Digikam/MetadataToRaw/en

Writing Meta Data To Raw Files In digiKam

Warning

It is generally a good idea to write metadata only into JPG files. If you do want to save metadata for every RAW file - enabling use of sidecar .xmp files is a universally safe method. Writing directly into RAW files is safe for .DNG files, but results may vary with other RAW file formats. Use at your own risk.

Transcribed from Mohamed Malik's blog, 1 March 2011

Almost all images contain metadata and this data contains all the settings that you used to create the picture. These include shutter speed, aperture, focal length etc..

Most image management applications allow you to add and remove custom metadata to your files. This can be easily done while using JPEG files. However the same is not very true for RAW files.

When we add more labels and captions to the metadata of an image we need to save it. If you have a lot of RAW files, digiKam gives you the option to write metadata to RAW files as well. However please bear in mind that this feature is still experimental.

In order to enable the writing of metadata to RAW files, you need to edit your configuration of digiKam.

From the main menu go to Settings -> Configure digiKam

Then you will see the configurations menu. On the left hand side select Metadata and enable the option If possible write Metadata to RAW files (experimental)

See screen capture below.

Warning

nn wrote: Problems will arise with the rawfiles checksums, as they will most probably be invalid after writing the tags.