How to copy DateTaken tag from another image using ExifTool?

Question

I want to copy EXIF Date Created Tag from one image to another.I understand that i can copy all details using

exiftool -TagsFromFile a.jpg b.jpg

This copies all tags from a.jpg to file b if its only im JPEG format.If the file is in PNG format,the tool does not update the image.Is it due to difference in image formats?

I just need to copy the DateCreated Tag from the source image.Will this support all image formats? How can i do this? Please advice.

UPDATE:

Answer 1

There are a couple issues to note:

• DateTaken is a Windows properties, not a tag in a file. Windows fills the DateTaken value from a variety of tags.

• PNG files do not support EXIF metadata. There is a non-standard way of inserting EXIF metadata but it isn't supported by Windows. You could copy DateCreated to XMP:DateCreated, but Windows doesn't read XMP metadata from PNG files.

In the case of PNG files, Windows fills the DateTaken property from the PNG:CreationTime tag. So you'll need to copy DateCreated to PNG:CreationTime. You can do that with this command

exiftool -TagsFromFile SourceFile "-PNG:CreationTime<DateCreated" TargetFile

This is pretty much a special case for PNG files. Most other filetypes, Jpgs, Tiffs, RAW files, support EXIF metadata and you could use this command in those cases

exiftool -TagsFromFile SourceFile -DateCreated TargetFile

Actually, I suggest that you use either DateTimeOriginal or CreateDate instead of DateCreated. DateCreated is an IPTC legacy tag, is less likely to be in your file, and only holds the Date value and not the Time value. DateTimeOriginal and CreateDate are EXIF tags that are much more likely to be in most files. PNG files still need to use PNG:CreationTime.