An EXIF Modification Challenge!

[Metalsech]

Hi all, I recently posted on the forum about changes that occur in metadata when an image is modified in Paintshop/Photoshop etc. The changes are quite dramatic - certain sets of tags vanish, other sets appear, numerous values change and many of the tags while still present change position in the output list for an unknown reason. I am currently working on a detailed project to establish whether it's truly possible to manipulate an image and then "cover your tracks" by setting the metadata exactly back to how it looked on the original image (including positioning). I'd like to find out whether this is possible in ExifTool and if not then if it's possible using programming knowledge - I've been informed that it is but I'd like to see this done and understand more about how difficult it is to achieve this.

My programming knowledge is relatively low at present, I've got a background in VBA programming but have no knowledge at all regarding how to alter EXIF data using code. I've had a look at the manual for ExifTool and can see that it's possible to write/delete data but can't find anything about moving its position. So I'm wondering if anyone here on the forum with a deeper level of knowledge would like to take up a challenge - if I send two jpg images to you, one original, one purposely modified, can you alter the metadata of the modified file to look identical to that of the original (including ordering) or not? I'd then like to have a discussion with you, either via E-Mail/phone/Skype to go over how you succeeded/failed.

So....anyone up for the challenge? Please let me know, and how best to contact you. Thanks.

[Phil Harvey]

You can get part of the way like this:

exiftool -all= -tagsfromfile ORIGINAL_FILE -exif EDITED_FILE

This will copy all of the EXIF from the original file.  Of course, there may be metadata other than EXIF, but this is a start...

- Phil