Convert TAGS into IPTC format

[moth3r]

Hi,

I wonder what would be the exact code for EXIFTOOL to convert all the tags into IPTC format as well.

I do not want to remove any just add IPTC support. I have one app which can only recognize IPTC format on import so I need to reinforce that format on all existing image files.
I have a big photo database so the script should process that folder and all it's sub folders. Please keep in mind that's about 300gb of data. EXIFTOOL seems to be my only option.

I've used Picasa for tagging but I also have some other image files tagged by others. I know that Picasa should write IPTC as well but I am still missing 2/3 of image tags there. That's why I would like to be sure they are all converted into IPTC format.

Thank you! I really appreciate it.

[StarGeek]

I have one app which can only recognize IPTC format on import so I need to reinforce that format on all existing image files.

Is this an older program or a fairly new program?

The reason it matters is because there's the older IPTC IIM (Legacy) group and the newer IPTC Core group, which is XMP.  Some programs which use IPTC Core just call it IPTC, which can lead to confusion.

The second thing is to figure out where the tags you want to move are located.  Are they in the EXIF group?  XMP group?

Either way, your best bet it to use one or more of the arg files already created to copy one group to another.  You can find them on the ExifTool Github page.  You can download them and place them in the same directory as exiftool.

An example of their use would be
exiftool -@ XMP2IPTC.args <FileOrDir>
That would copy all XMP tags into the appropriate IPTC locations.  You can add the -r option to recurse into subdirectories.

[moth3r]

Hmm good question. In my case, I would like to make a conversion from Picasa to Eagle.

So far I've found that Eagle https://en.eagle.cool/ supports IPTC. IPTC support was added only recently.

On the other side, I've found this on some forum:

Picasa 3.5 only supports IPTC metadata to the legacy IPTC-IIM standard. That standard was frozen in 1997. Picasa 3.5 does not yet support the preferred IPTC Core metadata standard, based on XMP. The IPTC Core standard was introduced in 2004. Five years on, and Picasa still hasn't caught up to the fact.

Even though, I am using Picasa 3.9, I presume that could be the culprit of the problem.

Which  arg files I'm then supposed to use, I am not really an expert to formats to be honest?

Really appreciate your swift reply! Thank you.

[moth3r]

Also, if you don't mind, what I did wrong, I am getting this message from the command prompt:

c:\exiftool>exiftool -@ xmp2iptc.args c:\pictures

Error opening arg file xmp2iptc.args

xmp2iptc.args was downloaded as raw file and saved from the git and now it's the same folder as exiftool.

[EDIT] IGNORE this post, I've solved it. Windows simply have converted the download into .txt file. Fixed

[StarGeek]

So far I've found that Eagle https://en.eagle.cool/ supports IPTC. IPTC support was added only recently.

Very little data on that site about metadata.  It's hard to tell, but it sorta looks like they mean the old IPTC legacy.

Picasa 3.5 only supports IPTC metadata to the legacy IPTC-IIM standard. That standard was frozen in 1997. Picasa 3.5 does not yet support the preferred IPTC Core metadata standard, based on XMP. The IPTC Core standard was introduced in 2004. Five years on, and Picasa still hasn't caught up to the fact.

That was definitely out of date by the time Picasa support was discontinued.  My copy of 3.9 definitely writes to both IPTC and XMP.

Which  arg files I'm then supposed to use, I am not really an expert to formats to be honest?

That part you'll have to figure out, since I'm not running Eagle and I'm not really interested in installing it.  What you need to do is covered in FAQ #3.  Find a file that shows up in Eagle and one that doesn't but you know has data, and run
exiftool -a -G1 -s FILE.jpg
on it.  Replace FILE.jpg with the path to the file.  You can ignore any line that starts with [Composite], [File], or [System].  The ones that you'll mostly be interested will start with [IPTC] or [XMP-####], where the #### will be some text that details which XMP subgroup the tag is part of.

If the file that shows tags in Eagle has IPTC tags and the one that doesn't has only the XMP tags, then you'll want to use the XMP2IPTC.args file.

[StarGeek]

Also, if you don't mind, what I did wrong, I am getting this message from the command prompt:

What version of exiftool are you running?

Try using the full path to the args file
exiftool -@ c:\exiftool\xmp2iptc.args c:\pictures

[moth3r]

Args file problem was fixed by renaming it from the .txt extension to args. Newbie mistake for which I apologize.

I've just found a file which tag 'Top-Brochure' does not show in Eagle but it does work under Picasa: https://ufile.io/df5ovy6s

Hope it would be clear now.

Also how to update/convert IPTC tags to the newer standard or versa?


c:\exiftool>exiftool -a -G1 -s c:\exiftool\aki.png
[ExifTool]      ExifToolVersion                 : 11.69
[System]        FileName                        : aki.png
[System]        Directory                       : c:/exiftool
[System]        FileSize                        : 824 kB
[System]        FileModifyDate                  : 2014:05:11 16:33:37+02:00
[System]        FileAccessDate                  : 2019:10:06 04:06:48+02:00
[System]        FileCreateDate                  : 2019:10:06 04:06:48+02:00
[System]        FilePermissions                 : rw-rw-rw-
[File]          FileType                        : PNG
[File]          FileTypeExtension               : png
[File]          MIMEType                        : image/png
[PNG]           ImageWidth                      : 680
[PNG]           ImageHeight                     : 1009
[PNG]           BitDepth                        : 8
[PNG]           ColorType                       : RGB
[PNG]           Compression                     : Deflate/Inflate
[PNG]           Filter                          : Adaptive
[PNG]           Interlace                       : Noninterlaced
[PNG]           Software                        : Adobe ImageReady
[XMP-x]         XMPToolkit                      : Adobe XMP Core 5.0-c060 61.134777, 2010/02/12-17:32:00
[XMP-xmp]       CreatorTool                     : Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh
[XMP-xmpMM]     InstanceID                      : xmp.iid:9BE20651D13511E39197C57E39BE149D
[XMP-xmpMM]     DocumentID                      : xmp.did:9BE20652D13511E39197C57E39BE149D
[XMP-xmpMM]     DerivedFromInstanceID           : xmp.iid:9BE2064FD13511E39197C57E39BE149D
[XMP-xmpMM]     DerivedFromDocumentID           : xmp.did:9BE20650D13511E39197C57E39BE149D
[Composite]     ImageSize                       : 680x1009
[Composite]     Megapixels                      : 0.686

Also got this.. hmm...  1 image file unchanged. Did try with

c:\exiftool>exiftool -@ xmp2iptc.args c:\exiftool>aki.png
Warning: No writable tags set from c:\exiftool>exiftool/aki.png
    0 image files updated
    1 image files unchanged

[StarGeek]

You're going to find that all your PNG files are probably not gong to show any data.  I don't believe that Picasa ever had the ability to write data to PNG files.  I believe it kept the data for the tags for PNG files in it's database, not in the file itself.

PNG files have very poor support for metadata in any software.  I seriously doubt that Eagle is going to be able read any metadata from a PNG file.  Also, PNG files don't support IPTC legacy, though Exiftool can write it, but it's non-standard.

You're basically at a dead end for your PNG files.  I don't see any easy way to deal with it except converting the PNGs to a format that has better metadata support such as TIFF, but even then, you'd still have to copy any tags that were set in Picasa manually.

[moth3r]

@StarGeek I've managed to solve it. I really liked Picasa but after all these years, I had to move away from it.

Your help was crucial to identify and solve the problem. I  really appreciate it. Thank you!