

EXIFinfo

Program Manual



Contents

Contents	1

Colophon	1

About EXIFinfo	2

About this manual	2

Program requirements	2

About EXIF files	2

Using the program	3

Program options	4

	Output type	4

	Edit	4

	Run on completion	4

Program limitations and capabilities	5

	Cameras known to work with EXIFinfo	5

	Cameras with problems	6

Notes and acknowledgements	7

Program history	8





Colophon

Document:	!EXIFinfo.help/ewr
Description:	Help file for EXIFinfo application version 0.59beta
Version:	1.31 (Wed, Feb 12, 2003)
Author:	 Chris Terran/Lee Montgomerie/Vermilion Sands 2003
Format:	EasiWriter/HTML/text
Email:	chris@photodesk.iconbar.com
Web:	http://www.photodesk.iconbar.com



Important Note
EXIFinfo is a beta program. It is in development and may contain bugs. 
Feedback is needed, especially if you come across problems or you have 
suggestions for improving the program.
If a particular image causes difficulties, please send it to the email 
address above. (Please write first if its over 1Mb in size.)
**** Remember ****
If you dont tell us about problems, they cant be fixed!

About EXIFinfo

Please take note
 This program is only useful for EXIF images produced by digital 
cameras, not for ordinary JPEGs or any other kind of images. Editing an 
EXIF image will almost certainly destroy the EXIF data. Always keep 
copies of your originals!

EXIFinfo is a small application which gives access to the non-graphic 
data stored in the EXIF files produced by digital cameras. EXIF files 
appear as normal JPEGs, but also contain information about the camera 
settings used for the photograph  exposure time, focal length, 
aperture, whether the flash was used, and much more.

EXIFinfo can also understand the so-called MakerNote 
manufacturer-specific information in images from Canon, Casio, Fuji, 
Nikon, Olympus and Sanyo cameras.

EXIFinfo reads a directory of images and converts all this information 
into various formats, including:

web pages with linked thumbnails, in a variety of formats

a summary text file

a text file containing all available information

a CSV file ready for inclusion in a database

caption information for the excellent image browsing program Thump

DDF files for formatted text

Each output format is completely configurable, and you can define new 
ones.

About this manual

This manual only describes the use of EXIFinfo on the desktop. The 
program is however highly configurable by means of script files, and if 
you want to know how to create or alter these youll need to obtain the 
EXIFinfo Reference Manual, available from the same site as the program. 
This comes with a StrongEd editing mode for script files.

EXIFinfo has a command-line interface so it can be called by external 
programs. See the reference manual for details.

Program requirements

EXIFinfo should run on RISC OS 3.10 or higher, including RISC OS 5; 
this application works on both 26- and 32-bit machines. No additional 
resources are required.

About EXIF files

EXIF is an extension to the standard JFIF format much used to store 
photographic images (more commonly known as JPEG). JFIF uses lossy 
compression to reduce the size of images  theres a trade-off between 
file size and image quality  and works particularly well with 
photographs.

The EXIF format has been agreed upon by most camera manufacturers as 
the storage method for digital photographs. It is (theoretically) 
backwards-compatible with existing JFIF viewers, although some programs 
have problems reading the files. In particular, the JFIF renderer built 
in to RISC OS cannot display them.

Why extend the format? Simply so that camera settings can be stored 
with an image. Nearly all JFIF readers on RISC OS ignore this extended 
information, and will in fact discard it if the image is resaved. Thus 
it is very important to keep your original image files if you want to 
access all the information stored in them. We recommend making them 
read-only, either by using the Filer to lock the files or by burning 
them straight on to CD.

Using the program

Double click on EXIFinfo in a Filer directory display, and a window 
will open; the program does not have an iconbar icon.

Now drag a single JPEG file or a directory containing JPEG images 
produced by a digital camera on to this window. If you hold down a 
shift key and drag a file, the parent directory will be used (necessary 
if the root directory contains the images). Note that if you have done 
any processing on the images at all  including rotation and resizing  
you will almost certainly have lost the EXIF data; EXIFinfo will then 
produce no output. Always keep your originals!

Next, select the type of output you want from the pull-down menu. Some 
more information on the output format may appear in the display. The 
default destination of the output is specified in the format template 
file (normally the same as the images directory), and appears in the 
lower icon. You can edit this name if you wish.

