Exif question

[cgbraggjr]

Wow - this has been a very interesting discussion. For me the bottom line is that I will adapt the way I fill in the fields in Lightroom so that what I want to appear in PTE does appear. This limits me to one field, but I can live with that. In terms of workflow and getting on with my life, there just isn't enough time to use an Exif editor *and* my photo editor. If worst comes to worst, I can have LR and PTE open at the same time and copy and paste whatever I need from LR to the comment field in PTE. Unless I start making a living creating PTE slide shows, there's no need to get more sophisticated.

Thanks for all the help and information!

A.

[Conflow]

Lin and Al,

Lin I do see and understand your point concerning PTE.5xx (I assume it is V5xx) and

I also appreciate your frustration with the "intermittent nature" of the perceived bug.

But to be fair, we do know that Igor has acknowledged an EXIF problem and is looking

at it. Earlier in the thread I said, if you modify an Image in any way you will loose Exif

data and to my way of thinking 'Pan & Zoom' are such a modification and I am firmly

convinced that this inbuilt-utility is at the root of Igors' Exif problem ??....How do you

preserve metadata in a (programmed) "moving Image"...think about it.

Then of course how is a particular PC set-up to resolve Metadata, many won't because

those Files are usually hidden and 'user-scripting' is most often disabled. The same goes

for IE.6 when 'script-debugging' is enabled, it usually rejects non-Microsoft Web Scripts.

Bringing an 'unmodified Image' to another Program should show the Exif Data PROVIDED

that Program has Exif utilities,some dont.

There is a List of Exif enabled Programs under one of the Buttons on the Exifer Web Page.

Just some thoughts which I hope will help.

Brian.

PS. As an example here below is a little Utility which I use to "Block" all Scrips running

on my Laptop when viewing EMails and downloading from the Web...keeps me safe !

[sanewcomb]

Lin,

Why don't you send a few of these files to the developers directly (to get their attention) so they can see what is going on with their extraction functions.

Your file did show the entries in my version of Irfanview and Exifer. But the form of the headers is fundamentally different than the headers in my camera images. Editing the EXIF UserComment or ImageDescription fields and entering new text with Exifer did not change anything with P2E even though this function works fine with my images, Exifer and P2E.

I did experience a very odd behavior. When I changed the JPEG Comment* field and at least one of the EXIF fields at the same time, the image and thumbnail disappear from Exifer displays. The file size is the same. Irfanview shows only the thumbnail. P2E reports "This JPEG image can not be loaded Probably the JPEG file is damaged". The image is probably still there, but the header is somehow corrupted. This only happens when the JPEG Comment* field and one or both of the EXIF fields are modified at the same time. I tried reproducing this behavior with a number of my own images and could not. See if you can reproduce it. This is indicating a problem with either Exifer or your software/camera because this behavior has nothing to do with P2E. I have edited the comment fields, all three of them, using various software for several years and have never seen anything like this happen where the ability to view the image is lost. The only other odd behavior I've observed is Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2 stripping the JPEG Comment* field out of files that had been edited by other software.

And I did come across and remembered one long standing bug (minor) in the JPEG Description feature in P2E. It will clip the last letter of the text string and not show it in P2E. Putting a space at the end works around this for now. Again, I recommend using the JPEG Comments template for captions included in JPEG image files. I don't really see the point in having the JPEG Description field in P2E. Would be better (and less confusing) to have a IPTC comment field or JPEG Comment* field or both for alternative options.

Earlier in the thread I said, if you modify an Image in any way you will loose Exif

data .....

Brian,

I have never found this to be the case. I edit almost all my images in one way or another and the EXIF fields are always there after editing. Do you really lose the EXIF header if you simply open up one of your JPEG images straight from the camera in Photoshop, change the brightness or shrink it 1/2 size, and save it? The only time I've seen information removed is Adobe Photoshop taking out the JPEG Comment* field. There is also no evidence, again with the image files produced by my Olympus C5050Z, that any of these fields are encoded and require a special codec to unencode. They exist as ASCII strings as can clearly be seen with a hex file editor.

However one possible explanation occurred to me while writing this post. It may be that professional level cameras, possibly Digital SLRs implement a more sophisticated header with security code which are simply left out of the lower cameras. I kind of doubt this though as it wouldn't be much of a standard if it was implemented that differently across products.

I'll be interested to find out how Lin's problems are resolved. You can start to understand why WnSoft hasn't spent a great deal of time digging into the JPEG header files. Camera companies as well as software apps have implemented it in so many different ways. I'm sure they will figure out some way to handle it, but sure is a headache. Oh, and I very much appreciate the work they've done on it so far. It's one of the most useful and time saving features for me because I feel it is very important to keep the captions with the images for posterity.

