EXIFTAGS(1)

💖 exiftags(1) — bestie edition 💖

okay so welcome to the exiftags glow-up page, straight out of the General Commands Manual. She's a tiny little utility with main character energy and she is obsessed with reading your JPEGs. Let's get into it. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

exiftags — output the properties contained in a JPEG Exif section 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

exiftags [ -acdilquv ] [ -s delim ] [ file ... ]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the way that exiftags works is: it parses file — or, if you don't give it one, it just reads from its standard input by default — hunting for a JPEG APP1 section that's carrying Exif (Exchangeable Image File) data. Then it prints all the properties it finds in those data straight to standard output. Slay. 💅

Digital cameras literally always be adding Exif data to the image files they produce, with info about the camera and the digitized image inside. The options down below are how you control how chatty the output is and how the sections get formatted. ✨

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -a — output camera-specific, image-specific, and verbose properties that are chillin' in the file.
• -c — output the camera-specific properties in the file.
• -d — output Exif parse debug information. (for the nosy girlies 🔍)
• -i — output the image-specific properties in the file.
• -l — make lens characteristics count as image-specific. This one's for the higher-end cameras with removable lenses (iykyk — not the "point-and-shoot" girlies).
• -q — suppress output of a property section header. quiet. shy. demure.
• -s — separate the field name and the value with the string delim. The default is ': '.
• -u — output unknown or unsupported properties in the file. Also, when debugging info is requested, it outputs invalid properties too.
• -v — output verbose properties in the file. go off, tell us everything 👑

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🎀 MAKER NOTES 🎀

Some camera manufacturers include a "maker note" section with extra info about the camera or the image that is not part of the Exif standard. The format of these maker notes varies wildly and the manufacturers are absolutely not forthcoming with the implementation details. 💀 So exiftags' maker note support is the result of experimentation and reverse engineering (credits are down in AUTHOR, don't skip) and it is incomplete.

exiftags is known to have at least partial support for these manufacturers' maker notes:

• Asahi/Pentax
• Canon
• Casio
• Fujifilm
• Leica
• Minolta
• Nikon
• Olympus
• Panasonic
• Sanyo
• Sigma

If you want support for more manufacturers or cameras, please send the author any info you have about the data format or — even better — patches, plus a sample image file. (Though he makes no promises. 🙈 no cap.)

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😭 DIAGNOSTICS 😭

exiftags exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

exifcom(1), exiftime(1)

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🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

exiftags was developed using the 2003 draft Exif standard, version 2.21 (http://tsc.jeita.or.jp/) and the June 1992 TIFF specification, revision 6.0 (http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn/TIFF6.pdf). periodt. 📚

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💀 BUGS 💀

Not all Exif 2.21 properties are supported, due either to the author's laziness or to incomplete information. (his words, not mine 😭) Maker note support is spotty because the information just isn't there.

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

The exiftags utility and this man page were written by Eric M. Johnston <emj@postal.net>. Portions of the utility were developed while referencing the public domain Jhead utility, version 1.2, by Matthias Wandel <mwandel@rim.net>. Some maker note support is the result of TsuruZoh Tachibanaya's compendium (http://www.ba.wakwak.com/~tsuruzoh/Computer/Digicams/exif-e.html) and its contributers. Minolta maker note support was contributed by Javier Crespo <jcrespoc@dsland.org>. Panasonic maker note support was contributed by Tom Hughes <tom@compton.nu>.

Special thanks to the following folks for submitting sample camera files: Bradley Bailey, Kirk Bauer, Marcy Brown, Frank Fortunato, Per Kristian Hove, Brian Jackson, Stan Jirman, Kaye Kirsch, Meder Kydyraliev, Kevin Layer, Henrik Levkowetz, Jamie Mayberry, Jason Montojo, Nick Reid, Frank Reiff, Christian Schmid, Michael Shostak, Nathan Treadway, Mathieu Vanasse, Mark Westling, Phillip Wherry, and Christian Zuckschwerdt. 🫶✨ y'all ate.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 this little manual lives in the General Commands Manual and signs off as EXIFTAGS(1) — kisses, mwah, go read your JPEGs 💖