AUTO_ISO_Tool

If you're the happy owner of a CANON camera, you've probable been already upset by the way CANON is managing the ISO information when shooting in AUTO ISO or HIGH ISO modes. They do not use the standard way to store the information in the EXIF metadata (EXIF:ISO field) but they store the data in their own field : CAMERA-MAKER:ISO. Moreover, in AUTO ISO mode the ISO field exhibits AUTO instead of the real ISO value chosen by the digic processor.

And now, would you ask ? ... And now, image processing software cannot read the correct value and use them for their processing (e.g : noise removal software often need this information to select the adapted noise profile.

Fortunately, Phil Harvey as written a superb perl software (EXIFTOOL) allowing to play with all EXIF data and, in particular, to compute the real ISO value and create the missing EXIF data ... Exiftool is a command line software very powerfull but difficult to use for non sotware developpers people.

In order to help such people to use EXIFTOOL, I've developped a Graphic User Interface acting as a front end to EXIFTOOL : AUTO_ISO_Tool.

Just download :

Unzip the archive, extract the AUTO_ISO_Tool.exe,

Get the exiftool (-k).exe and rename it into exiftool.exe

Put them both in a single directory

Run AUTO_ISO_Tool.exe either double clicking on it or with a drag and drop of a file or a directory

 

==> You shall get the above screen shoot.

It is easy to operate :

  • help balloons are provided to explain the functions of each checkbox and button (move the mouse over the text areas to get the tips)
  • AUTO_ISO_Tool provides the capability to :
         - read the dates in files
         - read the EXIF:user comment and IPTC: caption
         - read the ISO value
         - read all metadata of a file or a directory

         - patch the ISO (it creates the EXIF:ISO field and writes in it the real ISO value
         - write the EXIF: usercomment inside IPTC:caption
     

You can drag and drop a file or a directory on the text line or select file or directory to process with the buttons

select the options

  • recursive : patches/read all files in and below the directory
  • overwrite original : no copy of the original file (at your own risks)

press the GO button when you're OK with all the options.

Note that, in READ mode, if no option (ISO, COMMENT or DATE) is selected, then the tool will read all the metadata found in files (try it, it's impressive ...)

This little software is fully free, use it, enjoy but do not complain if it happens to corrupt your files ...

Any question, drop me an email at the following address ...