DeviceSettingDescription

[starfry]

I want to record the device settings used when scanning an image. I looked for suitable tags and the best I could find was this DeviceSettingDescription (41995 | 0xA40B). The documentation doesn't give any information beyond "This tag indicates information on the picture-taking conditions of a particular camera model." (source: "Exchangeable image file format for digital still cameras Exif Version 2.3 DC-008-2012_E.pdf).

If I try to set it to a string of my choosing, like "XS,2400,48,2" I get an error message:

$ exiftool -devicesettingdescription=XS,2400,48,2 test.dng
Warning: Improperly formed structure for XMP-exif:DeviceSettingDescription
Nothing to do.


I wondered if the proper formation was documented anywhere, or how I should other go about recording detail like this.

_{(running exiftool 10.55 on ArchLinux 4.15.3-2-ARCH  x86_64)}

[Phil Harvey]

The error you got is from XMP:DeviceSettingDescription.  Currently EXIF:DeviceSettingDescription is not writable.  I checked a sample image with this information, and it is binary data, not text.  I don't know if the format is defined anywhere, or where it is device-dependent.

- Phil

[starfry]

Ah, right. And thanks for the prompt reply!

I just tried explicitly specifying EXIF:

$ exiftool -EXIF:devicesettingdescription=XS,2400,48,2 test.dng
Warning: Tag 'EXIF:DeviceSettingDescription' is not defined
Nothing to do.


I presume "not defined" is what you see when a field is not writable. I've just noticed it says that it isn't writable on the web page listing.

There's no way to force such a write is there?

Can you suggest another tag that I might use for this? (I'm already using UserComment for somethig else )

[Phil Harvey]

I presume "not defined" is what you see when a field is not writable.

I tried to make this message "not writable" -- I'll look into this.

There's no way to force such a write is there?

You can create a user-defined tag to do this.

Can you suggest another tag that I might use for this? (I'm already using UserComment for somethig else )

I don't have any suggestions.  Browse through the EXIF tags documentation and pick one.

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

ExifTool 10.83 will improve this error message:

Code Select Expand

> exiftool a.jpg -exif:devicesettingdescription=x
Warning: Sorry, exif:DeviceSettingDescription doesn't exist or isn't writable
Nothing to do.

- Phil