Inserting exposure metadata into scanned photographs

June 18, 2008 6:13 PM

Is it possible to (and how would you) add shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, lens, and camera metadata to scanned files saved in a .psd format?

I have photoshop, lightroom, and bridge. I know how to add tags and change the usual metadata stuff. I just can't figure out how to change these particular fields when they aren't written into the file to begin with as they are with DSLR files.

posted by ztdavis to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

It looks like there's a couple of libraries that can do this, though. The one I'm familiar with is exiftool. It's a perl script, but there's a Windows binary available and a package for MacOS too. It works from the command line, although it looks like there's some graphical frontends that may be helpful if you're not comfortable working that way.

If you do go with the command line, you'll need to look up the tag names here. Exif is the standard format for image meta-data, so you should choose tags from that group whenever possible. Some of the settings you're interested in may be manufacturer specific, though. If so, you'll also need to specify which manufacturer's format you're using, which you do by choosing the right group from the list and using it as a prefix for the tag name you're setting. So you write meta-data to files like so:

exiftool myimage.psd -ISO=125 -Canon:LensType=131

I should probably point out that I haven't actually tried this, but it looks like it should work. I'm more confident that the exif tags will stick than the manufacturer specific ones.
posted by xchmp at 7:04 PM on June 18, 2008

Best answer: Go here download and extract ExifToolGUI and put the file someone tidy, create a shortcut to it from your desktop etc. Then download the Windows Exiftool file from the second link on that page. The file is called ExifTool-k.exe in the zip file, rename it to exiftool.exe and put it in the same location as the ExifToolGUI program.

Then launch the program. Navigate to the file you want to edit, then click the little up arrow underneath the EXIF button on the right. It'll let you add or change whatever data you desire.

I'd suggest making one file match your generic settings, Canon XTI etc etc, then export that to a file, which you can then import to files you're tagging to save you some time.

All this can be accomplished using the command link like xchmp stated above, but if you're more happy with a GUI then this is the way to go.

What's incredibly frustrating is this should be easily possible in Photoshop, the file> fileinfo area, under advanced pretends to let you append, delete or insert, but none of it seems to work in the slightest (CS3), if it did, then you could just export a file, edit it in notepad/whatever (EXIF is very readable) then replace it in Photoshop. Maybe CS4...
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:11 PM on June 18, 2008

Response by poster: It is true, I do need a GUI.

Thank you both!
posted by ztdavis at 8:37 PM on June 18, 2008