Exif Copier

Exif Copier is a small freeware application for copying Exif data between sets of multiple images. Exif Copier is a GUI for ExifTool by Phil Harvey, a very good command line application for managing Exif data, Exif Copier only makes copying Exif easy in a Windows environment without the need to write command line instructions. Exif Copier works in batch mode for all files of chosen extension in a given folder.

Features:

copy Exif from all images in one folder to all images in another having the same filename (but can have different extensions)
backup Exif of all images in a folder to MIE files (MIE is a file format for storing image metadata information)
restore Exif in all images in a folder from MIE files
extract JPEG from RAW files while preserving full Exif - slower than other existing solutions but still a lot faster than processing RAW files - at least you have full Exif!
ability to choose whether XMP information (e.g. including tags and ratings in ViewNX) should be copied as well
reads Exif from JPEG, TIFF and camera RAW files
copies ICC profile information automatically with Exif
drag and drop folders from Windows Explorer to folder input boxes for fast copying folder paths to Exif Copier. Folders can be dragged also from many other image viewers like XnView or ViewNX.
works in batch mode on all images with specified extensions in specified folders

Exif Copier screenshot

Why Exif Copier?

The origin of Exif Copier was my disappointment with the fact that my Nikon image files edited in various photo applications, including Adobe Photoshop (Elements), lost some or all of the camera info after being saved and didn't show up in Nikon's viewer ViewNX. I wanted an easy to use application that would allow me to backup Exif and after editing restore to all of my images. ExifTool was the perfect tool except it is command line so not very quick and easy to use.

What file formats are supported?

All formats supported by ExifTool are supported by Exif Copier so go to ExifTool web site for exact information. I have tested it to work with JPG, TIF and Nikon NEF files but ExifTool supports RAW files from many other camera makers so there should be no problems with them - just check it out!

System Requirements

Tested on Windows XP and Vista. Possibly should run well on later Windows systems, too. Other operating systems not supported.

Download and Installation

download Exif Copier here (bundled with ExifTool 8.29):

Exif Copier 0.9 beta (4.80 MB), release date: 2010-08-26
unzip all files to an empty directory (for example C:\Program Files\ExifCopier)
run ExifCopier.exe to start the program; create a shortcut to ExifCopier.exe by dragging and dropping it to the desktop (with Alt pressed) or to your Windows start menu (without Alt)
if you ever want to use Exif Copier with a newer verstion of ExifTool, then download ExifTool Windows Executable here and replace exiftool.exe with the new file in your Exif Copier directory
for advanced users: download ExifCopier 0.9 beta standalone (1.91 MB) - without ExifTool. Make sure you have downloaded exiftool.exe manually and placed it in ExifCopier directory or Windows system directory.

Basic instructions

Copying exif from one batch of files to another

Choose the Copy Exif option at the top of the application window. Choose source and destination folders. Choose file extensions to which the action will be applied. Press the Copy Exif button and wait until the operation completes. One sensible usage of this would be to copy all camera information from original RAW files to the same images in JPEG files. In order for this to work the source and destination file names must be the same (the extensions can differ).

Backing up exif

If you want to back up exif information from your images files choose the Backup Exif option at the top of the application window. Choose source and destination folders. Choose file extension of source files. Press the Backup Exif button and wait until the operation completes. This will result in separate MIE files for each image. Every MIE file contains full exif from your images and you can you them later on to restore exif information if you lost it for some reason.

Restoring up exif from backup

If you want to restore exif information to your images from MIE files choose the Restore Exif option at the top of the application window. Choose source and destination folders. Choose file extension of destination files. Press the Restore Exif button and wait until the operation completes. This will embed exif in your images from the MIE files. In order for this to work the source and destination file names must be the same (the extensions will differ, of course).

Extracting JPEG from RAW

If you want to extract embedded JPEG images from your camera RAW files choose the Extract JPEG from RAW option at the top of the application window. Choose source and destination folders. Press the Extract JPEG from RAW button and wait until the operation completes. Exif Copier will first extract embedded JPEGs and then copy exif from the RAW files to the JPEG files.

Tips

When selecting the source or destination folder you can do it quickly by drag&dropping the folder from Windows Explorer or from any other application supporting drag&drop (e.g. ViewNX, XnView).
When you enter a destination folder that does not exist it will be created automatically
The back up destination files option will make Exif Copier rename old destination files to filenames ending with _backup before overwriting them
If the number of files in source and destination folders is different it creates no problem - files that do not have their match will be skipped

Other notes

When Exif Copier applies exif to images it omits the exif width and height information. This was causing problems in some applications when the destination files had been resized before writing exif to them.
When Exif Copier applies exif to images it omits the exif orientation information. Sometimes this resulted in a complete mess whereby different viewers and applications opened the images with different orientations.
This program is freeware and is given to you without any warranty. Please back up your photos and test it thoroughly if you do not want to lose any data!

Known problems

Extract JPEG from RAW doesn't work with Nikon NEF files edited in ViewNX (and possibly Capture NX), it looks like a bug in ExifTool. Most often it's not a problem because you usually want to extract JPEGs from fresh RAW files from camera. This problem may or may not be gone with a future release of ExifTool.
Extract JPEG from RAW doesn't copy Nikon ICC profiles from fresh NEF files. It does copy them from NEF files edited in ViewNX but ironically it doesn't copy the proper image itself. This problem may be gone with a future release of ExifTool.

Contact and feedback

Please send your feedback to exifcopier@gmail.com