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About Digital Cameras Picture Files & EXIF

What is EXIF?

EXIF if a standard meta-data format for digital camera pictures. The standard is supported by most of the big players in the digital camera market, including Canon, Fujifilm, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Ricoh, Sanyo and Sony.

The pictures taken by EXIF compliant cameras in addition to the picture information also contain information about the picture (i.e. "meta-data"). This information typically includes:

  • the date and time the picture was taken
  • the make of the camera
  • the model of the camera
  • information about the exposure time, aperture opening, whether a flash was used...
  • various camera-specific data

A Better Finder Rename version 7.6 and later support EXIF data in:

  • JPEG
  • CRW, CR2, THM (Canon)
  • NEF (Nikon)
  • TIFF (Various Manufacturers)
  • RAF (Fuji)
  • ORF (Olympus)
  • MRW (Minolta)
  • DNG (Adobe Digital Negative)
  • SRF (Sony)
  • Pentax (PEF)

This feature depends on Mac OS X's own support for those formats. A full list of currently supported formats for Leopard can be on Apple's website.

RAW formats are generally of interest only to advanced and professional photographers. Digital camera makers, including Canon and Nikon, have long outraged their customers by limiting access to their RAW camera format specifications.

The Open RAW website is a rallying point for discontent with these business practices. It explains the "RAW" problem and offers you the opportunity to join in a petition to open up the "closed" proprietary RAW formats to create a level playing field to the benefit of the customer.

As a consequence of the games played by the camera manufacturers, we cannot guarantee that our RAW support will work for your specific camera, firmware update, etc. This is why we recommend that you try the EXIF feature with your camera's RAW file before you buy.

Some of the RAW format support depends on the QuickTime version that you have installed. For best results always use the latest QuickTime update and the latest Mac OS X version.

Why should I care?

A Better Finder Rename currently only exploits the creation date and time of EXIF pictures.

This is particularly useful for:

  • adding the date and time a picture was taken to the file name, e.g. "my picture 12/01/2004 12:00:01"
  • renaming the picture file to the time and date it was taken, e.g. "12/01/2004 12:00:01"
  • creating numbered list where the sorting order corresponds to the actual order in which the pictures were taken rather than relating only to the creation time of the file, e.g. image1.jpg, image2.jpg, ...

The renaming actions that currently support EXIF dates are:

  • Add date/time to end
  • Add date/time to start
  • Rename to date

You can also use EXIF date and time information when specifying the sorting order.

What should I know before I use the EXIF features?

Please note that if a file does not contain any EXIF information:

  • the file's creation date will be used for sorting