How to view (and change) the EXIF ​​data of a photo on Android. Metadata in digital photography

When photographing on a camera or smartphone, additional data is recorded to the photo, such as the brand of the device, photo and equipment parameters, geographic data, and more. This is EXIF ​​data (Exchangeable Image File Format).

Metadata can be used by various software, Internet applications or other devices. This may be useful to the user.

Windows has a built-in tool that lets you view photo metadata. It is located in the properties of the image file, which can be accessed by right-clicking on it.

When the properties window opens, you need to switch to the "Details" tab, where you can read the EXIF ​​data.

Some data can be changed. To do this, click on the desired line and make edits. Then click "OK" to save.

And, of course, you can remove all metadata (by the way, removing reduces the size of the image, which can be useful). To do this, click on the link "Remove properties and personal information."

How to read EXIF ​​data online

By the way, in addition to working with meta, IMGonline can do a lot more useful things - resize images, convert, compress, apply effects, and more.

But back to the meta editor. So, you will see a "Choose file" button on this page. You need to click on it to download the image whose metadata you are interested in. Then you need to click "Edit".

Select an image and upload to online service.

You will see a list of received metadata. They can be modified and deleted.

List of data. They can be edited and deleted.

How to read EXIF ​​data with a program

Install the program on your computer, run it. You will see a simple interface, where on the left in the "Folders" list you need to select the location of the photos. Their list will appear in the middle window, where you can select one or another file. And then, to see the metadata, you need to click on the "EXIF" button on the right, under the preview.

Select a folder with photos, select an image.

If you double-click on a particular property, you can edit it and save the modified file.

To edit the data, double click on it.

So also inside the photo you can encrypt a huge pile of hidden data. The standard that encrypts these so-called metadata, was named EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format).

Of course, we are not talking about hidden messages and secret correspondence, although this can be arranged ... First of all, the EXIF ​​standard is used to save and view various characteristics photo, its parameters, indicators, information about authorship and the object of photography, as well as a lot of other information. That is, metadata is needed only from the point of view of the information component, which means you can do without them.

The ability to save and view photo metadata is used by many programs. If you are using Windows OS, then most likely you have already come across EXIF ​​data. Right-click on any photo, in the menu that appears, select the item at the very bottom "Properties".

Further, although everyone has a different version of Windows, the meaning is the same: find and click on the button / tab "detail". A table will open where information will be displayed, divided into conditional categories: "Description", "Source", "Image", "Camera", "Enhanced Photo", "File". The information that is displayed in this entire table is nothing more than EXIF ​​data.

Pull down the right property slider and see how many different metadata a photo can have. Confident in your example most of lines will be empty, because they need to be filled in by yourself. But the “Camera” category may be filled in - it is automatically filled in by a camera or smartphone.

This is not an exhaustive list of possible metadata. It's just that the Windows developers felt that such a table would be enough to touch on the main information aspects Photo. In fact, there can be much more such data! And all this volume can be divided into two groups: basic and additional.

The main parameters I include those data groups that will be read in any program and device that can look into the bins of photography. Such data should include: file information, description, copyright, image information, camera information and image conditions. This means that no matter what program you use, it will always show you at least this information.

I refer to additional parameters as data that only individual programs will work with. For example, Photoshop can create a tab "Story" and keep a photo editing protocol in it. Save the photo, open it again after a while, even on another computer, but be sure to use Photoshop, and you can always see what metadata is saved in the "History" tab. But if you try to look into EXIF ​​using, for example, Gimp, then you will no longer find this tab.

This is used by many serious programs. For example, using EXIF ​​data, he builds a system for filtering and sorting photos by adding keywords, creating headings and logical generalizations. This makes it easy to find the desired images among tens of thousands.

