special character display and exclude function enquiries

[DragonInPants]

I hv a problem in extracting -b datas (especially the colormap of tif files) where it ended up with weird fonts like smileys, arrows and continuous alphabets. I've tried outputting to txt but still same outcome.

Also if i use the --Tag function to exclude a tag, is it merely not detectable via exiftool? as in it only hides the tag name, but the metadata or tag retains that some other programs can detect?

Sorry for the noob questions i'm a complete newbie

Thanks in advance.

[StarGeek]

I hv a problem in extracting -b datas (especially the colormap of tif files) where it ended up with weird fonts like smileys, arrows and continuous alphabets. I've tried outputting to txt but still same outcome.

When you extract binary data, it's exactly that.  Binary data.  If you try to read it as if it was a text file, then whatever you are reading it will will do there best to make sense of it, but it's going to end up as unreadable data.  It would be the same as if you opened a jpeg in Notepad.

Though just in case I'm misunderstanding, if you are trying to extract a colormap and are on Windows, make sure you don't use Powershell, it will corrupt binary output.

Also if i use the --Tag function to exclude a tag, is it merely not detectable via exiftool? as in it only hides the tag name, but the metadata or tag retains that some other programs can detect?

Using --TAG does no editing of the file, all the data is still in the file.  Exiftool simply doesn't display that tag in the listing at that time.  You can check by running a command with and without --TAG.  The tag will show up if it is not included no matter how many times you run --TAG.