Command line help

[trishc]

Okay, this is EXACTLY the tool I need.  My step-daughter scanned a bunch of photos for me into jpeg using VueScan, and at some point, the title and the subject stayed "Hal Collins" and I want to remove it from 450+ files.  I have isolated the files into a directory:

"C:\Users\Patricia\Pictures\Scanned Photos\Hal Collins"

What is the command line for removing "Hal Collins" from all the files in the above directory from both the title and subject fields.

I can also see another use for this, as most of these photos are being used for family history and uploaded to Flickr, it would be nice to be able to identify them as either 'Collins' or 'Shepley'.  Once I select the files and isolate them into a directory, ie "C:\Users\Patricia\Pictures\Scanned Photos\Collins" how do I change the subject to "Collins" for all those files.

I appreciate the help.  What a great tool. 

Trish

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Trish,

If you are talking about XMP:Title and XMP:Subject, you can use this command:

exiftool -title-="Hal Collins" -subject-="Hal Collins" "C:\Users\Patricia\Pictures\Scanned Photos\Hal Collins"

To remove the Title and any subject items if they are exactly "Hal Collins".

Otherwise, to just remove the Title and Subject completely from all files in the directory:

exiftool -title= -subject= "C:\Users\Patricia\Pictures\Scanned Photos\Hal Collins"

If this doesn't work, reading FAQ 2 and 3 may help.

- Phil

[trishc]

The command line ran fine (exiftool -title-="Hal Collins" -subject-="Hal Collins" "C:\Users\Patricia\Pictures\Scanned Photos\Hal Collins"), and scanned the directory, but didn't update any of the files, as per the message on the screen:

1 directories scanned
0 image files updated
459 image files unchanged

I will have to do a bit more reading, to see what I need to do.  Thanks for your help...Trish

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  This will happen if XMP:Title isn't exactly "Hal Collins", or XMP:Subject doesn't contain an item that is exactly "Hal Collins".  I hope things will be more clear after reading the FAQ.

- Phil