ExifTool Forum

[Originally posted by morganglines on 2007-05-22 04:15:23-07]

Is there a stock script for backup / restore of EXIF data to files you'd be willing to share?  I'm particularly curious about doing this via bash at the moment.  

I think I've got the backup part -- in DOS this seems to work:

and in BASH:

But restoring from the backed up JPEGs to edited JPEGs to over-write the mangled EXIF is eluding me.   I did try Google and am surprised that I don't find instructions for backup / restore using EXIFtool.  I've had pretty good results using a program called EXIFer but EXIFTool seems to support more tags.

Any examples of backing up EXIF data for all files in a folder then restoring, particularly in BASH that you might share?

Thank you in advance,

-mg

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-05-22 12:01:39-07]

By "restore EXIF" I assume you mean "copy all meta information from
one image to another", right?  If so, you don't need a script to do this.
A single exiftool command will do, but the exact command depends
on where the files are located and what their names are.  In your example,
you're extracting JPEG images from RAW files and copying the meta
information from the RAW to the JPEG.  Then you say that your image
editor is mangling the EXIF of the JPEG.  Why not just re-copy the
information from the original RAW image using this?:


- Phil

[Originally posted by morganglines on 2007-05-23 02:56:27-07]

Thanks!   Not only does that do the trick, it also saves me two steps and exporting the JPEGs altogether!  

-mg

[Originally posted by birdman on 2007-05-29 10:03:31-07]

Dear Phil,

I have about the same problem: I would like to copy the whole original Exif-Information in one directory from my raw-files (.pef) to my jpg-files. The exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.cr2 -ext jpg FolderNameHere probably should work in some way there too? But I do have a problem modifying it since I am using the Windows stand alone version of Exiftool where I need to mask some of the syntax, is that correct? Could you give me a hint how to write it correctly?
Thanks a lot,
Birdman

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-05-29 11:42:45-07]

I'm not on a windows box right now, so I can't test this out, but
something like this should work for you (from the command line):


I'm not sure if the quotes are necessary in Windows, but they couldn't hurt.

- Phil

[Originally posted by birdman on 2007-05-29 12:34:27-07]

Dear Phil,

I tried it without the foldernames since I am processing the cmd-batch in the folder where the files are in the following way:
exiftool -tagsfromfile "%f.pef" -ext jpg
It only says "no file specified" and nothing happens. I also tried it with a double % [%%f.pef] but this won't help either.

[Originally posted by birdman on 2007-05-29 12:38:56-07]

Dear Phil,

I tried it without the foldernames since I am processing the cmd-batch in the folder where the files are in the following way:
exiftool -tagsfromfile "%f.pef" -ext jpg
It only says "no file specified" and nothing happens. I also tried it with a double % [%%f.pef] but this won't help either.

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-05-29 12:46:26-07]

Hi Birdman,

Use "." to specify the current directory:


This command should work if both the pef and the jpg are in the current directory.

The double '%' is only necessary for commands inside Windows .bat files.

- Phil

[Originally posted by birdman on 2007-05-29 13:57:42-07]

Hi Phil,

Thanks a lot, the "." really did it. As you stated I also had to add a second "%" since I am working with a Windows CMD-batchfile. The only thing that I am wondering about: the modified jpg-files all now have XMD-information as well eventhough the pef-files did not. Any idea?
Birdman

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-05-29 14:24:16-07]

Hi Birdman,

This is all in the documentation, but I admit there is a fair bit of reading
to do before you discover details like this:

When copying information, if no group is specified then ExifTool will
"commute" the information to its preferred group.  This is necessary
when copying between images which don't support the same type
(group) of meta information (ie. CRW -> JPEG), but isn't strictly
required for PEF -> JPEG because PEF is TIFF format and JPEG
images support TIFF information.

So the answer is that for PEF -> JPEG you can keep the information
in the same group (and prevent creating XMP and IPTC if it didn't
previously exist) by specifying a group name for copied information.
Even the special "all" group name will cause the group to be
preserved:


- Phil

[Originally posted by birdman on 2007-05-29 15:05:47-07]

Dear Phil,

You are right, I really overlocked that. But your suggestion did it, thanks a lot again. Great on-time support!!!
Birdman

[Originally posted by morganglines on 2007-06-02 04:48:10-07]

Ah, I remember why I'd been doing it this way -- with my older cameras there's no CR2 -- they just write out JPEGs directly so I'd been trying to back up the exif data without backing up the whole JPEG image.

 

Is it possible to restore from an HTML dump?

 


works fine for backup too but it seems to stop on restore. I know this must be something I'm doing . . . or not doing . . . :-D   Or is there a way to (would it be easier to) pipe the output of exiftool -s to a set of text files and then pipe the text files' contents back into the jpegs?

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-06-03 23:57:11-07]

Exiftool doesn't read plain text files or information
from the body of an html file (it only reads the html
meta information).

I suggest using MIE format to store the JPEG meta information:


- Phil

[Originally posted by morganglines on 2007-06-08 02:59:12-07]

1.  You rock - thank you very much.  :-)

and
2. I'm not sure if it will help, but here are my scripts if they save anyone time.

 

In BASH for backup:

Pictures are then edited . . . I know the imaging programs shouldn't mess with the raw files anyway (at least not in this generation of image editors), but I try to be consistent since a couple of my older cameras only shoot JPEGs.

In BASH for restore:

In Windows XP for Backup:


In Windows XP for Restore:


Hope this saves someone else some time (or perhaps makes it easier to write a better set of scripts based on your own needs).  Thank you again - this is an awesome tool. -mg

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-06-08 11:22:29-07]

Hi Bogdan,

Thanks for posting these.  Just one suggestion:

These commands:


Can all be replaced with a single command:


- Phil