Does Portfolio handle EXIF data?

Yes! To help you Portfolio v6 default catalogues already include some EXIF tag mappings. In v7 these are improved and extended This is useful as getting the necessary information to correctly set up new mappings that are not already pre-sets isn't too easy. A reference to EXIF tags numbers (in hexadecimal format) can be found here.

If EXIF is important to your work process you should bear in mind that (early 2005) many applications, including at 'professional' level, have limited or buggy support until the EXIF standard becomes better understood; the arrival of Adobe CS has started to rectify this but don't assume that your main editing apps are metadata savvy - do check up before trusting them to edit your files. Although the method of storing EXIF differs between TIFF and JPEG, in both cases if an editing application is not EXIF-aware then the original file's EXIF data will lost if the file is resaved in either of these formats. The application won't write the EXIF data as it's unaware it exists. Alternatively, as with some JPEG save routines in Photoshop v7.0 the data is written in the wrong location in the file causing other apps to have difficulty reading them. Bearing this in mind you should give additional thought as to maintaining master files in an original state.

If you have difficulty reading EXIF data, especially from RAW files or custom TIFFs, then you should consider temporarily using one of the many (often free) EXIF utilities that supports your particular file type. Use it to export data and then use the output as input for Portfolio. It's not ideal but may help maintain your workflow until EXIF support is mainstream and fully implemented in Portfolio.

For users of older versions (5/6) a Portfolio user has created a script called FilFolio (see below) which can read and append data from EXIF fields to Portfolio. Currently FilFolio is released as a public Portfolio script (Windows only). As the v5 Portfolio automation model (current when the script was written) does not allow the creation of Custom Fields via code, the user has to create the fields for FilFolio to populate. FilFolio's help does explain how to copy and implement the additional fields you will need. FilFolio is a neat extension to Portfolio's capabilities, which you can download for free or read the Help documentation online before your download. It is not thought likely the author will update this script for v6 or for the Mac OS.

In v5, EXIF isn't supported directly, but a Windows Portfolio can use FilFolio (see below) which can read and append data from EXIF fields to Portfolio.

Question: Does Portfolio handle EXIF data? [FAQ00045.htm]
Last Update:- 31 May 2006

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