The icon to the right of the output filename will also change to 
reflect the filetype of the output. You can drag this to a new 
destination, which must however be a Filer window  you cannot save 
directly to another application, as some types of output generate 
multiple files. For instance, the web page output creates a directory 
of thumbnail images as well as an HTML file.

If you want to look at images on a non-writeable filing system (on a 
CD-ROM, for example), youll have to change the output destination. If 
you do this a lot, you can edit the appropriate output definition file 
(see the reference manual for details).

Click on Go to start the operation. A file will be created containing 
the details of any images found, in the format specified. All other 
graphics files (including standard JPEGs) are ignored.

If you select the Run on completion option, the file will be displayed 
in an appropriate manner  a web page in a browser, text files in your 
preferred editor. Some output formats may not be suitable for running; 
in these cases the icon is greyed out.

Selecting Show warnings will open an alert box if there are any 
problems with the image, such as unknown tags. This is meant as a 
debugging aid only, and should normally be left switched off. The 
Complete information output format will also list any warnings for 
each image.

Note there are no checks for overwriting files, so be careful.

Clicking on Help will open this file, and Web site will attempt to open 
the programs home site. Edit shows the text file that defines the 
current output format.

To stop the program, just close the window.

Program options

Output type

Clicking on the menu button will open a list of the available output 
formats; select one to make it current.

The example formats currently supplied include:

Full information
This produces a text file containing all available information about 
every image in the source directory. This may be a big file!

Summary information
This produces a text file containing just a few significant items about 
each picture.

Web pages
These produce web pages complete with thumbnail images linked to the 
main ones, and varying amounts of camera information. The thumbnails 
are normally stored in a new directory created within the image 
directory, but you can change this by dragging the filetype icon. 
Various column formats are available, each with absolute or relative 
links. You should use the absolute linked versions when you want the 
output to be in a different place than the default (stored in the same 
directory as the images), or you want to move the output and thumbnails 
around.
J. David Barrows excellent and very useful Jcut program can rotate 
JPEGs without losing the EXIF data, but note that the thumbnails are 
not rotated.

Thump captions
If you have Rick Hudsons splendid image browser Thump, you can 
automatically generate captions for all the images in a directory. 
Important: note that this will overwrite any existing captions, and you 
should close down Thump before running EXIFinfo.

Various Comma Separated Value formats
These can be dropped straight into a database or EasiWriter to produce 
a nicely formatted display. There are formats with and without column 
labels, and with and without quotes.

DDF Files
EXIFinfo can produce DDF files, which are text files with extra 
information for describing fonts and text styles. DDF documents can be 
read by all the major RISC OS DTP and word processing programs, 
including the Impression, EasiWriter and Ovation families. A simple 
example script is supplied.

Edit

Clicking on this icon will load the definition of the currently 
selected output format into a text editor. For more information on 
these files see the EXIFinfo Reference Manual, available from the same 
site as the program.

If you edit one of these files (read the documentation first!) and save 
it, you will need to reselect the output format for any changes to take 
effect.

If you add a new format (simply save a file into the Formats directory 
inside the program), the program must be restarted for it to be seen.

Run on completion

Selecting this option will Filer_Run the output file after it has been 
created. This should display the output in whatever program you have 
configured to run that particular filetype  for example, HTML in a web 
browser, text files in your preferred editor.

Program limitations and capabilities

EXIFinfo should be regarded as a beta-test version. It is subject to 
change and development and comes with no guarantees  feedback would be 
extremely useful, especially if any of the information produced is 
inaccurate! We only have one brand of digital camera (Fuji), so cant 
conduct exhaustive tests.

EXIFinfo provides support for the "MakerNote" section present in some 
EXIF images. This contains additional information about the image, but 
it is extremely company- and product-specific, and some of the formats 
are not yet completely understood. MakerNotes in images from Canon, 
Casio, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus and Sanyo cameras are currently handled, 
and we hope to expand MakerNote support as and when more information 
becomes available.

We repeat: this program is only useful for EXIF images produced by 
digital cameras, not for ordinary JPEGs. Do not edit your originals in 
any way!

