Easily Browsing "Save" metadata in Adobe Bridge

[regisc29062070]

I can see a LOT of metadata when I open an individual file and go to File-> File Information; then go to Raw Data, then copy and paste the XML there, THEN use an XML Parser (or Excel) to look at the file in an easier to read way.

HOWEVER, almost everything I see there can be seen in Bridge also.

I say "almost" because what I REALLY want to see there I cannot. Specifically, I need to see the Save Information. When it was saved/modified. I can see it in the XML parser, but opening 150 files, waiting for the Link Update and Font errors, then going to the File Menu, etc..... just to see each XML data, even in the XML parser isn't NEARLY as nice as the regular metadata I can see in views with Bridge.

Trying to find information on ANY website about easily viewing "save" metadata in particular is misleading at best, due to the keyword being in literally every person's question about anything.

Please help. I need to do this because of a contractor's hours, and we're trying to figure out forensically how much time they actually spent on our project by looking at this data, and as with all legal things, it's urgent.

Attached is a screenshot of a list of files I'm looking at in one of the collections I made; and I see a lot of metadata there, but cannot seem to find how to show the save data in there. Perhaps I'm simply missing the right check box in the Metadata preferences. I have experimented with this panel to no avail. See the second screenshot.

The third screenshot is the XML data opened in Excel, showing clearly that this information is there.

Can I create a custom metadata view to make this easier to browse?

[gary_sc]

Hi Durgadas,

Not fully sure this will help you but if you go into Preferences and then select Metadata you can see this:

From here you can find and check all of the metadata that you wish to see (or not see).

Anything checked here will show up now in the Metadata Panel. It will NOT show, however, in the File Info Panel from the File menu. I do not know why or how to make this so.

Please let us know if this helps or not.

[regisc29062070]

Yes, this is what I was mentioning and captured in the screenshots. Despite turning many of these on and off, I couldn't work out which one would simply create a view where I could click on a given file and see all the Save Metadata for each in the panel.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

There are some scripts available for exporting various metadata to comma or tab-delimited text file:

https://prepression.blogspot.com/2016/08/extracting-metadata-to-csv.html

However for your particular situation, I would go with the "industry standard" metadata tool:

ExifTool

Don't worry that it is command-line based, I'll give you the commands and they can be "wrapped" into other methods of application, such as drag-n-drop etc.

For a concise view of all readable metadata (not just XMP) you can use the following command:

exiftool -a -g1 -s -r 'Path or Dir'

Try this command on a single file first, changing 'Path or Dir' with your full image path.

The final bit, 'Path or Dir' is where you will put the full file system path to the file or folder to be processed. I have included the -r or recursive command to process all sub-folders under the top-level input folder. The single ' quote marks are for the Mac OS, for Windows OS replace them with " double-quotes.

Taking this same command to output a text file, which you can take into a spreadsheet for easy viewing:

exiftool -a -g1 -s -csv -r 'input image folder path' > 'output folder path/metadata.csv' 

However, that may be a little unwieldy due to having too much info... Therefore, I think that the following may be more useful in your situation:

exiftool -a -g1 -s -filename -system:filemodifydate -system:fileaccessdate -system:fileinodechangedate -ifd0:modifydate -xmp-xmp:createdate -xmp-xmp:metadatadate -xmp-xmp:modifydate -xmp-xmpmm:historywhen -photoshop:layermodifydates -xmp-xmpmm:historyaction  -csv -r 'input image folder path' > 'output folder path/metadata.txt'

This last command will dump file and layer edit dates/times and some basic history actions (these various metadata entries may or may not be present in any given file).

Photoshop can also store other history-related info, which again may or may not be in the files.

Good luck!

[regisc29062070]

What I understood as EXIF data was a subset of the data in the file, and not containing the Save Metadata; i.e. this was all about the graphics and photos, etc. contained in the file and not the save data for the file itself. Perhaps I am wrong in this? I DO see that what you mention is very easily shown in the panel, but not the data about saving of the individual files themselves; even when that is clearly shown in the XML data itself.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

ExifTool is not just about EXIF metadata, it is for many different types of metadata, including XMP, ICC and many others.

Here is an image dump from Terminal, however writing to .csv and opening into a spreadsheet would be bettter:

[regisc29062070]

So, if for example, if I was looking to find all of the dates & times a file was saved, this LayerModifyDates would be it?

This is the ONLY metadata I care about, and I am aware there are many types, but I don't care even a little about anything other than the dates a file was saved with new information in it; as I'm trying to establish work patterns over a 4 month period. Nor do I know what specific XML designation would show that. If I knew, I'd make a filter for that.

Also, I REALLY appreciate you giving me a tool that is cross-platform, as I will need to do research on my Windows machine at home and also in front of people at work with my Mac laptop.

One of the other problems I'm encountering is that in addition to doing all this finding of the right metadata is the conversion of XML dates into real human-readable dates. Since I have SO MANY files in which to figure this out on, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, frankly.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Play with the commands that I have provided, it should become clear once  you export a .csv from a file or folder and view it in a spreadsheet app.

Keep in mind that this may only provide partial info on what has taken place and may need to be compared with other sources of information.

[Chuck Uebele]

Have you tried ctrl/cmd-i to bring up the file info panel?

Edit: Didn't see the part where you wanted to save the info to excel. Yes, This stuff can be scripted, as Stephen pointed out.

[gary_sc]

Chuck,

I always assumed that the Get Info... would have the same information as the Metadata Panel, it doesn't.

I had turned on the "Modified Date" option and did something to an image. That showed up in the Metadata Panel but did not show up in the Get Info.

Don't know if that's a bug or if it isn't supposed to reflect what's in the Metadata Panel.

[Chuck Uebele]

Gary, I have a custom panel that I made when I was working. There is an issue. If I enter info I to the Bride panel, some fields don't show up in the file Info panel. But if I put data in the file info panel it shows up in the Bridge panel, unless I had previously put info into the panel. Was going to bug it again.

[gary_sc]

Well feel free to bug this part as well. If one collection of metadata is not being updated in another ostensably the same listing of metadata is pretty bad. 

[Chuck Uebele]

Yea, I just thought it was my panel, which uses some odd namespaces. A coworker created it, so I was stuck with them, when it needed to be updated, when they dropped Flash.