A guy by the name of Phil Harvey has created a program that runs on Windows, Mac and Unix machines called ExifTool. It's a command-line utility that can be called out of batch files with its own batch programming language. It can extract - and can edit the metadata in a large number of types of files, with a heavy emphasis on digital photography files including RAW files. It can do conditional-testing before editing, and make backups of the original unedited versions for safety.
There's also a GUI front-end available to make it easier to work with in interactive mode.
All this stuff is free. Go to:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
to get the lowdown - and the downloads!
I use it to batch edit the distance information in pics taken with my Canon Digital Rebel XTi (called the EOS 400D in Europe) - that model swaps the upper and lower focus distances recorded in the Exif.
With some help from Phil Harvey himself, I made a simple batch file to run through all the pix in a photo shoot and swap those distance values back so that they become intelligible to Adobe's programs (Canon's own programs refuse to see the distance data from this camera either way).
Hi all,
I'm new to this site, but I was wondering if anyone has any leads for what I'm looking for--I'm trying to find software that will allow me to create/edit metadata for a batch of digital photos. For example, I want to select x number of photos and be able to edit the properties to show the same photographer, date, location, etc., for all of them at once. I'm primarily on a PC, but I have access to a Mac as well. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

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