IMPORTANT It has come to light that Photodesks PhotoLink serial 
download program corrupts* image files by overwriting all the EXIF data 
and thumbnails with zeros, for some reason best known to its author. 
(Apparently their PhotoShow program is fine.) We know of no other 
transfer software, on any platform, that behaves in this manner. 
Unfortunately nothing can be done about it  once the information is 
gone, its gone. All we can suggest is that you use other transfer 
methods, or (recommended) invest in one of Surftecs card-readers.
*And no, corrupts isnt too strong a word. We dont think destroying 
peoples data is a very nice thing to do. To put it mildly.

Cameras known to work with EXIFinfo

At least one image tested from the following cameras:

Casio 3500

Casio QV-3000EX

Canon Digital Ixus

Canon Digital Ixus 330

Canon PowerShot A20

Canon PowerShot G1

Canon PowerShot G2

Canon PowerShot S10

Canon PowerShot S45

Fujifilm DX-10

Fujifilm FinePix 2200/2300

Fujifilm FinePix 40i

Fujifilm FinePix 4800Z

Fujifilm FinePix 6900Z

Fujifilm FinePix S1Pro

Fujifilm FinePix S2Pro

Fujifilm MX-1200

Fujifilm MX-1700Z

Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart C812

Kodak DC240

Kyocera FC-S3

Minolta DiMAGE 7

Minolta DiMAGE 7i

Minolta DiMAGE X

Nikon Coolpix 700

Nikon D1

Nikon E700

Nikon E880

Nikon E950

Nikon E995

Olympus C860L

Olympus C960Z

Olympus C2000Z

Olympus C2020Z

Olympus C2100UZ

Olympus C3040Z

Olympus C4000Z

Olympus D460Z

Olympus E10

Pentax Optio 330

Ricoh RDC-5300

Sanyo SX113

Seiko PhotoPC 3000Z

Sony Cybershot

Sony DCR-TRV900E

Sony DSC-F707

Sony Mavica MVC10000

Sony Mavica MVC200

Sony Mavica MVC300



Cameras with problems

Kodak DC210
At least some images do not conform to the EXIF specification. 
Thumbnails are in uncompressed form (not currently handled by EXIFinfo) 
and are the wrong size; image size is not recorded. The program will 
read the minimal data that is present, but will not generate thumbnails.

Nikon E775
Most images are fine, but one or two have been reported as giving 
problems. From the single sample weve seen, this appears to be caused 
by the camera (or possibly some external software) rotating the image  
also the thumbnail data is missing (or not where it should be). Various 
other programs display the full image in banded form (Photodesk, 
Jcut), although Fresco works fine. EXIFinfo will display the image 
data, but no thumbnails are available.

Sanyo SR6
OK except thumbnails are half-size (80x60), so look a bit blocky.

Sony DSC-D700
80x60 thumbnails, uncompressed so not displayed. Otherwise OK.



Many thanks to all those who have sent in reports. If you can add to 
either list, let us know.

Notes and acknowledgements

The RISC OS application EXIFinfo is free to download for personal use 
from the Vermilion Sands Photodesk Resources web site 
(http://www.photodesk.iconbar.com), but you use it at your own risk.

EXIFinfo and all associated files are copyright:  Chris Terran / Lee 
Montgomerie / Vermilion Sands 2002. EXIFinfo may not be distributed or 
made available in any form unless express permission in writing is 
given by the copyright holder.

Send any comments and bug reports to chris@photodesk.iconbar.com

Our warmest thanks to users who have provided support, criticism and 
invaluable bug reports:

Evan Clark, Roger Darlington, Rob Davison, Rich Goodwin, Stuart 
Halliday, Andrew Hodgkinson, Holger Klingspohr, Ryan Li, Duncan 
MacCallum, John McCulloch, Charles Minchin, Jim Nagel, Jean-Claude 
Picard, Richard Porter, Philip Ludlam, Roger Mayne, Tim Powys-Lybbe, 
Keith Reedman, Leon Ruwette, Arthur Taylor, Bernard Veasey, Peter 
Watkins, David H Wild, John Williams

All trademarks acknowledged.

Thump is a superb image browser:

	http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/rhudson/software/thump.html

Jcut is an essential toolkit for JPEGs, and can manipulate EXIF files 
without losing data:

	http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/

StrongEd is a very powerful text editor (as is Zap):

	http://stronged.iconbar.com/

StrongBS is a powerful tool for program compression and speed 
improvements (location unknown).

