Editing JPEG EXIF properties

17

5

How can I edit EXIF properties of JPEG files on a Windows machine?

Some image editing utilities handle the Rotation property wrong, which leaves me needing to make manual edits after rotating images in those utilities. A utility which can perform rotation based on the Rotation property, and then remove the property and save the image, would be handy.

Alternatively, I could rotate images in an image editor and remove the properties manually with some utility.

Rotation is, however, not my only issue; I would like to edit/add other properties as well. What methods/tools will let me do this?

Suma

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 1 307

3

This question could have some answers for you : http://superuser.com/questions/9492/how-do-i-batch-change-the-date-taken-information-in-exif-data

– Gnoupi – 2009-10-19T14:22:43.913

See also: http://photo.stackexchange.com/q/1306/21

– Rowland Shaw – 2013-04-15T08:41:23.027

Answers

13

A freebie that looks good is PhotoME :

image

harrymc

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 306 093

2Great and extensive metadata editing in an easy to use GUI. Works best for me from all utils suggested in this topic. – Suma – 2009-10-19T16:58:24.653

2

Xnview shows EXIF and edits IPTC and XMP.

harrymc

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 306 093

People are confusing IPTC with EXIF. XnView can edit IPTC metadata. It can only remove EXIF metadata. – David Metcalfe – 2017-02-07T20:08:27.957

I am trying it now and it looks promissing, however I am unsure if it really works. I have edited the property "EXIF/Orientation" from "Right-Top (6)" to "Top-Left (1)", but I still see the image rotated in both XnView and Picasa (I do not see it rotated in Paint.Net, Paint or windows desktop) – Suma – 2009-10-19T14:23:09.577

Are you sure XnView edits EXIF properties? I can't find how. It does for IPTC for sure. – Snark – 2009-10-19T14:28:33.047

Re picasa - if you used picasa to rotate the image, AND THEN edited its properties with XNView, picasa will show it rotated. The picasa rotation is independent of the EXIF properties. – Kije – 2009-10-19T14:41:19.000

XnView shows EXIF as part of the Properties, but doesn't allow its editing. In fact, now that I think about it, EXIF data is stored by the camera, and most programs disallow its editing. – harrymc – 2009-10-19T15:27:10.530

Oh, I see - Picasa does not rotate the image, it even does not change any EXIF properties, it stores the rotation in picasa.ini instead. Not great. :( – Suma – 2009-10-19T15:29:16.250

@harrymc: I can edit EXIF data using XnView. The only think is I am unsure if I edit the correct data, as the feedback in other applications is unreliable so far. I will try to experiment some more. – Suma – 2009-10-19T15:30:33.723

@Suma: How do you edit EXIF in XnView? I didn't find it. I also added in another answer PhotoME which seems to have a very sophisticated editor. – harrymc – 2009-10-19T15:34:51.530

2

Faststone Image viewer can view exif information.

http://www.faststone.org/

its a lightweight photoviewer and resembles early ACDSEE in functionality, continually updated.

has autorotate on exif orientation tag..

here's a summary from their website:

An image browser, converter and editor that supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA. It has a nice array of features such as image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, color adjustments, musical slideshow and much more.

Prozaker

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 755

1

Years ago, I always used Exifer for Windows. I guess it's too old for nowadays' standards, but it had some big advantages you might also require for whatever you choose:

  • When rotating JPG images it will not mess with the actual image, and will not destroy the EXIF data. (In those days rotating using, for example, Windows Explorer or Microsoft Office's Photo Editor would result in reduced image quality or increased file size, and would destroy the EXIF data. But I assume that has meanwhile been fixed.)

  • It can rotate the preview EXIF image. (But I am not sure if it did so automatically.)

  • Nice to have: it can adjust all timestamps of selected images with some delta. (A time saver when forgetting to adjust a camera to another time zone, or when handling images from multiple cameras that are seconds apart.) It can also rename files given the EXIF timestamp.

(For changing EXIF data through command line tools see the "APP1" profile in, for example, ImageMagick. ImageMagick also supports auto-orient.)

