Writing metadata in webp files

[AlexanderNik]

Hi guys,

I wonder if there is a way to write a matadata into webp files in bulk? Any suggestions are welcome.

Many thanks,

Alex

[Mylenium]

XnView and IrfanView can handle batch processing of such stuff easily. It's always useful to have such tools handy, especially since they are basically free.

Mylenium

[AlexanderNik]

I have thousands of webp files and they all should contain a different metadata which I have into a csv file. Is that possible with XnView or IrfanView? Currently the webp image has no info when I open it with PS. Please see the screenshot attached. Thanks

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

I have thousands of webp files and they all should contain a different metadata which I have into a csv file. Is that possible with XnView or IrfanView? Currently the webp image has no info when I open it with PS. Please see the screenshot attached. Thanks

By @AlexanderNik

I’m going to suggest ExifTool, as you have so many images and a single line command can accomplish this, rather than hundreds of lines of scripting code.

The following blogpost has info on both export to and import from CSV. There are Adobe scripts mentioned, however, I'm not sure if WebP is supported as these scripts were written before Adobe supported this file format.

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

I'll post a link to an example when I dig it up... Edit:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/bridge-discussions/need-a-script-to-update-keywords-for-20000-images-...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/bridge-discussions/need-a-script-to-update-keywords-for-20000-images-...

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

@AlexanderNik – Adding metadata without opening the image data makes the most sense. This is what happens when using ExifTool, only the metadata is edited, the image data isn't affected. This is usually where Bridge can also help, however even in the newly released Bridge 2023 WebP metadata support hasn't been added. Although Photoshop can write various metadata when saving, Bridge incorrectly reports that WebP doesn't support metadata.

I tried the following script from @willcampbell7 

https://www.marspremedia.com/software/photoshop/keywords-from-csv

However, the keyword metadata wasn't written. I tried in 2021 with the Google WebP plugin and with 2022 using native WebP support.

So, without ExifTool or another 3rd party solution, the only other Adobe way to do this in bulk would be via a script for Photoshop. Each image would have to be opened and resaved. This is slow and if using lossy compression, further image degradation would be introduced as each image has to be decompressed/recompressed just to write the metadata.

[willcampbell7]

@Stephen_A_Marsh  thanks for the mention. Both the keyword and metadata scripts are able to put metadata into WEBP files, but I didn't have WEBP in the list of valid Photoshop extensions. I've added it to both scripts, and now it works, best I can tell. See what results you get.

@AlexanderNik  this script should do what you want, now that I've added WEBP to the extensions:

https://www.marspremedia.com/software/photoshop/metadata-from-csv

See if that works.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

@willcampbell7 

Tested in 2021, and no dice... Works fine in 2022, so I'm presuming that the native WebP support is required?

Thanks for updating the scripts!

[willcampbell7]

I tested in 2023. Yes I assume if Photoshop isn't aware of the format, it won't work. As all scripts, can't do anything Photoshop can't do to begin with. So it will require a newer version Photoshop, yes.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

I do have the Google WebP plugin installed for 2021, which must only provide support for basic read/write – but not updating metadata. I was unpleasantly surprised with Bridge 2023 though!

[Mylenium]

Okay, that's probably going to require a complex script for PS then.

Mylenium