EXIF data can be changeable and immutable.

changeable, in turn, can be divided into two subspecies:

— human editable, for example, indicate the author of the picture yourself, and later delete and write a new name;

— edited by the program, for example, when you save a photo in Photoshop, the program itself adds a tag that the photo has been modified in Photoshop version of such. You yourself will not be able to register or delete this tag (unless through special software, but that's another story), but if you resave the photo in Photoshop different version, then the tag will be changed again in the version part, for example, it was CS5, but it became CS6.

immutable data is recorded by programs and devices without your will and remains tightly with this photo, for example, image resolution, file format, creation date, camera data.

Why and how to use EXIF ​​data?

• First of all, this is a very convenient record of information about the picture, well, do not keep notes in a notebook with what shutter speed you took this or that picture! Everything is conveniently recorded in a file, when needed, opened, looked, remembered.
• This is proof of your authorship of the picture, if you enter all necessary information About Me.
• As for the notepad, I'm not far from the truth. You can also open the desired photo and enter the information you need there. It will be securely stored there and will not go anywhere. But I remind you that you will have to view it through the same program.
• Did you like/dislike the quality of the picture taken? - Analyze the data in the "Camera" category. There you will find out under what conditions and camera settings this picture was taken. Admired / found a mistake - got invaluable experience.
• Professional image browsers, such as sorting and filtering large amounts of photographs by EXIF ​​metadata.
• Send a love message to a little man, or encrypt secret data and take / send them out of the country =))

Thirdly, the Internet is full of online services for working with EXIF ​​metadata. Their advantage is that you do not have to install anything on your computer. I did it once and forgot about it.

Of the minuses, I will note the speed of work - it directly depends on the capabilities of your Internet tariff.

An example of a site for removing EXIF ​​online is IMGonline.com.ua.

Noticed an error in the text - select it and press Ctrl + Enter . Thank you!

Publication date: 24.03.2017

Beginning photographers are often interested in how to view the parameters of a particular shot and find out what camera and lens were used when shooting it. This and other data is stored in EXIF ​​(Exchangeable Image File Format). It is part of a JPEG or RAW file. It is in it that additional data (metadata) is "sewn up". EXIF allows you to save a lot of useful things: from shooting parameters to information about which program and how the frame was edited.

NIKON D810 / 50.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 160, F1.4, 1/400 s, 50.0 mm equiv.

The parameters that you see under each photo on the website are loaded automatically from EXIF. So, the data of this picture says that it was taken on a camera Nikon D810) with a universal Nikon lens AF-S 50mm f/1.4G Nikkor. By the way, the latter is great for portrait shooting.

How to view EXIF?

Today, many photo viewing and editing programs can display EXIF: Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Bridge. Nikon's native Capture NX-D converter displays shooting parameters in great detail.

EXIF in Adobe Lightroom

EXIF can also be seen by opening the file properties: go to "Explorer", right-click on desired photo, in the context menu that opens, select "Properties", and in the window that appears - the "Details" tab.

There are sites that allow you to download an image and see its metadata in expanded form online. Examples of such services: http://exif.regex.info/exif.cgi ; http://metapicz.com/. With their help, you can find information about all shooting parameters, up to the distance at which the lens was focused.

There is an extension for Google browser Chrome, which allows you to view the EXIF ​​of any picture on the web page you open.

Through EXIF, you can find out how many pictures were taken on the camera. For example, this is useful when buying used photographic equipment. Reception works with Nikon cameras. Cameras from other manufacturers do not always register this parameter in EXIF, and it has to be extracted using additional tricks.

To get the full EXIF ​​data, it's best not to edit the frame on a PC. Let's upload the selected image to the site http://exif.regex.info/exif.cgi and find the Shutter Count column. Here we will see the "mileage" of the camera.

The easier-to-use service https://www.camerashuttercount.com/ works on the same principle.

NIKON D810 / 18.0-35.0 mm f/3.5-4.5 SETTINGS: ISO 200, F14, 1/30s, 24.0mm equiv.

When creating HDR images in Adobe Lightroom, the final image file is assigned some shutter speed and aperture settings, although it is clear that at least two frames with different parameters. As a rule, the shortest shutter speed is assigned.

