Since I'm getting more interested in photography and understanding cameras and techniques, I find myself wanting to know the details under which a photo was taken. Modern digital cameras encode a lot of such data -- shutter speed, lens focal length, etc. -- into the image file, generally called “Exif Data” (“Exif” stands for “exchangeable image file format”).
So, I wrote a little online Exif viewer to view whatever data might be encoded. Here's a screenshot using the viewer on a picture from a recent post:
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That's just the summary -- you can see the full data using the tool itself.
The amount of data encoded in the image is quite variable. Many times there's just about nothing, as the data is stripped somewhere along the way. Here's a version of the previous picture with most data missing. It's missing because it's a smaller version that's meant for web display, and for such use the data just makes the file bigger and slower to download.
Here's one with GPS location data encoded, which I think is quite cool. In the summary area is a link to a Google Map of the location, and below that is an embedded Google Maps pane. With either, you can switch between Satellite and Map, and zoom, etc. For some reason, though, the satellite imagery available to the embedded pane is of a much lower quality, at least for Kyoto Japan, so with this picture it's best to follow the map link in the summary.
My Tech-Related Photography Posts
- Digital Image Color Spaces
- Lightroom goodies (lots of plugins)
- Online Exif (Image Data) Viewer
- Adobe Lightroom 1.x Resources
- Jeffrey's Lightroom Configuration Manager
- Adobe Lightroom Custom Metadata-Viewer Presets
- Jeffrey's Autofocus Test Chart
- Photoshop CS2 Calendar-Template-Building Script
- A Qualitative Analysis of NEF Compression
- NEF, Color Space Settings, and Embedded JPGs
- Tripod Stability Tests, Part I
- Timing a Transcend 80x 4GB Compact Flash card
with a Nikon D200 - Digital Camera “White Balance”
- Maximum Aperture of the Nikon 18-200mm
Throughout its Zoom Range
more...
You can also check images on your local hard drive -- images directly from a camera generally have the most information. Give it a try!
If you're using Firefox or Safari, you have the added benefit that you can install an Exif-viewer button on your button-bar toolbar. Once you've done that, later, when you're viewing a page with an image you want to check out, just click the button and you'll be whisked to a new tab showing the image's data. I find this really useful. It doesn't work in IE, though, sorry.
I use the viewer a lot on images I see in the Digital Photography Review Samples and Galleries forum. Lots of nice pictures in there. Many have their Exif data stripped, but many do not.
Finally, I should note that my viewer makes use of Phil Harvey's most excellent Image::ExifTool library. Thanks Phil!
Trying to get your online exif viewer (installed in Safari) to read exif data from ERF (Epson raw files) on my hard drive. Does this work with ERF files or only with jpegs?
Thanks,
Carl
Nice tool Jeffrey! However, when I first used it on a page on my site, I was startled to see that the thumbnail showed the entire image from which I’d cropped a small portion. I had no idea that the thumbnail of the original was retained with a cropped version of it — although it does make sense since the rest of the EXIF data is retained. It is worth knowing though, and might avoid potential awkwardness if the original uncropped version was unsuitable for the intended audience. (A competitor’s sign off to the side of a great shot of an executive on a corporate site might be a bit embarrassing for example…)
Hah, Eric, you have no idea. I’ve seen pleasant headshots whose thumbnail revealed that the headshot was just a crop from a larger, more, er, “revealing” photo. That’s why I have the tool try to notice if the width/height ratio of the thumbnail is different from the parent image, and highlight that perhaps the image has been cropped.
Most photo-editing software will regenerate the thumbnail so that indeed it properly reflects the main image, but some applications leave the original thumbnail…. a potential source of huge embarrassment / privacy loss for someone, but also a source of great entertainment for those stumbling across them
Is it possible to print the Exif data from your desktop version?
Thanks for sharing this - it’s extremely useful and well implemented!
The EXIF bookmark (the “button”) seems to work fine on Camino. I copied the JavaScript and pasted it into a bookmark I created.
(I couldn’t just drag it, because the web page doesn’t display anything to drag if the browser is Camino.)
–Marc Rochkind
Thanks, Jeffrey! I’ve enjoyed using your online viewer for a while now. After a recent bout of Apple updates for OS X 10.4.11, however, Safari 3.0.4 crashes (quits unexpectedly) whenever I try to use your online viewer. (It continues to work fine in FireFox, however.) Probably Apple’s problem, rather than yours, but perhaps you can figure out how to get it working again, or at least report to Apple the particulars of the problem.
