Speed up image processing (copy exif info from nef to jpg)?

[Archive]

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-10-08 12:03:23-07]

Ah.  Yes, just adding the new definition to the config file won't work
unless you add it AFTER the other definition, because the
%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined hash assignment will be overridden
by the last one in the file.  I'm glad this wasn't a W2K problem,
because that was just too weird.

But now we have 3 more problems:

1) I didn't think of this before, but the -d option is interfering
with copying all tags via -tagsfromfile ... -all:all because
the time is stripped off all date/time values.  This was the same
problem we had with "-FileModifyDate<MyDateTime", but at the time
I didn't realize we would have the problem with all copied date/time
values.  Again, this could be solved with a user-defined tag, but the
tag definition would be a bit more complex this time.

2) ExifTool will not change the byte order of existing EXIF information.
Is your original JPG image little-endian?  If so, then we have hit an impasse,
because the current version of exiftool can not be used to change this
order with a single command.  As you have seen, some image utilities
have problems if the maker notes are a different byte order than the
rest of the EXIF information, but this sort of thing does happen, and
IrfanView should really be able to handle it.  (I suggest sending them a
but report and a sample image.)

3) Setting the Quality doesn't work because it is in the makernote information,
and the maker notes are copied as a block.  From the exiftool application
documentation:

Code:

   The maker note information is copied as a block, so it isn't affected
    like other information by subsequent tag assignments on the command line. [...]

At this point it looks like you can't combine everything you want to do
into a single command.  It was a valiant effort, but the EXIF byte order problem
together with editing a makernote tag necessitate a minimum of 3 passes
with the current version of exiftool.

So in the end it looks like I've failed in my attempts to help you speed up
your batch processing, but on the plus side I think we have both learned
a lot in the process.

Perhaps in a future version of exiftool I will add the features necessary to
accomplish all of this in a single command.

- Phil

[Archive]

[Originally posted by fluschly on 2007-10-09 04:55:56-07]

Hi Phil,

thanks a lot for your very good and fast help.

Yesterday I tried the MyDateTime on my W2K computer and it worked. I think I'll send a bug report with a sample image to the IrfanView developer, because IrfanView should really be able to handle big and little endian files. My original JPG-file is little endian. Is there an option to set the byte-order?

I really learned a lot and sometimes it was really difficult to understand the documentation in detail and use this information in the correct way, eg. setting the quality. The problem is not the documentation but me.

I modified my bat-file and reduced the 6 processing steps to 4. You helped me to speed up my batch processing.

For 197 images the old batch needed 150 s, the new batch needs 115 s. Again thanks.

Maybe I'll come back with my problem when the 'future version' of exiftool is available.

ExifTool is really a great and very powerfull tool.

Regards,
Juergen.

[Archive]

[Originally posted by exiftool on 2007-10-09 10:59:47-07]

Hi Juergen,

I'm glad we had a certain amount of success anyway.

The problem with IrfanView is that (apparently) it can't handle little-endian
maker notes inside big-endian EXIF information.

You can set the ExifByteOrder tag to specify the endianness
of the EXIF when creating a new EXIF segment where none previously
existed.  The endianness of the maker notes can not be changed, and
is big-endian for NEF.

- Phil