Arjan

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 29 084

1

I always recommend Microsoft Pro Photo Tools (as it's free, and also allows geotagging)

Rowland Shaw

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 3 607

Curious this gained an anonymous downvote last night? – Rowland Shaw – 2010-06-29T08:07:55.577

Nice, and nice link ;-) – Arjan – 2009-10-19T15:17:56.023

Nice, but it seems to allow editing only very limited set of properties. Editing image orientation seems impossible. – Suma – 2009-10-19T15:22:26.890

Is the "seems impossible" the reason for the downvote? – Arjan – 2009-10-19T15:38:51.130

Yes. Very little EXIF editing offered by this tools, hence not suitable for the purpose of this question, in spite of being interesting otherwise. – Suma – 2009-10-19T16:57:15.560

The tool is entirely about editing EXIF, and I was trying to address the "edit/add properties as well" portion -- It's the only tool I use for managing the EXIF data in my files, and is also the only product that I'm aware of that can write back to RAW files... – Rowland Shaw – 2009-10-19T20:43:00.953

Link seems to be broken now. Here's an updated link www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13518 – Syclone0044 – 2013-04-12T23:53:25.953

0

I just discovered that Windows Explorer (at least in Windows 10.0.18362) can edit some EXIF/XMP fields. Right click file > Properties > Details. From a quick test on a jpg file, here are the editable values and their corresponding metadata fields, as reported by exiv2 -pa pengwin.jpg (exiv2):

  Windows Explorer Value (in order)    Field(s) written (reported by exiv2)    
 ----------------------------------- --------------------------------------- 
  Title                               Exif.Image.ImageDescription            
  Title                               Exif.Image.XPTitle                     
  Title                               Xmp.dc.description                     
  Title                               Xmp.dc.title                           
  Subject                             Exif.Image.XPSubject                   
  Rating                              Exif.Image.Rating                      
  Rating                              Exif.Image.RatingPercent               
  Rating                              Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.Rating              
  Rating                              Xmp.xmp.Rating                         
  Tags                                Exif.Image.XPKeywords                  
  Tags                                Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.LastKeywordXMP      
  Tags                                Xmp.dc.subject                         
  Comments                            Exif.Image.XPComment                   
  Authors                             Exif.Image.Artist                      
  Authors                             Exif.Image.XPAuthor                    
  Authors                             Xmp.dc.creator                         
  Date taken                          Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized           
  Date taken                          Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal            
  Date taken                          Xmp.xmp.CreateDate                     
  Date acquired                       Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.DateAcquired        
  Copyright                           Exif.Image.Copyright                   
  Copyright                           Xmp.dc.rights                          
  Camera maker                        Exif.Image.Make                        
  Cameral model                       Exif.Image.Model                       
  ISO Speed                           Exif.Photo.ISOSpeedRatings             
  Metering mode                       Exif.Photo.MeteringMode                
  Flash mode                          Exif.Photo.Flash                       
  35mm focal length                   Exif.Photo.FocalLengthIn35mmFilm       
  Lens maker                          Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.LensManufacturer    
  Lens model                          Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.LensModel           
  Flash maker                         Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.FlashManufacturer   
  Flash model                         Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.FlashModel          
  Camera serial number                Xmp.MicrosoftPhoto.CameraSerialNumber  
  Contrast                            Exif.Photo.Contrast                    
  Light source                        Exif.Photo.LightSource                 
  Exposure program                    Exif.Photo.ExposureProgram             
  Saturation                          Exif.Photo.Saturation                  
  Sharpness                           Exif.Photo.Sharpness                   
  White balance                       Exif.Photo.WhiteBalance                
  EXIF version                        Exif.Photo.ExifVersion

Johann

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 451

0

I have always Used EXIFER for this. I checked the developer's web page for a link for this and see that EXIFER is not being developed ANY FURTHER. The author recommends several more up to Date utilities including:

  • XnView
  • IrfanView
  • KUSO EXIF Viewer
  • ACDSee (commercial)

The exifer page is here http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/

Kije

Posted 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

Reputation: 1 972

+1 me too. Now when I (rarely) need to mess with this I use Imagemagicks autoorient. Usually it's all I need. – DaveParillo – 2009-10-19T22:45:38.990

Asked: 2009-10-19T14:15:25.983

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Active: 2019-09-18T16:27:27.947