jhead is an open source command line driven utility for extracting digital camera settings from the Exif format files used by many digital cameras. It handles the various confusing ways these can be expressed, and displays them as F-stop, shutter speed, etc.
This tool is also able to reduce the size of digital camera JPEGs without loss of information, by deleting integral thumbnails that digital cameras put into the Exif header.
Many projects, including PHP, have reused code from this utility.
Key Features
- Extracting camera settings from Exif image files.
- Able to set and/or adjust the Exif time field.
- Manipulation (extract, replace, regenerate) of Exif integral thumbnails.
- Transplant Exif image header from one JPEG to another.
- Edit JPEG comment fields.
- Automatically rotate images upright (using jpegtran) according to “orientation” tag.
- Manage running programs on large batches of Jpegs and restoring Exif header information afterwards.
- Display embedded GPS info (if present).
- Extracts the following from an Exif jpeg file:
- Time and date picture was taken.
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- Camera make and model.
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- Integral low-res Exif thumbnail.
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- Shutter speed.
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- Camera F-stop number.
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- Flash used (yes/no).
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- Distance camera was focused at.
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- Focal length and calculate 35 mm equivalent focal length.
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- Image resolution.
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- GPS info, if stored in image.
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- IPTC header.
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- XMP data.
- Modifies the following from an Exif jpeg file:
- Up-right images according to rotation tag using jpegtran.
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- Set or relative adjust internal exif timestamps.
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- Fix date / time offsets in large batches of images.
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- Rename or date stamp files according to exif timestamp.
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- Transfer exif headers between images.
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- Replace thumbnails inside Exif headers.
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- Edit jpeg comments (but not the Exif comments).
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- Delete exif or comment sections from jpeg images.
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- Create new minimal exif header containing date and thumbnail.
- Options for manipulating Exif files including the date in the header, renaming image files, or coordinating running Jpegtran and Mogrify to manipulate whole directory trees of images.
Website: github.com/Matthias-Wandel/jhead
Support:
Developer: Matthias Wandel
License: Public Domain
jhead is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Photo Metadata Editors | |
|---|---|
| Photini | Easy to use digital photograph metadata editor |
| ExifTool | CLI application and library for reading and writing meta information |
| Exiv2 | C++ library and a command line utility to manage image metadata |
| digiKam | Provides tools for viewing and editing metadata |
| jExifToolGUI | Graphical frontend to ExifTool |
| Jhead | Exif Jpeg header manipulation tool |
| Scramble | Privacy-focused image metadata removal tool |
| Phatch | Simple to use cross-platform GUI photo batch processor |
| mat2 | Remove metadata from files to improve privacy |
| Metadata Cleaner | Inspect and remove metadata from files |
| Kleaner | Clean metadata from images with a simple graphical interface |
| Metamorphosis | Inspect and change embedded metadata |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Small Image Tools | |
|---|---|
| Rembg | Background segmentation tool using machine learning |
| imgp | Multi-core batch image file resize and rotate |
| ExifTool | Read, write and edit meta information |
| imagededup | Find duplicate images |
| Durdraw | ASCII, Unicode and ANSI art editor |
| pstoedit | PostScript and PDF files to editable vector graphics converter |
| potrace | Transforms bitmaps into vector graphics |
| jhead | Manipulate the non-image part of Exif compliant JPEG files |
| CropGUI | Graphical user interface for jpegtran |
| pngcrush | Optimizer for PNG files. It's a command-line tool |
| Picsort | Tool for sorting images into folders |
| imagineer | Offers image processing and conversion |
| truss | Image transformation toolkit |
| slimg | Fast image optimization tool |
| Pictures Converter | Convert image formats |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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