Steve Newcomb

Tucson, AZ USA

[alrobin]

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/IMG0298.JPG

Let me know if it works on your computer....

Lin,

You're right - both description and comment information show up in IrfanView as well as Exifer, but nothing in PTE, except the image filename. Weird! To get the filename to register, I had to hit the "Set for existing slides" button in Proj Ops first.

FYI, here is the image file which I have success with on my system (except for the last letter of the description as Steve pointed out):

- "comment" from the camera, "description" from Exifer.

[alrobin]

Earlier in the thread I said, if you modify an Image in any way you will loose Exif

data and to my way of thinking 'Pan & Zoom' are such a modification and I am firmly

convinced that this inbuilt-utility is at the root of Igors' Exif problem ??....How do you

preserve metadata in a (programmed) "moving Image"...think about it.

Brian,

In my test PTE example, I tried putting the image in motion (both zoom and rotate 360 deg), and the exif data displayed fine, just as before.

Give my example below a try and let me know if it works on your system. When you unpack it, you may have to go into PTE proj ops and click on the "Set for existing slides" buttons before running the preview.

exif_test.zip

[mhwarner]

Lin,

Thanks for your comments, and for being apparently, the only one who actually understood what I was trying to say.

To Brian, Steve and anyone else who may have misunderstand what I said as a debate on the technicalities of the EXIF specification and the intricasies of updating those fields so that they could actually be displayed by PtoE:

My point is that if the "Text Macro" functionality is to be useful to a large segment of PtoE users, it has to work with data that is easily updated by mainstream imagement management and editing applications. Exifer is NOT mainstream, is at least 5 years old with no recent updates, has little in the way of help and is generally a PITA to use. IrfanView, which is free and is used by many folks, and is maybe a "least common denominator", easily updates IPTC fields, which are in fact designed to be edited and updated by the user. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, ThumbsPlus, BreezeBrowser, IMatch, ACDSee, and dozens of other programs do as well. If Igor isn't able or doesn't want to add the ability to capture IPTC data to comments via text macro, it's not a big deal to me. If I would require that functionality for a particular slideshow, I can simply use another program to place them on the photos as I am resizing them. I always attempt to use IPTC fields to store location and title data in my pictures when I finish a shoot so that no matter what program I use or where I store the photo files, the data will always travel with them. JPEG Comments and/or EXIF comments are way too quirky and I am not about to waste my time with something that may or may not be readable by the majority of image management/editing applications. IPTC data, on the other, is so heavily used throughout the world by professional photographers and newspaper people that the capability to read it is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

(And just for the record, Brian, I did actually request the capability of using IPTC fields as a future enhancement long before version 5. Further, I do not believe I hijacked this thread. I was attempting to point out to the original poster why he was having so much trouble getting the text macro capability to work for EXIF comments and descriptions.)

[alrobin]

And I did come across and remembered one long standing bug (minor) in the JPEG Description feature in P2E. It will clip the last letter of the text string and not show it in P2E. Putting a space at the end works around this for now.

Steve,

Further on this point, and another curious anomaly in this continuing saga, I resized the original image in PS, saved it as a jpeg file, and brought it into the PTE project containing the original image. To my surprise, the "description" tag is now complete, and all of the other fields are shown as before. (see screenshot below, and a copy of the modified file). PS must have automatically added a blank character to the end of the metadata descriptor.

PS: I also improved the contrast.

[Igor]

Lin,

Thanks for the JPEG file with EXIF fields which can't be read in PicturesToExe.

The problem well described in this topic - not enought exactly determined specifications of EXIF fields.

I'll try to implement more complete support of various kinds of EXIF fields and probably add support of IPTC fields. Added to TODO list. But not earlier than in versions 5.2 or 5.3

Sorry that I can't do it in this version 5.1

[alrobin]

Steve, and anyone else interested in this anomaly:

Further to my last post, I observe a difference in the way the "description" tag is contained in the jpeg file for the two examples attached. In the second modified jpeg, there is a "nul" character between the end of the description and the word "Nikon" following it. This must have been added by PS when I re-saved the file after cropping it.

I've attached a screenshot of the two jpegs as they show up when opened in Notepad. With the first jpeg, PTE skips the last character, and with the second one, PTE shows the whole text.

Igor, I agree that this area is too confusing and un-coordinated, and is probably not a high priority for the majority of us users.

[Conflow]

Al

I have just downloaded your +400k File and saved it. I can't look at it now as I am off to

Bavaria early Friday morning and just right now "things are coming out of the woodwork"

don't they always when one is in a rush.

