Delete image-description "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" in all images on a device

[ernst.w]

So sorry to bother you with my problem (there is only one but seems to be to heavy for me).

I have a lot of *.ORF, *.JPG, *.TIF and *.PSD files in various folders of one device. "A lot" meens "more than hundredthousand". They all are marked with a image-description "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" which i would like to delete in all files. This image-description is automatically shown as image title in WordPress and i cannot accept this.

The problem is: The images are spread about the whole device in some thousend folders. I would like to delete in one pass if possible. And I am firm with working with images (from Capture One, Lightroom, Photoshop) but I am helpless lost in things like command lines...

Somebody told me to ask you for help. Can you help me? And would you?

P.S.: I am using Windows 10 and the stand alone version.

[Phil Harvey]

Maybe something like this:

exiftool -ext orf -ext jpg -ext tif -ext psd -imagedescription= -if "$imagedescription =~ /^OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA/" -r DIR

(you may want to add -overwrite_original and/or -P to this command)

- Phil

[ernst.w]

Mighty tool indeed! And very very quick reply!

Thank you very much for the command line. I will try tomorrow and give a feedback.

[Phil Harvey]

I should mention that this command will take a while on such a large number of files (maybe a couple of hours?).

You should be able to add -progress: to the command so the progress shows as a percentage in the window title.

- Phil

[ernst.w]

Thanks again. I just tried this command line
"D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool -ext orf -ext jpg -ext tif -ext psd -ext dng -imagedescription= -if "$imagedescription =~ /^OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA/" -r -overwrite_original -P -progress: "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test\"
and some unexpected things happened:

1) EXIFTOOL seem to have problems with DIR names including spaces (there are a lot og in my case). Okay, I just try with a "root" folder renamed without any space. We'll see... I have to proove what happened, this will take some time.

2) ALL ORF files give back an error "Warning: [minor] Undersized IFD0 StripByteCounts (9758409 bytes, but expected 20832000) - H:/__EXIFTEST/ORF-Test/20090522-1421-_5225939.ORF". I do not believe that really all of my OLYMPU RAW files are corrupted.

3) The result is:
    8 directories scanned
  224 files failed condition
  845 image files updated
I have to proove how many files are under condition and how many not. Will take a while...

4) BTW: No progress was shown.

If you would have an answer to points 2) and 4) I would be happy.

[Phil Harvey]

1) EXIFTOOL seem to have problems with DIR names including spaces (there are a lot og in my case).

You must put quotes around any command-line arguments which contain spaces.

2) ALL ORF files give back an error "Warning: [minor] Undersized IFD0 StripByteCounts (9758409 bytes, but expected 20832000) - H:/__EXIFTEST/ORF-Test/20090522-1421-_5225939.ORF". I do not believe that really all of my OLYMPU RAW files are corrupted.

This is a quirk in the way the Olympus writes ORF files.  I will consider adding an ORF-specific patch to remove this warning.

4) BTW: No progress was shown.

Did you look at the title bar of the window?  Did you include the colon in the -progress: option?  Did you use the cmd.exe shell?  (I don't know if this works in PowerShell.)

- Phil

[ernst.w]

Thanks again for quick reply! It helps me a lot.

You must put quotes around any command-line arguments which contain spaces.

I rather thought so.

This is a quirk in the way the Olympus writes ORF files.  I will consider adding an ORF-specific patch to remove this warning.

Fine. For me this means nearly nothing at the moment.

Did you look at the title bar of the window?  Did you include the colon in the -progress: option?

Yes and yes. But this is a minor problem for me. In the post before you can see the command line as I copied from the command shell.

[ernst.w]

Okay, just tested quote around the path:

D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool -ext orf -ext jpg -ext tif -ext psd -ext dng -imagedescription= -if "$imagedescription =~ /^OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA/" -r -overwrite_original -P -progress: "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2\"
The result (and the headline of the windows - progress?) you can find in attached screenshot. Believe me, the folder is full with images and two more folders with images.

Then I have tried to quote only the folder name but failed (as I expected) by finding no folder with this name. Slash and backslash with quotes didn't work either.

[ernst.w]

When I read out EXIF (IPTC) from an image I cannot find the field named "image-description" (or similiar). I only found "Camera-ID" in the ORF with the value "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA". Could it be that this field comes out as "Image Description" in some software products?

If I read out an ORF file and a NEF file there are different fields (and values of course). Now I feel bloody despairing as i cann't even find out if exiftools worked as I/we hoped.

I am a photographer and maybe a graphic designer. I am defenitely not a programming  developer...

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Ernst,

I can't see anything obvious with your command, so try these commands to see what you get:

1. dir "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2\"

2. D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2\" -filename

3. D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool -ver

... it may take a few iterations, but we'll sort this out.

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

I just went through all my Olympus samples here, and here is a list of all tags with this value:

Code Select Expand

[IFD0]          Image Description               : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Camera ID                       : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Make                            : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Serial Number                   : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[PictureInfo]   ID                              : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[QuickTime]     Information                     : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[XMP-dc]        Description                     : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Of these, ORF files contain only IFD0:ImageDescription and Olympus:CameraID.  The CameraID is proprietary metadata, and I wouldn't recommend changing this because it may prevent RAW file decodes from recognizing the file, but I would be surprised if any apps displayed this as an "Image Description".

- Phil

[ernst.w]

Hi Phil,

thanks for your patience!

1. dir "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2\"

Works.

2. D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2\" -filename

Error file not found. See attached screenshot.

3. D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool -ver

11.14.  See attached screenshot.

... it may take a few iterations, but we'll sort this out.

Thanks for your patience again!

[ernst.w]

I just went through all my Olympus samples here, and here is a list of all tags with this value:

Code Select Expand

[IFD0]          Image Description               : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[IPTC]          Caption-Abstract                : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Camera ID                       : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Make                            : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[Olympus]       Serial Number                   : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[PictureInfo]   ID                              : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[QuickTime]     Information                     : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
[XMP-dc]        Description                     : OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Of these, ORF files contain only IFD0:ImageDescription and Olympus:CameraID.  The CameraID is proprietary metadata, and I wouldn't recommend changing this because it may prevent RAW file decodes from recognizing the file, but I would be surprised if any apps displayed this as an "Image Description".

It's only image description I want to change. What I am astonished about: I cannot see all this fields or let's say only one of them (Camera ID) when reading a file via exiftool.

[Phil Harvey]

Ah! right.  I don't know why the "dir" command works, but the backslash is escaping the final quotation mark in your ExifTool command line.  Try this (no trailing backslash):

D:\___Install\_TOOLS\_GRAFIK\EXIFTool\exiftool "H:\__EXIFTEST\ORF-Test 2" -filename

If this works, then your other commands should work too without the last backslash.  I seem to remember seeing this before (I should probably document this odd Windows-command-line quirk somewhere...)

- Phil

Edit:  Yes.  We have seen this before here (2015), and here (2016), and here (2018).

This same problem is addressed in this stackoverflow post, which mentions that the command-line parsing is different for internal commands, which is why it worked for "dir" .

[Phil Harvey]

What I am astonished about: I cannot see all this fields or let's say only one of them (Camera ID) when reading a file via exiftool.

This was across ALL of my Olympus samples... JPG, ORF, AVI, MTS, MOV, MP4, etc.  Some tags will only exist in some of these formats.

- Phil