Image::...ol::MWG(3)

💖 Image::ExifTool::MWG — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is a page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation for Image::ExifTool::MWG, and honestly? she's giving metadata royalty. come sit with me, we're gonna go through the whole thing, no skips, no shortcuts. ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

Image::ExifTool::MWG — Metadata Working Group support. that's the whole vibe. she supports the MWG guidelines and she does it flawlessly. 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

here's how you turn her on, bestie. look at this:

# enable MWG Composite tags
use Image::ExifTool::MWG;
Image::ExifTool::MWG::Load();

# enable MWG strict mode
$Image::ExifTool::MWG::strict = 1;

# disable MWG strict mode
$Image::ExifTool::MWG::strict = 0;

like. Load() and then you're literally in. and then the strict flag is just a little 1 or 0 and she switches moods instantly. main character energy fr fr. 👑

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the MWG module is holding Composite tag definitions — and they're specifically designed to make implementing the Metadata Working Group guidelines simpler. think of them as the curated, pre-styled fits of the metadata world. 🧚

these special MWG Composite tags do not come out on their own. you have to call the Load() method to wake them up:

use Image::ExifTool::MWG;
Image::ExifTool::MWG::Load();

and here's the part where you gotta pay attention, because it's a whole thing: by default, loading the MWG Composite tags turns on "strict MWG conformance" — unless it was already enabled or disabled by the user before. so if you already had opinions, she respects them. iconic behaviour honestly. 🫶

what does strict mode actually do though? okay so — in this mode, ExifTool will generate a Warning instead of extracting EXIF, IPTC and XMP from non-standard locations. yeah. she will not go digging in the weird spots. she will simply warn you and move on. dramatic? maybe. correct? absolutely. 💀

and the strict mode is not locked in, bestie — you can flip it at any time by setting the MWG strict flag to 0 or 1. eg)

$Image::ExifTool::MWG::strict = 0;

that's it. that's the switch. so easy.

one more thing, and this one's lowkey important: this module also contains the MWG XMP tags. those get loaded automatically by ExifTool whenever they're required — you don't do anything. they are completely independent of the MWG Composite tags, which, remember, must be loaded explicitly like we talked about above. two different queens, two different schedules. 💜

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Copyright 2003-2026, Phil Harvey (philharvey66 at gmail.com)

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

shoutout to Phil for real, that's a two-decade run and she's still serving. 🫡

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⭐ REFERENCES ⭐

• <http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org/>

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• "MWG Tags" in Image::ExifTool::TagNames
• Image::ExifTool(3pm)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! go read the other ones too, iykyk. 💖

k byeeee — this was Image::...ol::MWG(3) from perl v5.42.1, dated 2026-03-31, and she ate. periodt. 🎀✨