I am pleased to know that Photoshop seems to re-install Exif Data after editing and

after Pan & Zoom. However I regret to say that the vast majority of other Photo-Editors

simply "ditch" the data.

Steve

I know that the Exif Data is in an ascii-string' ~ My reference to a codec was purely an

'off-cuff-comment' suggesting that one would need a codec to decompile the string into

text-data. A Hex Editor won't do that as the source code is not known,thats the reason

one would have to use 'Line Command Arguments' to see whats there. Concerning loss

of Exif data after Image modifications, yes this happens with many Photo-Editors and

its the reason that Exifer has a 'Save/Replace utility' just to get around that problem.

As you know 'AL' has now found out that Photoshop replaces the Exif data but the vast

majority of other Photo Editors simply use the 'embedded Thumbnail' and ditch the data.

Yes you are correct about the Manufacturers ~ you should see the problems we have

with GPS !

Mary

I never used the word "Hijack" you did. I was my opinion that the "topic" was drifting

away from Argonauts' origional problem of Exif loss ~ I accept that you were trying

to help him, but as you are well aware it has now become a full blown debate, not so

at the beginning of the thread.

Yes Exifer is 5 yrs old, I was the 1st.to Post it to the Forum 3½ years ago and for

what its worth, I dont expect any updates as the job was 'done & dusted' with the

help of the JEITA Organisation way back in September 2001 (released 2002).

Personally I can't see JEITA changing the Exif Specification simply to suit us...

Must go no now,

Happy Christmas to all.

Brian.Conflow

[mbskels]

Hi,

Just to say that there is comprehensive documentation of EXIF/IPTC data structures at this site http://www.hugsan.com/EXIFutils. The EXIFUTILS software is a command line editor and therefore may not be suitable for all but the documentation which is downloadable at the EXIFUTILS site is fairly readable and covers a lot of the issues.

Malcolm

[sanewcomb]

After reading more about JPEG metadata I've made these observations.

1. EXIF is a standard developed to allow cameras to add information, primarily technical such as F-stop, ISO rating, etc, to image files created in digital cameras. It is no longer maintained or updated (neither is IPTC's IIM, see below), but widely used by camera manufacturers, the intended target. Brian has explained that some image programs corrupt or all together remove the EXIF metadata when they save image files. I don't agree with his reasoning. The complete EXIF standard can be found at this link and I can not find any reference to anti tampering or security protocals to delete the header if the image data is altered. Rather, I think some programs don't preserve it because the writers of that program don't have a routine doing so. Brian, do you have a source, or were you speculating as to why it is removed by some programs? I do agree it was not meant to be edited to any real extent and the fact that some programs do strip it make it a poor choice to store comments.

http://www.exif.org/specifications.html

2. What is called the IPTC standard is actually that body's IIM standard for including relavent information from a news organization perspective, such as copyright, headline, source. Its scope is actually much larger than JPEG headers and was meant to group together information and facilitate sending it over data lines (now obsolete). It is no longer maintained but widely used by image applications. Its implementation is left to the software developer and varies somewhat across different programs. I don't know if the integrity of IPTC IIM headers is preserved any more or less than EXIF in software apps as I don't have much experience using them. There is more info at the IPTC website

http://www.iptc.org/IIM/

I can understand why the P2E developers might have included the EXIF headers first since it is so closely linked to digital photographic images in the JPEG format, and photographers wanting to include information from the photograph files. But as far as inserting and utilizing text strings to use as captions in P2E projects the IPTC data fields would be a good addition and have broader support for editing at the end user level. Does anyone know of any applications that remove or corrupt IPTC fields of altered image files, intentionally or not? (Question for people with experience using these fields).

Steve Newcomb

Tucson, AZ USA

P.S. There is a good overview and use of these types of headers on the JAlbum discussion forum below

http://jalbum.net/forum/thread.jspa?thread...=0&tstart=0

[Ken Cox]

from my collection

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....470&hl=exif

and when the first beta 5's came on the scene it was me that brought up the fact that slide ID, comments, exif data etc were not showing properly via the rolldown -exif etc were new to the options whereas slide ID,comments had been around since the v3 series -- positioning was always a problem back then and we did not have much adjustment

ver 5 opened up a whole lot of "new" options and basically we had to learn how to use them

when Igor resolved the proper slide "name/comment" issue he stated at that time that exif data was giving him a problem and it was on his to do list and eventually would get it fixed.

i will go thru my archives and add links to this issue

my first question re comments postion starts here

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....post&p=9886

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....amp;#entry44019

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....648&hl=exif

if you do a forum search

use

exif

and use my name Ken Cox

it will bring up a page of hits

ken