ExifTool Forum

[Originally posted by misterpatrick on 2007-07-04 00:08:51-07]

Hello all,

I am new to ExifTool. I always have folders full of JPEG's with IPTC Descriptions written in Photoshop and/or Bridge. I'd like to copy that data to the EXIF comment field. I do this so I can output an xml file using the jhead tool which is in-turn used for a Flash-based gallery. Kind of convoluted but I haven't been able to find a better way.

So how would I do (the tag to tag that is) this using ExifTool? It looks like the description tag is "IFD0". Thanks!

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-07-04 10:45:22-07]

First, use exiftool to see the exact tag name and group of the information
you want to move (there is no EXIF:Comment tag).  Use this command line:


Then once you've figured out the tags you want to move, do something like
this:


(where DIR is the name of the directory containing your images)

A few notes:

- tag names are not case sensitive.

- you can copy as many tags as you want with a single command.

- check the tag
name documentation for a complete list of available tag names.

- you don't need to specify the location of the tags (as I did
by adding "iptc:" and "exif:" to the tag names above), but if the tag name
exists in more than one group doing this may prevent unexpected
results.

- you may add as many file or directory names on the command line as
you want to process multiple individual files or directories.  You can
also add the -r option to process files in contained
subdirectories.

I hope this helps.

- Phil

[Originally posted by misterpatrick on 2007-07-06 22:16:31-07]

Thanks! That did it. One quick question. I couldn't find the answer in the documentation. When I do run the command it creates new files and renames the old ones .jpg_original. Is there a way to either move the new files to a new directory or simply overwrite the original files with the new ones? Thanks!

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-07-06 22:28:58-07]

Yup.  To write the new files to a different directory, use the -o
option like this:


or to overwrite the originals, use the -overwrite_original
option.

(now if I could only get it to clean the bathroom for me...)

- Phil

[Originally posted by misterpatrick on 2007-07-06 23:09:16-07]

Thanks! That did it. One quick question. I couldn't find the answer in the documentation. When I do run the command it creates new files and renames the old ones .jpg_original. Is there a way to either move the new files to a new directory or simply overwrite the original files with the new ones? Thanks!

[Originally posted by misterpatrick on 2007-07-07 05:08:33-07]

Thanks! That did it. One quick question. I couldn't find the answer in the documentation. When I do run the command it creates new files and renames the old ones .jpg_original. Is there a way to either move the new files to a new directory or simply overwrite the original files with the new ones? Thanks!

[Originally posted by misterpatrick on 2007-07-07 05:11:00-07]

Sorry for the multiple posts. I hit refresh to see if there were any responses and apparently it reposted my reply a couple times.