Adding EXIF Fields to Aperture - possible?

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Level 1

6 points

Adding EXIF Fields to Aperture - possible?

Hello all,

I would like to add to the EXIF fields that aperture displays. I know that you edit the Metadata views, and check the various Metadate Fields on and off, but I would like to add Metadata that my camera records in EXIF that aren't listed. Is that possible?

As an example, one of the EXIF fields that I see when looking at the RAW picture using exiftool is "Drive Mode" (with a value of "Continuous Shooting" in this particular image). However, I don't see a selectable "Drive Mode" field in the Metadata Fields list, so is it possible to edit the EXIF fields that Aperture displays somewhere?

Thanks,

Brian

Aperture 3

Posted on Jul 1, 2013 7:56 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 1, 2013 9:30 AM in response to Brian Swan

What make and model camera are you using?

That info may be contained with what's commonly referred to as "Maker Notes" which are very specific, and sometimes proprietary, to camera makes and models. Aperture uses some fields from maker notes (e.g., focus points) for a handful of popular manufacturers but can't possibly include every field for every camera model.

AFAIK, there isn't a way to add fields to Aperture's list of available EXIF fields for metadata views.

But using Applescript in conjunction with Exiftool may do what you need. Google "applescript exiftool" for some leads. For example, this one had a script to create custom tags in Aperture from EXIF. There's also one to display the full set of EXIF data for selected images.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

194,785 points

Jul 1, 2013 9:46 AM in response to Brian Swan

To see, which of the EXIF fields of your images Aperture recognizes, try a simple Apple Script:

Launch AppleScript Editor and paste this in:

tell application "Aperture"

set imageSel to (get selection)

repeat with i from 1 to count of imageSel

tell item i of imageSel

get name of every EXIF tag

end tell

end repeat

end tell

Then select an image in Aperture and press the "Run" button in AppleScript's toolbar.

This script will simply list all names of the EXIF tags, that are available to be used in AppleScript messages to Aperture.

For example for my Canon Photos I see this list:

{"ApertureValue", "CameraSerialNumber", "CaptureDayOfWeek", "CaptureHourOfDay", "CaptureMinuteOfHour", "CaptureMonthOfYear", "CaptureSecondOfMinute", "CaptureYear", "ColorModel", "ColorSpace", "Copyright", "Depth", "ExifVersion", "ExposureBiasValue", "ExposureMode", "ExposureProgram", "Firmware", "Flash", "FlashExposureComp", "FlashPixVersion", "FocalLength", "FocusMode", "ISOSpeedRating", "ImageDate", "LensMaxMM", "LensMinMM", "LensModel", "Make", "MaxApertureValue", "MeteringMode", "Model", "PixelHeight", "PixelWidth", "ProfileName", "SceneCaptureType", "ShutterSpeed", "WhiteBalance", "WhiteBalanceIndex"}

To use all tags that exiftool sees, you can embed calls to exiftool into an AppleScript and write them to a Custom Metadata field.

Regards

Léonie

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