It turns out that this is a bug with Safari’s handling of href targets. I’ve made it so that the Exif button doesn’t use them on Safari, so if you pull a new button, it should work for you.—Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
I just found your viewer last week and started to use it in Safari 3.04. and Leopard 10.5.1.. At first everything worked just fine and I liked it very much. But yesterday using it resulted everytime in Safari crashing, just like Amary before me describes.
If you could make it function again I would really love it. It’s a one in his kind thing. I can’t find any other.
It turns out that this is a bug with Safari’s handling of href targets. I’ve made it so that the Exif button doesn’t use them on Safari, so if you pull a new button, it should work for you.—Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
And it does work for me again! Thanks for the quick reaction and repair. Perfect! Thanks again!
Thanks for the quick fix, Jeffrey! Just FYI, Apple has just released an updated Security Update 2007-009 (1.1) that fixes the problem in Safari that was introduced with Security Update 1.0.
Hi Jeffrrey,
Thanks for a very useful tool! I’ve tried dragging the exif button to the button bar as you suggest but it just refuses to go! What am I doing wrong? I’m using the Firefox browser.
Thanks, Bob
Hi Jeffrey,
Having downloaded the tool as a Firefox add-on, I’m using it by Ctrl-clicking an image and selecting ‘View Image Exif Data’ from the contextual menu. That works fine.
I really don’t understand how it’s supposed to work by typing in the URL in the box provided on your page. It merely reports back that it’s not an image but a web page. Er, right…. I couldn’t agree more! So what are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to indicate a specific image?
Bob
Put the url of an image, not of a web page hosting images. As for the add-on, that must be something else, since I’ve never written one. —Jeffrey
Jeffrey,
Thanks for the info about right clicking and choosing “copy image location.” I didn’t know.
What seems to have happened is this: Yesterday your exif button refused to be dragged to the button bar. I therefore downloaded Firefox add-on Exif Viewer 1.36. Today the word ‘exif’ appeared in the button bar; I assumed it was the add-on. I’ve just checked and found it’s actually the link to your page, so somehow it did get dragged over! I’ve just used it and it works fine!
Thanks again,
Bob
Jeffrey, great application, I usi it all the time… but I have got weird results when looking at some camera-lens combination thru the Exif web tool, in the film equivalent calculations:
Canon EOS 5D
TS-E24mm f/3.5L
Shot at 24mm (35mm film equivalent: 185.5mm)
For example, use this picture:
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/542/rojodecastrouf8.jpg
It might be a bug, or some problem with my browser? I use Firefox and MacOS Leopard. Just in case you may want to fix it.
Thank you!!
Your exif viewer was very helpful thank you.
I hope you can help, my problem is that all the images i have i put keywords on them thru windows right click properties, now that i import them to my new imac, can’t see the xp exif information on lightroom or aperture, there is any solution or program that i may use to solve this out ?
many thanks
leonel
from Portugal
XP writes them into a non-standard field. You can use exiftool to fix the images so that they can import with the keywords.
After installing exiftool, run this command in a shell window, while in the directory with the images you want to import:
exiftool -P -TagsFromFile @ "-Keywords<XPKeywords" *.JPGThen, when you import to Lightroom or Aperture, the keywords should be found. —Jeffrey
Jeffrey I’m sorry but as the xp fields I have are 95% the name of the place where I shot the picture, I need to import xp keyword (or subject, or title, all have the same information) to caption filed (I supposed it’s the most correct destination field).
I tried exiftool -P -TagsFromFile @ “-Caption
Thanks for your exif viewer, I’ve been trying to get one to work for me for weeks now, this is great. However, it seems to display the info for only the first photo on a page. I often view photos on forums with several images per page. How do I see the info for the other shots?
It indeed shows info for only one photo at a time. If you use the button-bar link, it shows info for the largest photo on the page. To view info on a specific photo, view the photo in a page by itself (e.g. with Firefox, right click and “view image”) then invoke the button. Or, copy the image URL and paste to the viewer input box. —Jeffrey
Okay, that works, thank you!
Is there a way to get your viewer to work in safari for windows ?
Thanks Geoff
Hi Jeffrey,
Can you add SeaMonkey to the list of user agents you sniff for the javascript bookmarklet? Technically, websites should sniff for “Gecko” rather than “Firefox” - you can read more details at geckoisgecko.org if you’re interested.
