Field name for JPG comment

[Polarigel]

Hi

I added some JPG Comments to JPG-files using Irfan View. I would like to see these comments in the metadate panel.
What is the correct field name? I tried the fields named XMP exif\Benutzerkommentar, and Exif\Benutzerkommentar, but they were empty.

Thanks
Polarigel

[JohnZeman]

I'm just making a guess here, but I'm thinking this might turn out to be a bit of a challenge for you as I believe the JPEG Comment is obsolete.  ExifTool reports it on my machine as part of the [File] Group but that group is not the list of available metadata tags.  Furthermore when I just did a test, once IMatch uses ExifTool to update the metadata in an image with a JPEG comment, it strips out the JPEG comment completely.

I expect someone will have a better answer than mine but if I had to tackle this I'd write a script to use ExifTool to copy the JPEG comment into a standard XMP comment.

[Mario]

To see all metadata IMatch has imported for your file, switch the Metadata Panel into the 'Browser' layout.

The EXIF\UserComment tag and the JPEG comment tag are different. JPEG comments are ancient, from way back, before EXIF, IPTC and XMP were used. When I recall correctly, JPEG comments are stored somewhere in the JPEG data record. I have no idea if and how this field is managed by ExifTool, or if there is a mapping between this tag and some other proper metadata tag. I was not even aware that there is still software around which uses this ancient tag. This was a fallback for software which did not support any of the real metadata storage formats. I would recommend not to use this tag and store metadata in a proper format only.

[DigPeter]

If you can export the comment from Irfan View, you might be able to import it into an appropriate field in IMatch.  This should be quicker than inputting the data manually, if you have a large number of files to process.

[Mario]

The tag should show up in IMatch (maybe the corresponding tag group has to be enabled first under Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2: Tag Manager) because IMatch by default does not import tags from this obsolete group. I think the group name is just "JPEG".

Then you can use a Metadata Template to copy the JPG comment into the XMP description, for example.

[Polarigel]

Thanks for answering this!

I can't see the content of the JPEG comment in the browser view either. The tag group JPEG with all its tags was already checked in the Preferences dialogue.

For my purpose the JPEG comment works fine. If anybody is interested in what I'm doing with it: I just scanned my old slides. I now have to manage 15.000 images (and their backups) with file names as informative as IMG_12345. Irfan View has a really fast and simple batch mode, that can be used to write the original file names into the JPEG Comment. I use it before renaming the files.  Total Commander can show this comment and sort files by it. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but this works for me.

When the images finally arrive in Imatch, I actually don't need the backup of the file name any more, so I can live with not seeing it.

Polarigel

[jch2103]

I also have accumulated a large volume of scanned images. From my perspective, organizing them (including adding dates, locations and other metadata) has been much, much easier using IMatch than with previous tools I used (including Irfanview). See for example https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=1129.

I flushed out all the JPEG Comments in my database a long time ago, but I checked again how to access the tag information in IMatch. To view the JPEG Comment information in IMatch, you need to add the tag via Edit/Preferences/Metadata 2, under Tag Manager. Go to the 'Extra' Tag Group and find and check the 'Comment' tag. You can then either use the 'Browser' metadata layout or use the Tag Selector to add the Extra\Comment tag to a custom metadata layout.

You can also use the ExifTool Command Processor to display the contents of the Comment field with this syntax:
-comment
{Files}

[Mario]

Thanks for the tip about the Extra group.

Irfan View has a really fast and simple batch mode, that can be used to write the original file names into the JPEG Comment. I use it before renaming the files.  Total Commander can show this comment and sort files by it. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but this works for me.

This can be easily achieved in IMatch using a metadata template. Copy the file name, or parts of it into a 'proper' metadata field. You can even copy the file name into the JPEG comment and the XMP comment or another 'real' metadata tag, if you still need to support ancient software which only handles the old JPEG comment. Windows Explorer, for example, can use XMP (at least parts of it). Maybe Total Commander handles XMP as well, or there is a plug-in...

The general idea of using a DAM like IMatch is to use it. Not to mix it with tools like IrfanView and TotalCommander for adding metadata and sorting. IMatch does all that out of the box.

[Polarigel]

Edit/Preferences/Metadata 2, under Tag Manager. Go to the 'Extra' Tag Group and find and check the 'Comment' tag

Thank you very much- this was exactly what I wanted to know. It worked fine.
Your tutorial was interesting reading!
Polarigel