Canon CRW and -tagsfromfile problem

[duke_srg]

I've noticed something strange in ExifTool 8.43-8.60 releases. -tagsfromfile works correctly with CRW source file only if there is no other parameters except destination jpeg file name. Adding -all:all and/or changing destination file type to mia/xmp will not output full exif info from CRW. At the same time CR2 images processed correctly.

[BogdanH]

Hi,

CRW doesn't contain "regular" Exif data -Exif data is supposed to be in companion THM (I believe) file.

Bogdan

[duke_srg]

You're right, there is no EXIF info in CRW files.
But In fact -tagsfromfile extracts all metadata form CRW and put it in jpeg and -tagsfromfile -all:all extracts only a part of it! So if I need to preserve all available metadata from CRW to jpeg and set several predefined parameters at the same time, for CRW I'll need to run exiftool twice. I thought -all:all is really for all available metadata, but if not, then why simple -tagsfromfile  preserves much more data?
THM files are unavailable in my case

[duke_srg]

Problem solved! Using -all instead of -all:all seems to copy all available metadata from CRW!

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  Using -all:all constrains exiftool to keep the metadata in the same group.  But since metadata in CRW images is in a proprietary format, you don't want to do this.  Using -all allows exiftool to move the metadata from other formats to its preferred group (EXIF).

- Phil

[duke_srg]

Thanx Phil!
Are there any other processing differences between "-tagsfromfile" and "-tagsfromfile -all" options? I've noticed only several differences in offset parameters for CR2 files. This isn't an issue, but have a side effect on TwonkyMedia bgtrans module which is unable to properly extract thumbnail image from CR2 EXIF data transferred with -all switch.

[Phil Harvey]

If you don't specify tags to be copied, then -all is assumed.  So it is the same with or without -all in the command line.

- Phil