jhead – JPEG header manipulator 6 January, 2008 at 7:51 am
jhead is a rather nifty looking program… When I was in Europe (er, perhaps I should write some more about that later!) I took some photos – rather a lot, actually – and despite my best intentions, I sometimes forgot to properly set the date and/or time (more likely just the timezone) on my camera. Maybe not the worst thing to happen in the world (I managed to be separated, permanently, from my camera in Vietnam, taking images from Austria with it!), but bloody inconvenient if you ask me – I like to have things somewhat organised – at least to tell me when a photo was taken especially since I wrote bugger all to journal my journey!
The problem then presents itself – how can you edit the datestamp stored in the files? And how about the filesystem datestamps while we’re at it? Okay, it might be possible to edit the date in the file using PhotoShop or something, but that required ‘re-saving’ (and probably image-degrading) the file. Maybe Bridge can edit the metadata… hmmm… Anyhow, I eventually decided, only a few days ago, to do a search for a magic tool to do the job, and jhead might just be it!
I have to admit that I haven’t tried it out yet – ye of little disk space can hardly afford to offer that much faith first up… some sort of precautionary backup is desirable, methinks. Which reminds me, I think I have about a CD worth that isn’t backed up at all yet – that should be first priority!
Anyhow, jhead professes to be able to adjust the Exif datestamp, among other things, and that is what I’m going to try. It has other fancy features such as being able to (re-)generate embedded thumbnail images, but I might leave all tha business alone.
Fingers crossed for the basic task!
-G.
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