Hi,
I am a super newbie and before I get too dug in I thought to ask if what I was primarily after was possible.
Scenario:
I am rebuilding a website in a new format. The image importer uses the "image description" as the caption. I have existing captions in a text file; which can be easily changed to any required format; they are tagged against the image file-name. There are about 4,000 images – in folders with about 50 or so in each. No problem resetting the com line for each folder if necessary.
Is it possible to set a looping, recursive, something? command to grab a caption from the CSV and write it the relevant image exif?
I have poked about searching the forum and find:
Newbies► Modifying Tags with csv file as an input not working
and see:
-csv="tag_modify_list.csv"
so figure there is some hope as regards my case.
I can see that power/options comes with a degree of complexity [I could kind of relate to the last "What People are Saying about ExifTool" :)] and I would be pleased to have your thoughts and/or suggestions.
Thank you.
Yes, the -csv= import will do what you want. All you need is a 2-column CSV a "SourceFile" header for the first column, and a "ImageDescription" header for the description column (assuming you want to write EXIF ImageDescription, but see FAQs 2 and 3 (https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q2) for help determining which tag to write). The SourceFile entries can be either absolute path names or relative to the working directory. The command will work recursively if you add -r, eg)
exiftool -csv=descriptions.csv -r DIR
You can get a template CSV file in the correct format like this:
exiftool -csv -ImageDescription -f -r DIR > out.csv
(where all you need to do is replace the dashes with the descriptions you want in out.csv, then run the first command using this as an input file)
- Phil
Useful links
-csv option (https://exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html#csv-CSVFILE)
FAQ #26 (https://exiftool.org/faq.html#Q26)
Thanks for the speedy reply Phil,
This is awesome. Thank you.
I am still in the structural stage of building this website so seriously tied up with 'big picture' challenges. I will take time with a brew and sift through docs etc.
I very much appreciate the links StarGeek – having an entry point really helps.
Its been said before but... I'll be back :)
OK, a bit of weekend time with coffee and code...
I run: exiftool(-k).exe (windows)
It loads a page of information... 'Name' - 'Running in Windows' ... etc. down to ...More...
Pressing 'enter' just loads more info.
I type a command... and after reading a few docs I settled on:
exiftool -common -csv "C:\aa-mine\temp\photoExif" > "C:\aa-mine\temp\photoExif\test.csv"with exifTool.exe in the same folder.
press 'enter'
window closes but no output.
I figure I am missing something very basic. My thought is to get the csv format and then I should be able to reverse the process and experiment with importing.
I am sure the path is clear and simple – just can't see it at the mo'
Thank you.
You have to run exiftool from the command line. When you just click on it from the desktop, it does not open a command shell where you can type in commands. You have to open a CMD or a PowerShell, but be aware that PS has a lot of idiosyncrasies that don't play well with exiftool.
See Stand-alone version in the Windows GUI (https://exiftool.org/#running) for more details.
Thanks StarGeek,
It has been a long time since I did the 'dos' thing. cd ../ etc. And age... :(
Output as predicted. I am pretty sure, now that I am on the right planet, that I can work it from here.
Thank you so much for your patience.
Arfa