Edit meta information in Canon RAW files

BeachBill

So I recently purchased a used Canon EOS 5D, that had been reset to factory settings. Unfortunately Canon's idea of resetting to factory settings does not clear the "owner name" that gets embedded in the meta data. In order to change that, you need to use the EOS Utility. I didn't realized this until 50 shots in. So now I've got 50 images with someone else's name embedded in the raw file. Does anyone know of a tool to edit/change this information in the raw file? I tried Lightroom, but it just changes the XMP file, not the original CR2 file. Canon's ZoomBrowser only lets me view the owner name, not change it. I would really like to change this in the original CR2 so I don't have to remember to deal with it later.

Andy

Yeah install the Supplied Canon Software (EOS Utility?) and then you can change their name to yours.

BeachBill

Andy wrote:

Yeah install the Supplied Canon Software (EOS Utility?) and then you can change their name to yours.

Yes, I already changed the name stored in the camera with the EOS Utility. I'm just trying to find a way to change the name listed in the meta data of the existing CR2 files. ZoomBrowser lets you view the CR2 metadata but not edit it.

Andy

BeachBill wrote:

Yes, I already changed the name stored in the camera with the EOS Utility. I'm just trying to find a way to change the name listed in the meta data of the existing CR2 files. ZoomBrowser lets you view the CR2 metadata but not edit it.

Oh. Adobe Bridge.

BeachBill

I've continued to do some research and found a command line tool called exiftool that can edit the meta data in many files including CR2.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

This is a perl program that can run on Windows and MacOS

For reference if anyone comes across this in the future looking to do the same thing, here is how you would use exiftool to fix the ownername in a raw image (tested only on Canon EOS 5D CR2 raw files):

The actual command to use to change all instances of owner name created by the camera:

exiftool -OwnerName="New Name" -ShortOwnerName="New Name"

In windows you can create a shortcut to the program, and set the options via the target (right click on the shortcut and select properties, go to the shortcut tab). The target should default to the path and name of the exiftool.exe, in my case target defaulted to:

C:\exiftool.exe

Change target to the following to change the owner name in the file

C:\exiftool.exe -OwnerName="New Name" -ShortOwnerName="New Name"

Then drag and drop the .CR2 file that you want to change on to the shortcut. exiftool will automatically make a backup copy of the original file then make the requested change.

Veryify the changed file wasn't corrupted by opening it in your favorite raw viewer/editor. You can also use exiftool to verify the meta data changes requested were actually made.

You can also drag and drop multiple files at the same for batch processing.

After all of this, it still would be nice to have a pretty GUI program to do it. So if anyone comes across something, please reply to this thread with your findings.

BeachBill

Andy wrote:

Oh. Adobe Bridge.

Oops, I see you replied while I was typing out my long winded message.

I just tried Bridge and it does the same thing Lightroom does, it creates an XMP sidecar file with the changes, leaving the original meta data in the CR2 file unchanged.

Thanks for trying! I appreciate your time.

BigAl

BeachBill wrote:

After all of this, it still would be nice to have a pretty GUI program to do it. So if anyone comes across something, please reply to this thread with your findings.

ExifToolGUI

BeachBill

BigAl wrote:

ExifToolGUI

Cool. Thanks!

I will have to download it and try it. The information on the website looks good. I've already completed all of the updates I needed, but I should be able to use this to verify all changes took and there isn't anything else I need to change.

BigAl

BeachBill wrote:

Cool. Thanks!

I will have to download it and try it. The information on the website looks good. I've already completed all of the updates I needed, but I should be able to use this to verify all changes took and there isn't anything else I need to change.

I used it to great effect when I was using an older version of Raw Therapee as a converter. Raw Therapee threw away the EXIF, and I used ExifToolGUI to put it back in the converted file.