Corral Your EXIF Data with Exifer

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/' target='_blank'>http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Exifer is a nearly free software (you only should send me a postcard if you're using Exifer frequently) with which you can manage the metadata (EXIF/IPTC) of pictures taken by digital cameras. Because many image processing software destroys this metadata when saving such files, the idea was to create a backup of the metadata before editing it in any software, and then, after that to restore it back into the processed file. With Exifer you can do this very easily."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/exifer-thumbnail.jpg" /><br /><br />If you're looking to be an EXIF ninja, here's a throwing star for your belt. ;-) I really like ACDSEE for things like this myself, because I can mass-change the timestamp on a file based on the EXIF photo date field.

[rlobrecht]

I've been using Exifer for several years. Its fantastic. One of my favorite features is the ability to rename files based on information in the EXIF stamp (I use date and time info.) You can also mass change EXIF info, which I will sometimes use to enter photographer or copywrite data.

Definitely give it a try.

[mghannigan]

Exifer is a great, comprehensive program that also edits IPTC data (a more valuable feature, in my opinion). Also, for international users, the program comes in both German and English.

The program does have several quirks and hasn't been updated by it's author in more than 3 years. If Exifer were updated to include the ability to read/write XMP data, it'd be even more useful. Because of XMP editing, I'm in the process of switching from a combination of Exifer/PixVue (http://www.pixvue.com) to iView MediaPro3 (http://www.iview-multimedia.com/mediapro/).

[Jonathon Watkins]

Exifer is a great, comprehensive program that also edits IPTC data (a more valuable feature, in my opinion). Also, for international users, the program comes in both German and English.

Agreed. ACDSEE is a good program with a major shortfall of not being able to do mass IPTC data changes. I have to use a combination of Photoshop CS2 and ACDSEE for 'quick' image imports to set the fields correctly.

I will try and have a look at Exifer to see if it can add anything to the party.

[Jason Dunn]

So someone's gotta fill me in on the value/purpoase of XMP and IPTC...I've never run across them before in my day to day editing.

[mghannigan]

IPTC metadata was originally developed to track information from photojournalism. In addition to a lot of fields you'd think of related to the news (headline, event, description) it includes important location info like city, state, country. IPTC also has the ability to include timezone information with photo capture dates (though none of the IPTC editors, including Exifer, I've used have the ability to propertly edit the date/time with time zone). IPTC has several pre-defined codesets (think Flickr tags or keywords on a stock photo site) for subject matter that'd be useful for news editors.

XMP is better than ITPC and EXIF because of it's flexibility. I use XMP tags to keep track of the people pictured in each of my 6,500 personal photos. XMP is based on XML so different programs can define different custom fields and not muck each other up. Although People is a pretty standard XMP field others can be more more specific, for example, the custom field I use to keep track of GMT offset for time zone coding.

PixVue used to be the best XMP editor out there, but iView MediaPro3 has just recently superceded it--of course, PixVue 2.0.1 is free and MediaPro3 is $200. Sadly Adobe (who lead the development of the XMP) doesn't have a stand-alone XMP product, choosing instead to reserve its tools for XMP editing for CS and CS2 versions of their software.

[Jonathon Watkins]

So someone's gotta fill me in on the value/purpoase of XMP and IPTC...I've never run across them before in my day to day editing.

I use them mainly for adding copyright information information and keywords to photos. At my Greenbelt Festival site, (www.photoglow.co.uk) most of the pictures are embedded with all my copyright details etc. This is because a lot of my pictures were used by press organisations and they use the tags to keep track of whose photo is whose.

There is a good overview at the Pixvue website (http://www.pixvue.com/support/faq.html)

1. What is Metadata?
Metadata is information about data. In the case of PixVue, the information takes the form of XMP, IPTC or both and the data concerned is image data. A more detailed answer to this question is given by TASI.

2. What is XMP?
Published by Adobe and based on XML, XMP is the eXtensible Metadata Platform. PixVue provides extensive support for XMP.

3. What is IPTC?
The International Press Telecommunications Council is a consortium that published a specification known as Information Interchange Model or IIM. Adobe Photoshop partially adopted this stardard for embedding metadata in images. This metadata is commonly known as "IPTC" and is a widely used format for captioning images. It is however a frozen standard and has been superceded by XMP.

4. What is EXIF?
EXIF is a specification supported by most if not all major digital camera manufacturers. Among other things, it specifies the format for embedding typically camera-specific metadata (e.g. shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc.) in image files. It is this metadata that PixVue presents in the 'Image' property page. If you're really bored, the EXIF specification is available from here.

5. What's the difference between IPTC &amp; XMP?
IPTC is a legacy standard that is supported by many applications. XMP is a newer standard that addresses some of the shortcomings of IPTC:

XMP is based on standards such as XML and RDF.
XMP is interchangeable in a way that IPTC never can be.
XMP is very extensible. New property values are simple to add and in such a way as to remain completely compatible with all XMP editors.
PixVue updates IPTC so as to maintain compatibility with legacy applications that don't yet understand XMP.

ACDSEE lets you change one IPTC tag at a time. I often need to set whole folders at once.

The main advantage of these formats is that the data is embedded in the photo file itself, i.e. whatever editor you use, you will still see the same data.