Editing Reporting Image File Metadata (section)

== Usage ==

=== Dump all metadata ===

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
$ exiftool *.psd
</syntaxhighlight>

=== Dump select metadata properties ===

Metadata field names can be added as arguments to filter down the output:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
$ exiftool -ImageSize *.psd
Image Size                      : 3075x1779
$ exiftool -ImageWidth -ImageHeight B264BS68*.psd 
======== B264BS681_167.psd
Image Width                     : 3075
Image Height                    : 1779
======== B264BS682_171.psd
Image Width                     : 3048
Image Height                    : 1790
    2 image files read
</syntaxhighlight>

=== Format the output ===

`Exiftool` can output in various formats, e.g. CVS, XML, JSON. [http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool_pod.html#input_output_text_formatting Documentation on the supported formats].

==== CVS ====

A cvs file must already exist (you can't simply redirect output into a new file). 

The first line of the CVS must contain headers to match all the fields output by the `exiftool` command. The first field must be `SourceFile`. This will be the name of the file from which the metadata was read. 

So for the image width and height for a batch of files the CVS starter template would look like this:

<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
SourceFile,ImageWidth,ImageHeight
</syntaxhighlight>

It doesn't matter if there is a newline or not after that first line.

The command for writing to that file (assuming it's named `stats.csv`):

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
$ exiftool -ImageWidth -ImageHeight -csv *.psd > stats.csv
</syntaxhighlight>

Result:
<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
SourceFile,ImageWidth,ImageHeight
B264BS681_167.psd,3075,1779
B264BS682_171.psd,3048,1790
B264BS714_251.psd,3164,1860
B264BS720_298.psd,3066,1779
</syntaxhighlight>