Feature Request: EXIF/IPTC Export to .TXT

[Junction10]

Hi,

I had to send some images in to a very important client who can't read embedded IPTC/EXIF info (dont' ask why, it's a long story).

They asked if I could send them a word doc or similar with all the info and keywords in that... No problem I thought.

Except.. I can only export as XML, then have to convert this - and importing into Excel creates a row for every keyword, so I spend ages reformatting the spreadsheet.

What would be REALLY useful is if you could select a batch of images in BBPro, choose "Export IPTC/Exif to .TXT" and are then asked to choose which fields to include.
Then a separate .txt file for each image would be created with the field heading, followed by the field data.
eg:

filename:
JS_Big Session_03024.jpg

Date Taken:
13/06/2008 21:24:59

Description:
Atmosphere during the Big Session festival

Keywords:
Summer,people,crowds,happy,smiling,music,festival, outdoor,sunset,beer,folk

etc etc.

Then I could just send them the txt files without having to get the stuff converted manually...

Unless anyone can suggest a free program that already does this??

J

[DavidB]

The good news.

1. BB Pro already has a 'per file' export to .txt (as well as a delimited text file export to a single file for a bunch of files); it's all in the Tools|Export EXIF data dialogue.

2. The output looks like this:

File: 080521_5D_101-7052.cr2
File size: 11.7MB
Shortcut: E:\Photos\Download\080521\CONVERTED\080521_5D_101-7052.cr2.lnk
Points to: E:\Photos\Download\080521\080521_5D_101-7052.cr2
Image Serial Number: 000-7052
Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D
Camera serial number: 0530204446
Firmware: Firmware Version 1.1.0
Owner: David Bennison
Date/Time: 2008:05:21 15:10:51
Shutter speed: 1/1250 sec
Aperture: 7.1
Exposure mode: Program
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Center-weighted average
Drive mode: Single frame shooting
ISO: 200
Lens: EF200mm f/2.8L USM
Focal length: 200mm
Subject distance: 0.050 m
AF mode: One-shot AF
Image size: 4368 x 2912
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto
Picture style: Standard
Color space: sRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: 3
Contrast: -3
Custom Functions:
CFn 8: ISO expansion: On
User comments:
"The Cliff Top below Afton Down"

3. As you see, it even works with shortcuts and RAW files, and is nice, readable text, not XML. (You weren't trying to work with the XMP files, were you?)

The bad news

1. Single fields are not selectable.

2. IPTC data is not exported (which, for me is more of an issue in the BB Pro context than the fact that I cannot select single fields).


By way of an experiment, when I did a batch export to a single file delimited with semicolons, I was able to open it as a CSV file in my spreadsheet (Open Office Calc, but I know that Excel works in the same way), and also in my database program. This opens the way to both data manipulation and bespoke reporting. As the data is in a consistent format, the reporting process, once set up, ought to be reasonably easy to re-run for each batch of images.

Hope this helps.

[MikeD]

Has there been any update on this, especially how to do it in batch and get IPTC data included?
I was wondering if it might be possible via some customisation of the web page generation templates leaving out the images and just having a load of tokens. then do a bit of editing to get it into a suitable spreadsheet format.
I have 6000 photo files that i need the full IPTC/Exif data from as i need to edit the data itself for analysis.

[Chris Breeze]

You can certainly do it using the HTML generator. Simply make the index_template.htm and thumbnail_template.htm files empty and add the required tokens to the fullsize_template.htm. You can also use the recursive option to process a whole group of folders in one go.

[MikeD]

Thanks, good to know it should do it. I have just tried with customising simple template and black template but could not get it to work. It just prints out the info from the tokens i specify for a single image not multiple ones. Will have more of a go later.
One other issue with this is how to get the exif info without the
breaks as i am trying to put the data into an excel spreasheet (or a database if the lines are too long for excel) so really want one line per image. is it possible to customise the exif related tokens so that they do not insert the breaks?

The iptc/exif template that Peter Berger produced does most of what i want but does not contain the gps data and does not allow the output as a .txt file directly.

[DavidB]

Chris

Is there a reason why the text export only outputs EXIF and not IPTC data? I should have thought the ability to include IPTC data (including keywords) would be a useful feature, e.g. for building a simple database of images (the Lightroom catalog scares me more than somewhat!).

David

[MikeD]

Perhaps we are at cross purposes here. I would like both IPTC and EXIF as text which hopefully are both possible (I got some IPTC fields out fine). The issue with EXIF is that I could not see a token that will do it without also inserting line breaks after each field which makes it a pain to get the data all on a single line per image as there may not be a different type of line break between images.

[DavidB]

Perhaps we are at cross purposes here. I would like both IPTC and EXIF as text which hopefully are both possible (I got some IPTC fields out fine). The issue with EXIF is that I could not see a token that will do it without also inserting line breaks after each field which makes it a pain to get the data all on a single line per image as there may not be a different type of line break between images.
Sorry for any confusion. I wasn't referring to the HTML output you have been discussing with Chris, but to the Tools|Export EXIF feature I referred to in my first post. It would be rather useful, I believe, if that could export IPTC data.

David