batch edit of metadata - Win7

chipp

I have scans of thousands of old family photos, currently named quite randomly. I am now in the process of sorting and dating them, and have decided on a naming convention. However for many of the snaps the current name is quite descriptive (images named before I learned about tags) so I want to retain that name, but as a different field. I thought I would use the title field for this, unless there are good reasons to use something else.


What I am hoping is that there is some software out there which will batch copy the contents of the name field to one of the other metadata fields supported by Windows, eg title.



Can anyone recommend anything? Mp3tag sounded like it might do the job, I downloaded it from CNet but it seems to fall over in a heap on my Win7 machine so I've uninstalled it.

debitcardmayhem

Why not just put them in a tree structure under the root(top level) directory , since not everyone you are going to distribute them to will be viewing them on the same type/architecture of device?

Mr_Toad

It sounds like you need a batch script to do this.

One that looks at each picture in turn, moves the name to field X then auto generates a name based on the criteria you've decided on.

Have a Google for EXIF editing scripts, I'm sure someone has doe this and made their script available, all you have to do is find it.

Or sit down over a couple of evenings and write your own using Perl or Python or some other scripting language of you choice.

wongataa

Have a look at Exiftool. It should be able to do what you want.

Strider590

Descriptive file names are stupid, pointless and the bane of my existence (at work).

"This is a photo of a cardboard box.jpg"
"This is a photo of the label on a cardboard box.jpg"
"This is the contents of the cardboard box.jpg"

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

But what I cannot do is create an automatic batch file to extract that file and place it in the correct folder, so now I have to waste 4 days moving 2000 similar images by hand, instead of 20s seconds running a batch file!!!!!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Imagine there are 200 folders, each with randomly names files inside, some have the same descriptive name, some do not, and I need to move them into one single folder and keep them in some sort of order.......... How do I automate that task?

What's wrong with those file names?
1) Spaces in the file name, spaces cause all sorts of issues.
2) No date reference, so once they're moved any/all order is lost.
3) In windows they list in alphabetical order, not in the order they were taken and if those files have been edited, then even sorting by date won't work!!!

And then some retard has to go and use the "&" character, which in MS DOS is a "next command" character, so automated file handling won't work at all!!

What's wrong with leaving the file names as they are?
or if you really need to rename, how about:
%date:~6,4%%date:~3,2%%date:~0,2%-%time:~0,2%%time:~3,2%.jpg
or in English
20141125-855.jpg

That way, they order correctly in explorer, even if they've been edited, they can be handled extremely easily in batch files and you can always look at the image preview if you need to know what they are. If they are in dated folders, this becomes even easier.

Perhaps it's just too obvious?

There are of course situations where they are useful, but certainly not when your trying to archive files in any sort of coherent manner.

Possibly the worst thing I see is descriptive file names on files that nobody will ever open via explorer, rather they are linked to using hyperlinks inside a database. The problem here is that the space character get replaced by %20, which has a habit of breaking the hyperlink.

indesisiv

I use exiftool from here

Command for renaming the title field within exif with the actual filename is

exiftool "-iptc:caption-abstract<filename" *.jpg

This takes all .jpg files and copies the filename into the exif title field. Within the folder where you run it.

The way I do it relies on knowing a little about the command window but it works great.

Hope this helps and good luck.