Read Metadata from multiple files (namely Images with Copyright info)

0

I'm attempting to produce a report of metadata from images within a network drive and all of its subfolders to check copyright information and other metadata (Creators, Authors etc). Recursively and vast quantities (10's of thousands). I'm not too worried about editing/changing, just reading and reporting.

I've seen many tools for editing and viewing metadata, but i'm after an application/utility which will search for files, then produce a report of what it finds (ie not changing anything).

Scenario: Salesmen have a vast directory of images used for promotion, labels and uploading to web. Someone previously saved an image for a product from the web, this makes it onto promotional material online. The original author identifies the image by it's metadata and makes an illegal useage complaint.

I'm attempting to use EXIFTool to do this and finding there's far too many arguments for me to easily figure it out from the commandline.

My current attempt looked like this - "exiftool.exe -r -COPYRIGHT -URL -RIGHTS -AUTHORS -COMPANY -CREATORS M:\Images\* >> C:\location\list.txt" Which is 80% there as it appears to not be recursive (even with the -r) and ideally i'd want to strip the files without meta content from my results...

I've read through most of the posts in and will continue to work with EXIFTool until i get some results (will post info back here) but i'm interested to hear of others tools and peoples experiences with metadata.

Any information regarding the legality of using such files in the UK also greatly appreciated!

HaydnWVN

Posted 2012-03-21T12:30:56.087

Reputation: 3 192

What OS are you using? – soandos – 2012-03-21T13:02:32.603

Windows 7 32bit, but will happily use anything to produce my list/report! – HaydnWVN – 2012-03-21T13:03:16.217

Answers

2

As rediculuously simple as it sounds - simply run exiftool WITHOUT the list.txt option, and see if that outouts everything you want. If it does, simply direct it with > to a text file.

If putting them into one folder isn't an option i believe you can append to list.txt with >>.

In short, counterintuitively, don't use the 'proper' way, and use an ugly hack with standard text streaming methods

Journeyman Geek

Posted 2012-03-21T12:30:56.087

Reputation: 119 122

exiftool.exe -r -COPYRIGHT -URL -RIGHTS -AUTHORS -COMPANY -CREATORS M:\Images\* >> C:\location\list.txt is working for me but doesn't appear to be recursive... – HaydnWVN – 2012-03-21T15:28:27.810

I've done what i wanted with exiftool.exe -csv -r M:\Images\* -FILENAME -COPYRIGHT -URL -AUTHORS -COMPANY -CREATORS -CAMERA >> C:\location\list.csv will mark this as the answer as it helped me get there! :) – HaydnWVN – 2012-03-22T16:36:11.580

Asked: 2012-03-21T12:30:56.087

Viewed: 1 727 times

Active: 2013-05-10T19:28:53.733