Customize ExifTool Readout?

[KenO]

For a project I will only be interested in a few metadata values.

Most likely: Focus Distance, Depth of Field and HyperFocal Distance.

Is it possible to select only these 3 metadata values?

Thanks

Ken

[Phil Harvey]

Absolutely.  Just list the tags you want to extract on the command line:

exiftool -focusdistance -dof -hyperfocaldistance FILE

For convenience, you can also make a shortcut tag (see the config file documentation for details) or use the -@ option to save typing.

- Phil

[KenO]

Phil,

Thanks for your help at least I know it can be done!

First while I read the doc http://www.exiftool.org/exiftool_pod.html  am still very low on the ExifTool learning curve.

So we are talking about the same thing: "see the config file documentation for details" Do you mean -config CFGFILE Load specified configuration file instead of the default ``.ExifTool_config''. If used, this option must come before all other arguments on the command line. The CFGFILE name must include the full path specification, or may be set to an empty string (``'') to disable loading of the config file. See the sample configuration file and ``config.html'' in the full ExifTool distribution for more information about the ExifTool configuration file.

I only have the Windows ExifTool.  Did a search using exiftool config.html and found http://www.exiftool.org/config.html

Is this what I should use for ExifTool 8.16?

Also this is totally new to me.  Are there any tutorials for us beginners?

Thanks again for your help.

Ken

[Phil Harvey]

So we are talking about the same thing: "see the config file documentation for details"
[...]
Did a search using exiftool config.html and found http://www.exiftool.org/config.html

Is this what I should use for ExifTool 8.16?

Yes.  The link you gave is the example config file.  In this file you will find an example of how to create a shortcut tag ("MyShortcut" in this case).  With this config file (installed as per the instructions or invoked via the -config option) you can then specify only "-myshortcut" on the command line to represent all of the associated tags.

There is no tutorial, but once you get familiar with the command line then you should be able to get all you need from the provided examples and documentation.  Command line tutorials are probably available online, but the details are system specific and not related to exiftool so I don't provide much help with the basics like this.

- Phil

[KenO]

Phil,

First I will admit to be totally lacking in these basics but would like to learn.

"the details are system specific and not related to exiftool"

Am guessing that you are referring to "Perl Programming Language".  Is this correct?  If so are you using Perl 6?

Did a quick search and found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl  & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_6

Also do any new Perl users have any tips or suggestions?

Thanks

Ken

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Ken,

"the details are system specific and not related to exiftool"

Am guessing that you are referring to "Perl Programming Language".  Is this correct?  If so are you using Perl 6?

No.  This is a source of confusion for some people.  You don't need to know Perl to be able to use the exiftool application.

I was talking about the details of the command line.  If you are in Windows, you will likely run "cmd.exe" for access to the command line.  This is commonly called the "DOS" command line.  Other systems have different command line programs which use slightly different syntax for the command-line arguments (ie. the quoting techniques can be slightly different), and have different built-in commands.   You need to understand the basics about how the command line works on your system to be able to use ExifTool.

- Phil