-
Write EXIF out to jpeg
As you can probably tell from recent posts, I’m neck-deep in the nuts and bolts of CatDV, and applying it’s capabilities to our workflow in a live broadcast show.
I don’t think it can, but is there any way CatDV can write out EXIF data to an image file?
Why would I want to do this? Well, it would be great to be able to have a column for Credit (IPTC:Credit) that you could edit in CatDV, and it would write out the change to the file.
In that scenario, we could simply drag and drop image files from CatDV to our live playout system for air (which reads the EXIF Credit directly from the file and superimposes it onscreen). Sometimes our guys grab images on the fly and need to source them manually. Of course images we get from our Getty subscription, etc. already have the Credit line info embedded. But in our live show we sometimes have to grab stuff on the fly and get it up ASAP, and need to properly source it (website, etc.).
Naturally we could open it in Photoshop, edit the EXIF, and bring it back. But was hoping for something a little more streamlined. But this would be my fallback method.
If it can’t write out, maybe a Worker action? I haven’t delved into the capabilities of Worker quite yet. Not sure if it would be able to monitor if Credit field is edited, then call a command-line tool to take that and write the field into into the file’s EXIF data?
Bryson, there some mention made about writing EXIF data here: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/278/2472 Not sure if you were talking about what I am though.
Wondering if there’s a way to do something that would work for us.
-
12 Replies
-
We have a script called “metadata inject” that writes into the wrapper of an mpv or mp4 file.
We also have a version that does the same for stills. We don’t check to see if the data is there, that’d be custom but could be done for sure.
You can script it yourself, if you’re handy, there are tons of command line image tools. But if you are tired of messing with it, get a hold of your dealer/integrator, they might be able to put something together as well.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
-
This has been a big issue for us as well. When a photographer comes back from a shoot they log their images in CatDV. Later if they wish to deliver an image to a client, none of the metadata is with the image. This has caused the photographers to log everything in Adobe Bridge and then in CatDV. To import Bridge metadata you can map some of those fields so that when the worker imports the image it automatically populates CatDV user fields with Bridge metadata, but you loose the advantage of CatDV’s excellent shared/standardized pick lists that cab be centrally updated for all users. That is huge in a large asset management system. We have over 2.5 million photos and close to 200TB of video. Searching for media hinges on using standards for logging and CatDV does a great job at this. It’s a shame it can’t be exported with media. CatDV should be able to write to IPTC and EXIF metadata fields from specified user fields when publishing to the server. It should also be optional so you don’t have to write to files if you don’t want to.
-
Bryson, do you have a recommendation on one of the command line images tools that would be easily and effectively used for this. I would like to take a shot at doing this.
-
I believe imagemagick should be able to do this for you.
Have fun, and keep us posted on your progress!
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
-
hi all
there’s a tutorial on our website outlining how to do this please see
https://www.squarebox.com/writing-metadata-to-media-files/
thank you Dougal
Improvise Adapt and Overcome
-
Dougal – you have made my day!! I read the instructions you pointed me to and this will do exactly what I want. I like that the entire process is automated by the worker and lets us use the existing Client field and pick lists. I downloaded ExifTool and started setting up the Worker and Client to do tests on some files copied from our server. I will work with copied files until I am confident of the process. After I have all refined and tested I will let you know how it works. Thanks for this great workflow tool and your assistance.
Fred
-
After testing I have a couple of questions. In your example, which worked for me, you use the command line exiftool -xmp:Notes=${NT}. You use (Notes) to write to the “album notes field” How did you determine this cross reference? I need to write to the dc:subject field from user field 9. I’m guessing I need to use a different field name such as (Notes) similar to your example but don’t know what that would be or where to find out.
Second – can I simply modify the metadata without making a copy of the media. With over 2.5 million images I can’t create duplicate images on the server. Using my example (dc:subject) what would the command line be.
-
Naively I would assume exiftool -dc:subject=${U9} might do what you want but this is completely untested and I’m not familiar with how reliable exiftool tool is as editing metadata, so you should do extensive testing (and ensure you have backup copies of the original versions of any critical media files) before relying on this in a production workflow!
-
Well said Rolf.
Fred, you can get more info on the variables by clicking “Help” in the Watch Action editor and then the “Fields” button. That gives you the syntax for meta fields. You can hover over them in the CatDV Catalog to find out the ID.
Remember that scripting outside apps and the shell is a grey area. Squarebox doesn’t make EXIF Tool and can’t really control how your system is set up so it’s a dicey thing to support over a forum.
Extensive testing and solid backups are key. We always maintain a development environment for setting up and testing scripts so that no live data is harmed by a misplaced character in a command.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
-
That is good advice and I have set all this up using media that has been copied to a separate drive for testing. I have been able to get it to work after trying a few variations. For copying User field 9 (U9) to “dc:subject” I used “XMP:subject” . The command ended up being – ExifTool -XMP:subject=${U9} $b This wrote user field 9 (my tag words) to the media file and created a backup file. I have several other metadata fields that I need to use and I doubt they will be as easy as “xmp:subject” but hopefully I will be able to work it out. Thanks for your assistance.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up