{"id":39362,"date":"2025-02-14T08:33:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T15:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/?p=39362"},"modified":"2025-05-04T12:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T19:14:20","slug":"adding-exif-data-to-film-scans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/2025\/02\/14\/adding-exif-data-to-film-scans\/","title":{"rendered":"Adding EXIF data to film scans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><I>A bit of work, but worth it.<\/I><\/p>\n<p><I>For an index of all Leica-related articles click <a href=https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/indexes\/photography\/leica\/ target=_blank>here<\/a><\/I>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Update March 31, 2025:<\/b>. There&#8217;s a better version of this plugin and you can read about it <a href=https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/2025\/03\/31\/adding-exif-data-to-film-scans-improved\/ target=_blank>here<\/a>.  It&#8217;s not free but well worth the modest sum asked.<\/p>\n<p>I usually find images in my Lightroom catalog by first looking for the folder of interest, and that&#8217;s typically indexed on the lines of Subject matter->Location. For example, Street candids->New York City. Thereafter I find favorites using the Camera and Lens combination in the folders selected.  It&#8217;s a fast and accurate system.<\/p>\n<p>With film scans, of course, there&#8217;s no EXIF data about camera and lens and the Noritsu scans from <a href=https:\/\/sharpprints.com target=_blank>Sharpprints<\/a> proudly announce &#8216;Noritsu Koki&#8217; in the &#8216;Camera&#8217; field.<\/p>\n<p>After migrating to the current subscription (ugh!) version of Lightroom Classic (LRc) I found that my previous approach to adding EXIF data to film scans no longer works.  The EXIF app I used is broken and no longer round trips correct(ed) EXIF data to LRc.<\/p>\n<p>The approach I know use requires a free application named <a href=https:\/\/www.lenstagger.com target=_blank>LensTagger EXIF Tool<\/a> &#8211; click on that link and you will find excellent installation instructions.  In addition to the LensTagger plugin you need something named &#8216;<a href=https:\/\/exiftool.org target=_blank>EXIF Tool<\/a>&#8216;, and it&#8217;s easiest to place it in the same directory as the plugin.  You need these tools as LRc does not allow you to edit the data fields of interest.  The data path on a Mac in Finder is:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LensTagger path.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>The plugin location.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And here are the contents of that directory:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LensTagger apps.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>Contents of the plugin directory.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Then, in Lightroom->File->Lightroom Plug-in Manager, you input that same path, thus, after adding LensTagger to the Plug-in Manager:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LR LensTagger.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>Setting up LensTagger in LRc&#8217;s Plug-in Manager.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=https:\/\/www.lenstagger.com\/documentation\/how-to-use-lenstagger\/ target=_blank>use instructions<\/a> on the LensTagger site are clear so I will not repeat them here.<\/p>\n<p>And here is the result, where I have set up LensTagger for my Leica M3 and 35mm Summaron RF lens &#8211; multiple setups are possible for different camera\/lens combinations:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LRc EXIF data.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>EXIF data for one image taken on film.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The reference to the &#8216;EZ Controller&#8217; under &#8216;Software&#8217; is to the Noritsu scanner&#8217;s controller.  I leave that in to remind me the file came from SharpPrint&#8217;s scanner.<\/p>\n<p>And here is the Metadata for that folder:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LRc Metadata.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>Metadata for film images in LRc.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Zoom out to see data for the catalog of all images in LRc and you get:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pindelski.org\/Blog2\/LRc Metasdata catalog.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<I>Metadata for the whole LRc catalog of 29,000+ images.<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I need to change &#8216;M3&#8217; to &#8216;Leica M3&#8217; to conform with earlier naming, but you get the idea.  An efficient system for cataloging and retrieving images in Lightroom Classic.<\/p>\n<p>Order of processing:  To avoid losing your processing adjustments, make sure to add EXIF data <I>first<\/I> then adjust exposure, contrast, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bit of work, but worth it. For an index of all Leica-related articles click here. Update March 31, 2025:. There&#8217;s a better version of this plugin and you can read about it here. It&#8217;s not free but well worth the modest sum asked. I usually find images in my Lightroom catalog by first looking &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/2025\/02\/14\/adding-exif-data-to-film-scans\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Adding EXIF data to film scans<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-leica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39362"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40264,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39362\/revisions\/40264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pindelski.org\/Photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}