EXIF data can be faked

EXIF is easy to edit. There are even online services for changing shooting parameters. Therefore, EXIF ​​data can serve as reference, but not absolutely objective information.

NIKON D810 / 18.0-35.0 mm f/3.5-4.5 SETTINGS: ISO 100, F16, 1/6s, 18.0mm equiv.

How not to lose EXIF ​​data during processing?

Some editors truncate EXIF ​​irrevocably (this is a sin of many mobile applications). However, in serious post-processing programs, you can choose whether to save EXIF ​​or not. For example, in Adobe Photoshop, when you save a photo through the Save As command, all data remains, and when you save through the Save For Web tool, some metadata is removed. To avoid this, find the Metadata item in the Save For Web window and select what information to save. I usually leave out all the metadata.

In Adobe Lightroom, the situation is similar. When setting up photo exports, pay attention to the Metadata item.

I'll tell you one of the ways to deal with rednecks who do not reveal secret places where they fish or pick mushrooms. I must say right away that there is nothing smart in this method, but it works. I am even sure that many people know about it, so today's story will be for those who have never thought about it.

It's simple, any person has a desire to show off, this is a fact (I already “hear” a friend’s shout behind my back, they say, Chernyakov, they don’t judge others by themselves). Almost all fishermen and mushroom pickers like to take pictures of trophies and post their photos on the Internet. So, ask such a person to send you the original photo. What for? Well, you can lie, they say, I liked the photo so much that I want to put it on my desktop as a screensaver in Windows.

Everything is simple. Almost everyone today takes pictures with mobile phones in nature. Almost every cell phone has a GPS. Almost every mobile phone has an option to put a coordinate mark in a photo, and no one disables it by default. And if there are coordinates, then they can be seen. How? - easier than a steamed turnip. Now I will show you with this photo as an example.

Digital photos have a thing called EXIF. I won't go into details now, I'll just say that this is additional information about the photo recorded in the file of the photo itself. There are a lot of interesting things there, for example: when the photo was taken, with what camera, and what is most interesting for us is where it was taken. They are prescribed geographical coordinates and extremely accurate.

If the photo has already been downloaded to the computer, right-click on it, then select “Properties” from the menu. In the window that opens, select the “Details” tab, and a little lower you will see the GPS coordinates. As I said, they are very accurate (and we will return to this picture again at the end of the article, remember it).

If you do not know what to do with these numbers, you can use, for example, Google's Picasa program. If the photo has coordinates, Picasa will show a red pin. Click on it and you will see a map.

As you understand, the Internet is already full of such services that show a map from a photo. Just upload such a photo to the site or give a link to it. I'm not even too lazy, I'll explain how to "take a link to a photo." For example, if you are using Firefox, then it's simple, right-click on the photo and there click on "Copy Image Location".

In Internet Explorer a little more confused. Right-click on the photo, select “Properties”, in the window that opens, select the link with the mouse, right-click on the selected text and select “Copy”.

Here is the way for you. The main thing is to ask for a photo.

And now for the new residents of Winnipeg who want to know exactly where mushrooms grow near us. At the weekend I was in the forest park. Riding a bicycle, I noticed a boletus near the road. Since I was not going to pick mushrooms, I only photographed the mushroom and drove on, did not cut it.

Here it is, a real untouched boletus, and if you need it, find the place yourself. By the way, not far from the city.

Okay, as you understand, "redneck", it's true, it's all nonsense. That is not what this article was made for. I just want you to understand how terrible it is when technology falls into the hands of amateurs. And what a horror it is when the ignorance of dilettantes is abused by criminals. This is a way to find where to steal something, this is also a way to find a person who is not a fact that he will be happy to meet.

As far as I understand, when a photo is uploaded to Facebook or Odnoklassniki or (sorry, sir) Vkontakte, then the system itself erases the coordinates for you. With Instagram, I was also unable to pull the coordinates, however, I read where it says that there is even an application for mobile phone, which from an Instagram photo shows a photo with Google Maps Street View, and address. But how?

