Is there such a thing as all metatags?

[pwright2]

I'm new here and still trying to understand most of what exiftool does and how.  I posted a newbie question about making Windows Live Photo Gallery and Picasa play nice with captions which has drawn no answers.  But now I think I find that it is more complicated than I thought.  And I wonder if there is hope for a solution.

I found a thread where exiftool dumped to a csv file.  So I tried some things.  Using variations on

exiftool -L -all -csv "H:\Pictures\Albums\Church-Stuff\2012\Testing" > "d:\AA\All-SkydriveInPicasa.csv"

I have dumped pics processed by WLPG, pics processed by Picasa, pics straight from the camera, and pics processed first by one programmed and followed by the other.  In truth, I may have become confused at one point or another about which was which but it matters little because I never get the same output twice.  About the only header name which matches is Sourcefile.

So ... what happens if I take the mie file from a WLPG pic and write it to a JPG in Picasa?  Or, more precisely, is there a way to harmonize ALL  the metadata between two programs?  Without losing data from one or the other?

If there is a thread/tutorial on picture metadata in general, please feel free to point me to it.  I have a feeling the writer of Exiftool has more practical knowledge of it than all the standards agencies.

-----Sims-----

[ryerman]

...If there is a thread/tutorial on picture metadata in general, please feel free to point me to it.  I have a feeling the writer of Exiftool has more practical knowledge of it than all the standards agencies....

You are probably correct but the author (Phil Harvey) is on vacation.  He is noted for making quick and helpful replies but I guess you'll have to wait until he returns.  When, I don't know.
I suggest you keep experimenting. 

Jim

[pwright2]

Everybody deserves a vacation.

[pwright2]

I've done a little more testing and things don't seem quite as bad as I thought.  The files report the data in different order but most of the tags are the same.  I find 128 total tags, 16 of which are unique.  One is to the camera itself, 9 to Picasa and 6 to WLPG.  I have not checked to see if the programs are recording the same data under the same tags.  I hope so.

So, what I think I need is a command that will step thru a folder and, for each JPG file, take the entry under Description (not ImageDescription) and add the non-existent description of Title and store the same entry there.

Possible?

-----Paul-----

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Paul,

Yes, this is possible.

I responded in another of your threads, but basically the command to copy XMP Description to Title is:

exiftool "-xmp:title<xmp:description" FILE

where FILE is the name of one or more files or folders.

- Phil

[pwright2]

Thank you for your answers both here and in the newbie forum.  Hope you had a good vacation. 

-----Paul------