How do I detect AFCP, IPTC, Exif, etc

[StarGeek]

I was trying to figure out how to conditionally detect various metadata in my files.  It's mostly in regard to AFCPs but I'd also like to detect which files have other types on occasions.   For example, I know I have some files with AFCP chunks in them, but my various attempt to find them haven't work.

I tried things like:

Code Select Expand

exiftool -if "$AFCP" -AFCP:all dir
and

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exiftool -if "$AFCP:all" -AFCP:all dir
with no results.

I'm obviously missing something here.

This leads to a second question.  Once I find one of these files with an AFCP chunk, what's the best way to copy the IPTC data out of it into the normal IPTC spot in the photoshop APP13?

[Phil Harvey]

Good question.  I don't think you are missing anything.

ExifTool doesn't extract AFCP as a block, so there is no AFCP tag.  Also, the IPTC tags are inside the IPTC group of the AFCP, so as individual tags they don't belong to the AFCP group.

The way I have designed it, there is no simple way to do what you want.  However, there is a sneaky way to do it:

1) First delete all "_original" files from your image directory (let's call it DIR)

2) Delete the AFCP trailer from all images in the directory:

    exiftool -afcp:all= DIR

(This command will do nothing if there is no AFCP trailer.  If there is a trailer, it will remove it and create a "_original" backup.)

3) Copy the IPTC information from the "_original" backups:

    exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.%e_original -iptc:all DIR

Voilà!  Done!

Afterwards you can delete the "_original" backups if you don't need them.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Thanks for the solution for actually copying the data.

Trouble is that the data may not be useful and I wanted to inspect before copying.  Additionally, the files are spread across many directories and I would then have to search for the "_original" files.

I just tried  grep -r AXS! dir and that seemed to find the appropriate files (only 13 files spread across many directories and several thousand files).   A few with useless data so I can just delete the AFCP, a few with duplicate IPTC so again, just delete, and a few I can use your solution.

Thanks again.

[Phil Harvey]

Ah.  You didn't tell me you were on a Unix platform.  Yes, grep is our friend.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

Unfortunately, I'm on Windows.  But I learned long ago that if I wanted anything done correctly and quickly that I should grab ports of some of the good Unix commands.