XMP writing strategies

[mikmach]

Hello,

I am a bit wary about writing metadata into RAW files. Exiftool (et) can do it (at least for some formats) - cool. But I would prefer to avoid it if I can. But I hit into some problems. Let's see, regular command, without any fancy '-o' stuff:

1. I have CR2 and xmp files - et writes into xmp files, integrating with old data, if xmp doesn't exist it writes into newly created xmp file.
2. I have NEF file (wo xmp) - et writes into NEF file.

I'd like to turn off writing into NEF file. I can do it with '-o %d%f.xmp' but this same command will fail with CR2+xmp combo ('cause xmp file exists). Is any general command/combination which would allow to implement 1st strategy without regard to extension?

Exiftool 11.07

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  There are endless possibilities here.  See example 13 on the Metadata Sidecar Files page for what you want.  In your case, you will use this command with -ext cr2 -ext nef.

- Phil