SavvyAdmin.com » EXIF http://savvyadmin.com For savvy admins everywhere... Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:53:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Fixing Dates in Image EXIF Tag Data from Linux http://savvyadmin.com/fixing-dates-in-image-exif-tag-data-from-linux/ http://savvyadmin.com/fixing-dates-in-image-exif-tag-data-from-linux/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:11:51 +0000 gmendoza http://www.savvyadmin.com/?p=378
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    • ]]>     I recently needed to organize a large number of old digital photos that had the wrong date embedded in their EXIF tag data. The camera I used many years ago would often lose track of time and would sometimes be set to the wrong year. Applications I now use to organize photos read this data and made my albums difficult to navigate. I came across a Linux command line utility called jhead that allows you to modify this information to whatever you wish, and its easy to use in scripts as well.  Installing was easy, because it’s currently in most repositories, including Ubuntu’s.

    To read existing EXIF tag data, simply run jhead against an image without any options. As you can see from the example below, my date is set to the year 2022.

    jhead image.jpg
    File name : image.jpg
    File size : 159390 bytes
    File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
    Camera make : Samsung
    Camera model : Digimax 200
    Date/Time : 2022:02:12 04:04:17
    Resolution : 800 x 600
    Flash used : Yes
    Exposure time: 0.045 s (1/22)
    Aperture : f/2.8

    To clear all EXIF data from the file, use the -de option. Then recreate the EXIF fields with the -mkexif option, and check the data again. Notice the new Date/Time is set to the timestamp on the file.

    jhead -de image.jpg
    Modified: image.jpg

    jhead -mkexif image.jpg
    Modified: image.jpg

    jhead image.jpg
    File name : image.jpg
    File size : 147751 bytes
    File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
    Date/Time : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
    Resolution : 800 x 600

    To change the entire timestamp manually, use the -ts option. Notice, there is no space between the -ts and the option. I could not trust the month and day, so I simply chaged the date to midnight on January 1, 2003.

    jhead -ts2003:01:01-00:00:00 image.jpg
    Modified: image.jpg

    jhead image.jpg
    File name : image.jpg
    File size : 147751 bytes
    File date : 2004:01:12 07:35:23
    Date/Time : 2003:01:01 00:00:00
    Resolution : 800 x 600

    For many more options, check out the man page or visit the jhead site for more info.

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    Related posts:

    1. Quickly Identify Video File Attributes
    2. Console Framebuffer in Ubuntu
    3. Resize and Watermark Images in Linux

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