ExifTool Forum

ExifTool => Newbies => Topic started by: moscaman on November 21, 2016, 10:54:50 PM

Title: Can the reiterative use of exiftool degrade image quality?
Post by: moscaman on November 21, 2016, 10:54:50 PM
This might be a silly question but I can't find this explicitly answered anywhere.

Can the repeated use of exiftool degrade the quality of JPEG images? I ask this question because I am about to use it multiple times on all of my images that I have taken since the 1990s.

I understand that it just manipulates the metadata but does using it to rename files or manipulate any aspect of the metadata involve recompressing the JPEG?
Thanks.
Title: Re: Can the reiterative use of exiftool degrade image quality?
Post by: StarGeek on November 21, 2016, 11:10:12 PM
From FAQ 13 (http://www.exiftool.org/faq.html#Q13):

"ExifTool does not modify the image data itself, so editing a file with ExifTool is "lossless" as far as the image is concerned."
Title: Re: Can the reiterative use of exiftool degrade image quality?
Post by: moscaman on November 21, 2016, 11:32:56 PM
Thanks StarGeek. Did not see that. I thought that this would be the case but I wanted to be 100% sure.
Appreciate the info.