Writing Maker Notes correctly

[kenon]

This is probably a strange one as it is not directly about ExifTool, but bare with me.

I am currently writing EXIF functionality using libexif and have done all the standard tags which I test using exifTool. I am now onto to some non standard tags that I am going to put in as maker notes.

Are there any guidelines as to how best to insert the maker notes so that exifTool will be able to process it automatically? I see a few complaints about how certain programs/camera manufacturers write their maker notes and I am trying to avoid falling into the same traps.

[Phil Harvey]

I recommend writing an 8-byte signature followed by a standard TIFF header and the maker notes TIFF format with offsets relative to the start of the TIFF header.  ExifTool will be able to read this with the -u option if the byte order is the same as the rest of the EXIF.

Doing it this way make it relocatable, so it won't get messed up by other editors.

- Phil

[kenon]

Grand. Will do.

Cheers for the tips.

Ken