EasiWriter is a product of Icon Technology Ltd.:

	http://www.iconsupport.demon.co.uk

Photodesk is a (rather wonderful) product of Photodesk Ltd.:

	http://www.photodesk.ltd.uk

Thanks to the Iconbar for hosting the Vermilion Sands Photodesk 
Resources web site
(http://www.photodesk.iconbar.com), where any updates to EXIFinfo will 
appear.

Thanks to the sterling work of the RISC OS community and its 
supporters, especially the writers of PD / shareware / freeware 
software.

Finally, thanks to the many people around the world (far too many to 
list) who have worked on decoding MakerNotes and made the results 
available.

Program history

Version 0.59beta (Sat, Feb 8, 2003)

Added command-line capability

Now 26/32-bit neutral

Made file and error handling a bit more robust

Fix: Div0 bug in NikonD tag

Fix: Click type of Go button wrong

Various minor bug fixes and tidying

Version 0.56beta (Fri, Oct 18, 2002)

Split Help file into program and reference parts

Work started on StrongHelp manual (unreleased)

Template file version now at 2.30

Added #!Runnable directive

Added #!RunOnCompletion directive

Added #!TagDelimiters directive

Added initialisation procedure to UserLib

Hourglass now shows percentage progress

Fix: Div0 bug in some script files

More code tidying

Version 0.55beta (Thu, Oct 10, 2002)

Added Canon MakerNote

Can now process single files

Added #!EXIFDateFormat directive

Added #!FileDateFormat directive

Added some UserLib functions

Much general tidying-up of code

Version 0.54beta (Tue, Oct 8, 2002)

Added FujiFilm and Sanyo MakerNotes

Added extra Olympus MakerNote tags (E10 works now)

Added {!eval expr} tag

Menu now stays open on Adjust clicks

Currently selected format is ticked in the menu

Fix: Div0 bug in rationalise code

Version 0.53beta (Sat, Oct 5, 2002)

Added MakerNote support for Olympus, Nikon and Casio cameras

Added {!MakerNote} tag to identify the type of MakerNote present

Added new HTML format to demonstrate MakerNote data

{!if...} statements can now be nested

{!else} clauses are now optional in {!if...} statements

{!if "{tag}"} is equivalent to writing {!if "{tag}"<>"unknownstring"}

Added GPS tags (untested, as we havent been able to find any images 
that use them)

Various coding improvements

Added program version to window title

Version 0.51beta (Thu, Sep 26 2002)

Added new medium-info HTML output formats

Tidied display of rational numbers (for exposure times etc)  now 
reduced where possible

A few extra EXIF tags added

Added {!Date} and #!DateFormat

Added {!Inc Usern} and {!Dec Usern}

Various tag outputs improved

Added Show warnings option (for debugging use only!)

Error handling should be a bit better

Version 0.50beta (Sat, Sep 21, 2002)

Now allows editing of output name and dragging to Filer windows

Added new HTML formats: 1-4 column tabular output, absolute/relative 
links

Added {!OutputLeafName} and {!OutputPath} tags

Added {!User0}...{!User9} tags

Added #!Usern=value directives; can also do {!Usern=expr}

Added simple conditionals with {!if expr}....{!else}....{!endif} 
construct

Added user-defined function capability (in Formats.UserLib)

Added various new thumbnail tags (Sony cameras should now work OK)

Formats menu now sorted alphabetically

Tag information in help file now listed alphabetically

Shift-dragging a file uses the parent directory as the source

Bug fix: output destination icon now accepts pathnames up to 255 
characters

Bug fix: Help button was specifying the EasiWriter file

Default value of #!ThumbnailFileName changed to 
{!OutputPath}.thumbs.{!LeafName}

Various small speed-ups

(Slightly) better error handling. Still not good enough...

Version 0.42beta (11 Sep 2002)

Bug fix: Now closes non-EXIF files properly (whoops...)

Version 0.41beta (10 Sep 2002)

Added various new EXIF tags

Added run-on-completion option

Extended flash information

Bug fix: Allow numerals in tags

Bug fix: Check for oversize format files

Bug fix: Added {!FileDate} tag handler (forgot it!)

Version 0.40beta (08 Sep 2002)
First release version

Version 0.30 (27 Aug 2002)
Started BASIC/assembler conversion

Version 0.20 (12 Aug 2002)
Tweaked for other cameras (Nikon, Canon, Olympus)

Version 0.10 (10 Jun 2002)
Original NeuLisp version

