I'm looking for a way to batch-add Exif metadata to a bunch of jpeg files on WinXP.

January 14, 2004 10:38 PM

I'm looking for a way to batch-add Exif metadata to a bunch of jpeg files, specifically the picture-taken date, on WinXP. Any ideas?

The only program I've found that claims to do this, Ulead's Photo Explorer, invariably crashes whenever I try to do a batch edit.

posted by cbrody to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

AttributeMagic Pro says it can do it. It's $25 trialware.
posted by nicwolff at 11:18 PM on January 14, 2004

You can write your own. If you've any programming experience, it shouldn't take much effort at all; Python is very easy to get going on simple tasks like this.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:29 PM on January 14, 2004

Try sewing together jhead and a shell script (batch file). Basically -- whenever you're looking to do something in aggregate in Windows, think Linux and GNU instead.
posted by dhartung at 11:44 PM on January 14, 2004

Yeah! jhead looks good; you shouldn't need a shell script, just:

jhead -ts 2004:01:15-09:00:00 *.jpg

to set all the JPEGs in the current directory to nine this AM.
posted by nicwolff at 11:59 PM on January 14, 2004

I kind of like Photoshop's Save To the Web feature, since it produces a live preview and really compressed images, but it does ditch my camera's rich exif data. Does anyone know of a way to get small filesizes, but include exif data? Like a "Save to an online photo gallery" option?
posted by mathowie at 12:32 AM on January 15, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks for the tips all! AttributeMagic does what I want but is a bit expensive IMO. Will look into jhead as seems nice & easy even for someone like me who tends to avoid command lines whenever possible these days.

mathowie, IrfanView (which you probably know) is a great image toolbox, with a metadata viewer and batch processor to automate a lot of common tasks, including compressing images to a preset quality and/or size. However, there's no live preview and you can't modify the EXIF data. If only FireWorks (my tool of choice) preserved / allowed you to edit the data!

I found some php scripts, Exifer, which would also do the job, but they're overkill for what I need.

Hey, on Googling for that last link I came across a windows app called Exifer which does exactly what I need, and with a nice gui too! With AskMe and Google, anything is possible.
posted by cbrody at 1:47 AM on January 15, 2004

Response by poster: Matt, on testing, Exifer [Windows Postcardware] allows you to backup & restore image metadata: you can use non-EXIF-aware external apps for your editing, and easily add the camera data back afterwards.
posted by cbrody at 2:34 AM on January 15, 2004

Matt: If you still have your Mac, give Ye Old GraphicConverter a try. Its JPEG dialog lets you preserve exif, iptc, icc and sRGB profiles, while still applying image compression.
posted by alana at 7:50 AM on January 15, 2004

Hey, on Googling for that last link I came across a windows app called Exifer which does exactly what I need

So why didn't you google it before asking the question? I'm having a difficult time imagining how your pre-Ask search term could differ from your post-Ask search term.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:54 AM on January 15, 2004

Response by poster: five fresh fish: I found the php scripts called Exifer via PhotoStack, which uses them, and which I'm currently experimenting with. As I didn't have the URL to hand, I entered the name into Google and -- presto! -- I found a Windows program by the same name, which does exactly what I was originally looking for. Serendipity I guess -- the Exifer for Windows site didn't show up for any search terms I originally tried when looking for such software.

On reflection, I'm not sure that your carping (ho ho) really belongs on AskMe - please read the guidelines.
posted by cbrody at 5:08 PM on January 15, 2004