Creating an XMP sidecar

[Archive]

[Originally posted by gloubibou on 2009-08-19 20:02:16-07]

I am trying to create an XMP sidecar by copying metadata from an image file.

These kinda work:

Code:

exiftool -a -m -v3 -u -u -o 2.xmp IL_090519_5061.CR2

Code:

exiftool -a -m -v3 -u -u -o 4.xmp "-all>xmp:all" IL_090519_5061.CR2

The catch: tags get shuffled around. Actual lens information (EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM) ends up in "MicrosoftPhoto:LensModel". I want it to be at "aux:Lens". Here I find only truncated information (24.0 - 105.0 mm).

So I re-read the documentation and figured that -tagsFromFile is what I need. Specifically it seems I need to specify tag groups in order for them to be preserved. Yet this fails:

Code:

exiftool -a -m -v3 -u -u -tagsFromFile IL_090519_5061.CR2 -all:all -m -unsafe 3.xmp

with "Error = Nothing to write"

What am I doing wrong?

When I leave out "-all:all" the XMP sidecar is successfully created with the same deficiencies I was trying to avoid.

Pierre

[Archive]

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2009-08-19 22:33:09-07]

Welcome to the crazy world of metadata.

The -all:all doesn't work because this would only copy
the XMP information to an XMP file.  You want to take information
from other groups and copy it to XMP.

But without -all:all it still won't do what you want because
it will only copy information to same-named tags in XMP.  To
do what you want you need to move information to tags of
different names.  In the full exiftool distribution
you will find a set of ".args" files which will give the exiftool
arguments to move the standard EXIF, GPS and/or IPTC tags to
XMP.  If copying from a CR2 file, you should use the EXIF to
XMP translations.  Also, it sounds like you want to move some
specific makernote information to XMP.  So in the end, your
command line will look more like this:

exiftool -tagsfromfile IL_090519_5061.CR2 -@ exif2xmp.args
"-lensid>lens" out.xmp

I hope this helps.

- Phil