Tag: Olympus artist from E-PL6

[herb]

Hello Phil,

I have an image from my Olympus camera E-PL6 without any modifications.
The tag -exif:artist exists, but its value is spaces only.

When I change the tag -exif:artist with command
   exiftool -exif:artist=herb <file>
everything is ok.

But when I change it on conditions being empty with command
   exiftool -exif:artist-= -artist=herb <file>
the new value of artist is "<many spaces>\herb".

Now I ask you to have a look into this, in order to come to know what is going on here.

I feeled free to send this image via mail.
Thanks in advance

Best regards
Herb

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Herb,

I think you are fooling yourself somehow.

Code Select Expand

> exiftool a.jpg -artist="            "
    1 image files updated
> exiftool a.jpg -artist
Artist                          :
> exiftool a.jpg -exif:artist-= -artist=herb
    1 image files updated
> exiftool a.jpg -artist
Artist                          : herb

- Phil

[herb]

Hello Phil,

thanks for your investigations and I am very sorry that I confused you (us):

I regret, but I was not detailed enough:
I send the commands to Exiftool (version 10.13) via stdin of Exiftool. My tool sends also other options, which I did not mention in my previous post, because I was 100% sure that the error occurs because of existing (empty) -exif:artist tag.

I did some further tests starting Exiftool in windows cmd.exe and I could reproduce it with the following command:
     exiftool.exe -charset filename=utf8 -P -use mwg -m -exif:artist-= -exif:artist=herb <file>

But please aware that the error - as described - occurs only to the unchanged file copied from camera.
Sending the command to the modified file adds another sting "herb" to artist.

Thanks again for your help in advance.
Best regards
Herb

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Herb,

You didn't mention that you -use MWG.  This changes the EXIF:Artist to a list-type tag, so the assignment has different rules.

From the MWG tag documentation:

A complication of the MWG specification is that although the MWG:Creator property may consist of multiple values, the associated EXIF tag (EXIF:Artist) is only a simple string. To resolve this discrepancy the MWG recommends a technique which allows a list of values to be stored in a string by using a semicolon-space separator (with quotes around values if necessary). When the MWG module is loaded, ExifTool automatically implements this policy and changes EXIF:Artist to a list-type tag.

- Phil

[herb]

Hello Phil,

thanks for your quick reply and thanks for the clarification.
I forgot that -use mwg also changes artist to a list-type tag.

Sorry for making so much noise.
Best regards
Herb