Exif Harvester

Contents

• Introduction
• Features
  • Exporting Data
  • Building Thumbnails
  • Viewing Images
  • Searching
• Technology
• Download and Install
  • Requirements
• Version History

Introduction

The "exif layer" - metadata inside photos from almost all digital cameras - can be immensely useful, for learning, organizing photographs, and financial purposes (I sold a lens because I had used it 73 times in the span of a year). This layer of the file lists the aperture, shutter speed, film speed, and other settings used to make a photograph. Unfortunately, this information is cumbersome to get at, typically this must be done on a file-by-file basis. Exif Harvester was born of the need to use this data easily.

Features

At heart, Exif Harvester does exactly what its name implies. The software reaps whatever data is available from your images, and provides the information in a more useful format, which can easily be used in your favorite spreadsheet, database, or custom application.

[-] Reaping and Exporting

Queueing Files

Before the software can reap and export this information for you, first you need to create a list of files to parse. This can be done in a variety of ways: standard Windows drag-and-drop from the desktop, toolbar buttons ( the top-left corner of the image at right ) and popup menu to load files or folders, and a file tree allowing Window Explorer-like navigation, shown at right.

To add a file to the work list from the file tree, eith double-click it, or click the blue arrow pointing to the right, on the toolbar above the tree. Files can be removed when highlighted, using the red delete button on the toolbar. This should all be familiar from many Windows applications; I've used the same behaviors as the operating system itself.

Thumbnails and Resizing

Additionally, Exif Harvester can build thumbnails from the files it processes. Because the image must be opened to read the exif layer, the loss in speed isn't as terrible as it might seem. If built, these thumbnail images will be linked to in the export files (html, xml). The thumbnail size and destination are user selectable, of course.

You can also resize images individually, outside of a harvest run. With the preview function, this can be useful for preparing an email or web image quickly.

Viewing Images

Exif Harvester can preview individual images, or provide a slideshow, as well as giving a number of live reports against the data it collects.

Technology

Like most software available on this site, Exif Harvester is written for the Windows ( Win32 and Win64 ) platform. Running directly on the local machine instead of through the web makes everything faster and more responsive, allowing for a richer user experience. As such, the software makes use of system resources like memory, disc I/O, and CPU cycles.

Written in C#, Exif Harvester is a multi-threaded application designed to take advantage of multiple or dual-core CPUs. An internal software engine schedules work in a thread-safe manner, and divides its task among available time on the host computer's processor(s). Older single core / CPU machines can employ a "friendly multitasking mode" to lessen the impact on a computer, yielding more time to other running programs; the obvious downside is that a harvest takes longer.

Exif Harvester can read metadata from jpeg and tiff files that contain an exif layer. Raw support is a growing priority.

[-] Download and Install

[-] Version History

[-] Planned Improvements