Re: A Single Task Question

From: Matthias Tacke (Matthias.Tacke_at_web.de)
Date: 11/02/04 

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 18:36:21 +0100

Mike wrote:
>I have a single task. I need to update some of the file properties
>fields of about 300 image files for a wedding I just completed. I
>want to update the 'Author' and 'Copyright' fields, but I don't want
>to have to right- click, open the properties ***, etc etc etc.
>
>Can I do this in VB Script? I've been scanning the docs on
>Microsoft.com and it's not readily apparent. I'm a SQL person
>primarily, so VB is kinda alien. Any suggestions or pointers or doc
>references will be appreciated.

Hi Mike,
IMO you are on the wrong track. Information stored in the current file
system (where the information from the property *** goes) possibly
doesn't survive the transfer to a different media or file system.

You didn't state what picture format you are using. TIFF has (as the
name Tagged Image File Format implies) the ability to store information
inside the file. For jpg there are EXIF, IPTC and XMP extensions [1] to
the formats which contain addittional information.

Not all image manipulation programs are aware of these extensions and
might destroy them. So there are some utilities around to list save edit
and restore these tags. And also mass/bulk/batch edit.

CLI Tools:
ExifUtils http://www.hugsan.com/EXIFutils/index.html
jhead command line exif editor http://www.sentex.net/%7Emwandel/jhead/

For Irfanview there are plugins to read exif and IPTC www.irfanview.com

Viewer and metadata viewer/editor http://www.pixvue.com The site has an
informative faq-section http://www.pixvue.com/support/faq.html

Exifer http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/

If you insist on using wsh, there is ImageMagick (but thats seems
overkill) http://www.imagemagick.org/ Find a mirror site and download
the less power hungry ImageMagick-6.x.x-Q8-windows.exe It incudes the:
<cite>
The ImageMagickObject is a COM+ compatible component that may be invoked
from any language capable of using COM objects. The intended use is for
Windows Scripting Host VBS scripts and Visual Basic, but it can also be
used from C++, ASP, and other languages like Delphi, Perl and PHP.
</cite>

HTH

[1] Exif http://www.exif.org
    IPTC http://www.iptc.org
    XMP http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/main.html 

-- 
Greetings
Matthias