Renaming using EXIF dates

[biobus]

Thanks Jim and team for a great utility. I have used it for quite a while and only now have run into a problem.

I had hundreds of old paper and negative photos scanned commercially. They do not have the full EXIF data of digital camera-generated pictures but I can add an estimated "date taken" in Vista's "Windows Photo Gallery". In the EXIF file, that one date shows up in both the "date created" and the "original" fields.

I wish to rename all my files by "subject" followed by "date taken". The problem is that neither of the BRU date fields pick up the "date taken" as entered into the EXIF file by Vista. The "BRU date taken" field comes out blank.

Suggestions?

Thanks much, Brian

[Admin]

Can you email me a small-ish file so i can debug it?


Jim

[Admin]

Many thanks for the file.

I've debugged BRU against this file, and it appears that Vista writes non-standard EXIF data to the file. Vista starts by writing hex 0x8769 which means "EXIF OFFSET". It then writes two separate blocks of code, both with the identifier 0xea1c. Unfortunately these are non-standard (Microsoft at their best) and BRU doesn't know what to do with them. On the file you supplied there is no conventional EXIF data at all.

If you look at the properties of the file in Explorer then you see the details. If however you do the same on a Windows XP machine then XP doesn't detect any valid EXIF data and instead just shows the created/modified/accessed dates.

Vista does a few strange things. Another is the "rating" information which you can associate with picture (e.g. up to 5 stars). Vista puts this in a nonstandard IPTC field.

So I'm afraid BRU won't be able to help you UNLESS I can find the spec for this 0xea1c block which Microsoft have invented.



Jim

[biobus]

Jim,

Thanks much for the quick turnaround. I am not a programmer and can certaily appreciate the complexities.

FYI, my reference to Vista's "Date Taken" making it into the EXIF file was based on opening the pictures in one of my colleagues' Photoshop application at work. There the Vista-entered dates appear twice, in the "Date Created" and the "DateTimeOriginal" fields.

The simple fix for me would be to have the ability to change the actual "Date Taken" field that BRU reads. What software (freware) does that? Could that functionality be added directly to BRU?

Many thanks again, Brian

[Admin]

Hi,

You can check out Exifer, which is free. I personally use ACDSee which, sadly, is not free (but worth every penny!).

As I mentioned, if anyone (hint...) can find me some notes on this new Microfot tag, I'd be happy to explore it!



Jim