The first three families are of general interest, while the remaining families are for specific uses. ĮxifTool classifies tags into seven families (0-6), with each family consisting of several groups. You can also find more information on the ExifTool website. Some distributions offer a special man page (e.g., /usr/share/man/man3/Image::ExifTool::). For a list of available tags, see the Perl module Image::ExifTool::TagNames.
#What is exiftool software#
The output depends on the software used to create or edit the data.
In the example in Listing 1, the output for the file is very sparse – normally there is much more metadata in a file. Without further options, exiftool shows which EXIF tags a multimedia file contains. Normally, ExifTool shows only the first occurrence of a tag unless you instruct it to show all occurrences with the -a option. Tag names are not case-sensitive.ĭue to the different metadata families and tag groups, tags with the same name may occur multiple times. You can use -s to find out the correct tag names. In many cases, the tag descriptions shown in the output do not correspond to the tag names specified as options. The (partially) normalized EXIF tags consist of a name (or tag description) and one or more values. EXIF TagsĮxifTool analyzes the EXIF tags in the specified files, evaluates them, or assigns new values to them. If you specify individual files in the last argument, ExifTool processes only those files. If you specify a directory as the last argument in the command line, ExifTool automatically processes all files contained in the directory. Additionally, the tag may be followed by assignment operators and values. Some options are followed by a metadata keyword (a tag). If you use -rs, ExifTool will not process the options. Table 2 shows additional options for special cases.įor multiple options, use the syntax -r -s. ExifTool's general options (see Table 1) start with a minus sign, followed by one or more letters, and sometimes an argument. OptionsĮxifTool's command-line interface offers precise control via many different options. This article covers the basics of ExifTool and then introduces a graphical user interface (GUI) for ExifTool, jExifToolGUI, that makes using ExifTool easier. Learning all of ExifTool's options and tag names takes time. ExifTool is also capable of reliably processing RAW formats. ExifTool can even access makernotes, the metadata not standardized by digital camera manufacturers.
#What is exiftool iso#
In addition to EXIF, ExifTool also supports Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), the ISO 16684-1 standard originally developed by Adobe to embed metadata in digital media or store it as a sidecar file, and IPTC-Information Interchange Model (IPTC-IIM), the first multimedia news exchange format. Over the years, many users have contributed to ExifTool's development, making it an extremely extensive, but also complex, piece of software.
#What is exiftool free#
Implemented as a Perl library, ExifTool is the most comprehensive free software for reading, adapting, or adding metadata in multimedia files. However, if the data exists in the form of a track recorded with a GPS device, it makes sense to include the location data as additional metadata in the file.įor these and many other tasks, Phil Harvey has developed ExifTool.
For instance, many digital cameras still do not store location data in the images. In practice, there are exceptions where metadata access is both useful and necessary. Usually, metadata is defined once and then not edited, because it contains important information about the multimedia data. For instance, applications such as Geeqie and digiKam use an image's metadata to control the display order or to narrow a search. Today, EXIF has other applications and includes far more data than originally intended. Introduced in 2010, EXIF was originally used for digital camera photos. Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF), the standard for storing this metadata, provides details such as recording date, shutter speed, and aperture, among other things. Multimedia files, such as pictures, videos, or music tracks, often contain metadata (additional information not found in the file name or file attributes).