I don't know, I can't check it myself. How do other Internet resources deal with photos? – also one has to guess. But you understand that it is better not to guess, but to rely on your own head.

Now the obvious conclusions. Yes, we know that mobile phones are entered by default GPS coordinates into a photograph. And it's great, yes! Especially when you bring back a bunch of photos from a long trip and then don't remember where it was. And then once, and found.

But it's great for personal use. If you want to take a photo from your phone and send it to someone, but don't want to see the coordinates, each smartphone has an option in the settings not to write GPS coordinates to the photo file. Turn off and take pictures. It will be necessary - turn it back on. Delov something?

If the photo is on a computer, it's even easier there. Before sending a photo, make a copy of it, and then, as mentioned above, right-click on the photo, then select “Properties” from the menu. In the window that opens, select the “Details” tab, and at the very bottom click on “Remove Properties and Personal Information”.

By the way, when I post photos on my site, I almost never erase the coordinates. Firstly - nothing personal, secondly - perhaps you yourself are interested in finding out where the places that I photographed are located. And once, yes, I got greedy, but this is the same “secret” clearing.

In general, let's sum it up. If we already use technology, we use it consciously so as not to be a monkey with a grenade. And there are a lot of technologies of all sorts and cunning. For example, as I noticed, a huge number of Android phone owners are not even aware of the existence of such a useful (and dangerous) site https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/ And this is not the limit.

EXIF photo data is useful for viewing up-to-date photo information: shutter speed, aperture, exposure time, time, geographical position- the list goes on and on. Checking this kind of information directly from your phone is very easy, as is editing (or deleting) it.

How to View EXIF ​​Data on Android

If you want to view the EXIF ​​metadata of images, then we offer the easiest approach for this. We'll be using Google Photos to take a look at this information since this app is installed on everyone. Android devices at the moment.

Launch the Google Photos app. If you have never used it before, then you need to select the backup options.

Once the app is set up, open the photo.

At the bottom of the photo screen, you will see four options: send, edit, info, and delete.
Click on the icon to view the information (letter i in a white circle).

You will see the photo's EXIF ​​data displayed in an easy-to-read format that includes the following information:

• date and time
• Image name, size, and resolution
• Camera Name, Aperture, Shutter Speed, Focal Length and ISO
• Location information, latitude/longitude, and map

It's simple and great effective method to view basic EXIF ​​data. If that's all you need, then that's all you need. If you would like to work with this data, then please read on.

How to View, Edit and Delete Extended EXIF ​​Data on Android

If you want to see more detailed information about your photos or, if you want to delete data, then the built-in Android tools will not solve this and you will have to go to the Play Store.

We will be using an application called Photo EXIF ​​Editor for this. The app is free, but if you use it a lot, you might want to use the Pro version ($1.99), which removes ads and adds the ability to show full raw data.

After you have installed the Photo EXIF ​​Editor application, launch it. You will be greeted by a nice-looking splash screen with three options: Photo, Photo Card, and View. Click Photo.

By default, the view of the last added photos will open. Click on any photo for which you want to view or edit the details.

In addition, you can use the "Browse" option on the home screen to use the file manager to access your images.

After you select a photo, the application will display all of its EXIF ​​data. This list is quite long and detailed, so take your time here.

Not all images have all the details - some cameras simply don't record that much data. If you want to hide data that is not available, click on the eye icon in the upper right corner. Only the data that is available will be displayed.

If you want to remove EXIF ​​data, then click on the Exif button next to the eye icon.

The "Remove Exif" window is very easy to use. Just click on the checkbox next to the data you want to remove. If you want to delete everything, then click on the very first checkbox at the top, which will allow you to select everything.

After selecting the data to delete, click on the icon in the upper right corner.

The image will close and the data will be deleted. Easy and casual.

EXIF data can certainly be useful. It's nice to know when and where the photo was taken, for example. But it's also the kind of data you probably want to remove before posting a photo anywhere. While Android doesn't include the ability to strip EXIF ​​data, Photo EXIF ​​Editor does a very good job.