text = " ".join(text.split())
    except:
        text = None
    if text:
        text_count += 1
        print(f"Found text in photo: {text}")
        photo2 = photoscript.Photo(photo.uuid)
        descr = photo2.description
        new_descr = descr + " " + text if descr else text
        photo2.description = new_descr
        print(f"Updated description to: {new_descr}")
        db.insert(
            {
                "uuid": photo.uuid,
                "date": datetime.datetime.now().isoformat(),
                "text": text,
                "previous_text": descr,
                "missing": False,
            }
        )


print("Done")
if count:
    print(f"Processed {count} photos, updated text in {text_count}")
else:
    print(f"No photos to process")