Software with GUI to edit a .CR2's metadata

Question

I have happily been using Microsoft's Pro Photo Tools for about 10 years to batch-add keywords, location etc. to my CR2 files.

Late last year it stopped working and from what I see it is a problem with the latest version of Bing maps.

I have been trying to find an alternative and everything I have tried is either very old and works to a certain extent or only writes to a sidecar file or database. Photo Mechanic looks like it does what I want but I do not want to use any other functions of Photo Mechanic so it will cost me £150 just to edit the metadata. I think I managed to do it with Adobe Bridge over the weekend but have not been able to do it again. According to Adobe, Bridge can not do this so I may have done it another way I have forgotten about as I did try a couple of other bits of software at the same time.

Exiftool can do all I want, but I would like to have a GUI available.

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I want to write my data into the file so it stays with the file; if I do it in Bridge for example and stop using Bridge I have lost all the metadata. A sidecar file is just as bad.

The only other option I can see is to convert all my photos to the DNG format and that will allow me to add metadata to them via Adobe software.

Does anybody have any software suggestions or a Pro Photo Tool hack to get it working again?

Example part of a CR2 file with XMP data added (Fireworks Night are the keywords I added but can not remember how I did it):

%ˆ    Î è    Canon Canon EOS 6D  H      H      2018:11:03 20:45:25 Anthony
<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
    <x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="XMP Core 4.4.0-Exiv2"> 
        <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">  
            <rdf:Description rdf:about="" xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/" xmp:Rating="0"/>
        </rdf:RDF>
    </x:xmpmeta>                                               
<?xpacket end="w"?>  Fireworks  Night

When I look back at some of my photos for an example of the Pro Photo Tools input data, I cannot find one. I have the horrible feeling that Lightroom has overwritten them as all the files now contain Adobe XMP data and not Pro Photo Tool's data. If this is the case all my keywords etc. have been removed.

The data I am seeing now must be coming from the sidecar file, as renaming the sidecar file removes the keywords from Bridge.

Answer 1

It is strongly discouraged to edit the actual RAW file - especially so when adding metadata that is not supposed to be there. Basically, you could wreck your file(s) beyond hope at any time.

This is the main reason why most software uses sidecar-files or internal databases: If they get lost or corrupted, at least the picture is still there. This process is - in contrast to editing the actual file - non-linear, which means that it can be reversed at any time. E.g. if you accidentally deleted the shutter speed data, then you could restore it at any time. If you delete it from the original file, it is gone forever.

Overwriting RAWs (or any original file) is always considered bad practise. You would not, for example, start to shift paragraphs in your master's thesis in the only copy of your document¹ - you would copy the document, name it properly (e.g. thesis_2018-11-21_shifted.doc, and work with that "new" version. Also, when you finished editing, you should not delete the "old" version - what if you mistakenly deleted a paragraph in the new version? It would be lost forever. It could take days or even weeks until you notice - if ever. And it would be too late to reverse the change, anyway.

¹ _{Of course, you would have at least 20 versions saved at different on- and offsite locations.}

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Pre-"GUI necessary"-edit (not recommended!):

Exiftool can do that.

exiftool TEST.CR2 -XMP:Keywords="This is my test 123" -XMP:GPSLatitude=15,57.060000S -XMP:GPSLongitude=5,40.594000W -XMP:GPSAltitude=10

With the result:

exiftool test.cr2 -XMP:All
    XMP Toolkit    : Image::ExifTool 11.11
    GPS Altitude   : 10 m
    GPS Latitude   : 15 deg 57' 3.60" S
    GPS Longitude  : 5 deg 40' 35.64" W
    Keywords       : This is my test 123
    Rating         : 0

This will create a new file and rename the old one to *.cr2_original - because it is bad to simply overwrite RAW files (see above). _{Still, there is the -overwrite_original-switch. But I would never use that with any original file - ever.}

Locations are needed in the same coordinate system as in Bridge.

I tried it and it leads directly to Longwood House (altitude is a wild guess). Bridge seems to refuse multi-word keywords for some reason, but works flawlessly with single-word ones. This could come down to incompetence on my side.