Chris
Fixed. Thanks for the heads up and the pointer. —Jeffrey
hi,
I’m barely a novice with the whole photography deal. You’re quite inventive, and I have a ?? If someone uses, “Baseline DCT, Huffman coding” to encode jpegs, is there any way to remove that? They’re using it for a signature, or brand name icon.(similar to the common “censored” shapes from your Metacafe Vid)– I’d be psyched to just have the original images…..
Thanks,
Bob
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking about here. I don’t have any “metacafe vid” or know what they are. The “Baseline DCT, Huffman coding” is the way JPG images are compressed, and has nothing to do with censoring or obscuring or hiding anything….. —Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey, we’ve just discovered your tool. It’s fantastic - thanks. However one little query. I’m using it to investigate the shutter count on my stock of cameras but this line doesn’t seem to show up on with my Canon 10d cameras - but fine with Nikon D70s. Any ideas? Thanks!
It seems that Canon didn’t have the 10d write that bit of metadata to its files. Not many cameras have it, although these days it seems to be common among SLRs. —Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
Just wanted to say thanks for your reply to my question. It wasn’t actually what I wanted to hear, but thanks for taking the time to respond. Les
Hi Jeffrey,
a most excellent tool! I used it for checking some pictures I was sending to my website (it’s a small site where people can send pics from their mobile phones straight to the site and I wanted to add a little ‘Geotagging’ feature). I’d love to have a similar feature to yours on my own site - I’m very envious! Anyway, I’m wondering if you can help - do you know of anyway that I can upload a picture to my own site that contains no exif data (”Geo” data) and then manually add the location the picture was taken to the exif data? Kind of like an online exif writer that will allow you to perhaps select your location from Google maps or something similar? Or failing that, just add the lon & lat details manually? Thanks for any help - and again, I personally thank you for the fantastic app.
Neil.
Hi again! Wonder if you can help…I’ve noticed when I view my images using your viewer, the GPS date/time appears to be wrong - or I’m not understanding it correctly? For instance, if you take a look at this image: http://phreemms.com/mms/media/20080529005201.jpg you’ll see that the GPS Date Stamp says: 0000:01:01
8 years, 5 months, 2 days, 10 hours, 28 minutes, 8 seconds ago (obviously changes each time you view). I can’t understand what the 0000:01:01 is? If you then look 5 lines down to the “GPS Time Stamp”, that is set at 00:00:00. Finally, if you scroll down to the Composite data, it says the same thing again. Be grateful if you could help me understand it a little! Thanks, Neil.
“0000:01:01″ is Jan 1, 0000 (which my viewer seems to be treating as Jan 1, 2000). Whatever is writing the GPS data to that image is writing the equivalent of a VCR’s flashing “12:00″ to the GPS date/time fields. (I’ve updated the viewer to not try to treat “0000:01:01″ as a real date). The GPS date/time is defined to be in UTC, which is the only standard way to indicate unambiguously a point in time in the Exif data. The normal Exif date/time fields don’t allow you to specify a timezone (if you can believe it…. it’s a really stupid mistake by the camera manufactures). —Jeffrey
Hello,
I’ve just discovered your great tool and want to thank you for it. By the way, is there a possibility to get the EXIF data in the JSON format instead of HTML document, something like “exif.cgi?url=…&output=json”? That would be very useful for userscripts.
Hi Jeffery,
Great site and very handy tool, I’ve been using exiftool myself for some work based on exif parameters relating to Depth of Field and have a query related to the Basic Image Information section, Focus field. Is this information calculated, if so how, or is it exif stored, if so how do you get exiftool to display it as I can’t with my command line version. Maybe this is a question for Phil Harvey! Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Paul
It’s calculated by Exiftool – one of the “composite section” items – but only if the source image has enough information from which to calculate it. Most cameras don’t provide that info, such as distance to the subject. Prosumer SLRs and up often do though, although in any case, it’s not a number you can rely on for anything past the lens’s “infinity” distance…. —Jeffrey
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Absolutely awesome tool. I’m amazed at the stuff that it throws up. I do a lot of peek and poke into metadata through PS, but I think this tool displays quite a bit more. Am already your fan, using this and the lightroom flickr exporter. Thanks for the “inventions”.
Oh yeah, long live piglets >:-p
PS: I know its based on Phil’s ExifTool, but its still nice to have the browser method
It’s really a cool and useful tool for my Safari, thanks Jeffrey!