Image (?) File(?) Metadata(?) Properties(?)

Question

Sorry for the question marks, but a simple (I think) question has an impossible solution. From file system, if I click on an image file "Properties | Details tab" I access to many metadata. I need to access from a WPF application to the Description properties (Title, Subject, Rating, Tag and Comment). In particular Tag.

I have found a lot of articles, many are very old. A few in WPF and Imaging library. But no one access to that properties. So the question marks: are these properties on image? On file system? I think they are on the image..I don0t undestand where are these properties and why is so difficult to access...

Can someone help me?

Thanks in advance,

 Marco Parenzan

Answer 1

I think you are refering to the EXIF metadata

here is how to access it from an image object in .NET

Answer 2

You are referring to EXIF or Exchangeable Image File format data.

http://www.exif.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format

Yes, there is code to allow accessing this. I would strongly suggest using an existing library over rolling you own with .net framework methods. Plainly put, they suck, are poorly documented and will result in bald spots on your head where there should be none.

See here for more info.

Answer 3

The best tool I found to read metadata is ExifTool by Phil Harvey at http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool. The tool is written in Perl, but there is no need to install Perl. The tool has a complete command line syntax for anything you want to do. You can read nearly everything and write most things.