What's New in Exiv2

2021-10-22 Exiv2 v0.27.5

Thank you to Alex, Christoph, David, Kev, Milos, Peter K, Peter S and Robin for working on the release.

  1. BMFF bug fixes including CR3 previews
  2. Security fixes
  3. libFuzzer target for improved security testing
  4. Minor bugs and fixes

More details: Change List
2021-09-30 Exiv2 v0.27.5 RC3
2021-09-09 Exiv2 v0.27.5 RC2
2021-08-10 Exiv2 v0.27.5 RC1
2021-06-15 Exiv2 v0.27.4

Thank you to Alex, Christoph, David, Freddie, Kevin, Leo, Leonardo, Milos, Peter K and Peter S and pydera for working with me on the release.
This release is dedicated to our cat Lizzie who was put to sleep on 2021-02-13. As always, thanks to my wife (and Exiv2 widow) Alison.

I have finished my book Image Metadata and Exiv2 Architecture.
Available:
https://clanmills.com/exiv2/book/
and/or
https://clanmills.com/exiv2/book/IMaEA.pdf
There is no plan to have it printed or commercially published.

Highlights of Exiv2 v0.27.4

  1. Support for bmff files (HEIC, HEIF, AVIF, CR3, JXL/bmff)
  2. Bash test scripts rewritten in python
  3. DNG 1.6 and Exif 2.32 support
  4. Bug and security fixes
  5. Localisation project on Crowdin
  6. Updated build and test environments
  7. Revised documentation
  8. Other improvements

More details: Change List

Future of Exiv2

Robin was 70 in January and has now retired.

More details: Future of Exiv2
2021-05-22 Exiv2 v0.27.4 RC3
2021-04-07 Exiv2 v0.27.4 RC2
2021-03-18 Exiv2 v0.27.4 RC1
2020-06-30 Exiv2 v0.27.3

Thank you to Phil, Sridhar, Luis, Kevin, and Andreas S for working with me on the release.
As always, thanks to my wife Alison and our cat Lizzie for their support.

I am writing a book called Image Metadata and Exiv2 Architecture.
Current Draft:
https://clanmills.com/exiv2/book/
and/or
https://clanmills.com/exiv2/book/IMaEA.pdf

Highlights of Exiv2 v0.27.3

  1. Bug and security fixes
  2. UNIX support
  3. Support for building with C++11 and C++14
  4. Revised build and test environments
  5. Revised documentation
  6. Improved charset handling in UserComment
  7. Other improvements

More details: Change List
2020-05-31 Exiv2 v0.27.3 RC2

Thank you to Phil, Sridhar, Luis, Kevin, and Andreas S for working with me on the release.
As always, thanks to my wife Alison and our cat Lizzie for their support.

2020-04-28 Exiv2 v0.27.3 RC1

Thank you to Phil, Sridhar, Luis, Kevin, and Andreas S for working with me on the release.
As always, thanks to my wife Alison and our cat Lizzie for their support.

2019-07-28 Exiv2 v0.27.2

Thank You to Kevin for security contributions to this release.
Thank You to Ting-Wei for Unix contributions to this release.
Thank You to Dan and Luis for their solid efforts on Exiv2.
Thank You to Andreas S for representing Team Exiv2 at LGM 2019.
Contributors: Jens, Nehal, Phil, Paul, Toni

  1. Bug and security fixes
  2. Support for Nikon/AutoFocus and Sony/FocusPosition Metadata
  3. Documentation and man page revisions
  4. Updated Catalan Localisation
  5. Using mergify to sync select PRs between 0.27-maintenance and 0.28
  6. Monitoring API changes for v0.27 dot releases
  7. Preliminary Dutch Localisation
  8. Preliminary Support for Unix (FreeBSD and NetBSD)
  9. Better Build Bundle Dependency handling
2019-07-19 Exiv2 v0.27.2 RC3 (0.27.2.3)
2019-06-29 Exiv2 v0.27.2 RC2 (0.27.2.2)
2019-06-13 Exiv2 v0.27.2 RC1 (0.27.2.1)
26-Apr-2019 Exiv2 v0.27.1 (0.27.1)

Thanks to Luis, Dan and Thomas, Nehal and Andreas H for their work to make this release possible.

Thanks to Elliot at HostPresto for hosting http://exiv2.org.uk

Contributors: Andreas S, Freddie, Gilles, Michal, Phil.

  1. Bug and security fixes.
  2. Deprecation warnings for Video, EPS and SSH support.
  3. Relocated https://exiv2.org
  4. Branch 0.27-maintenance for "dots" to avoid confusion with tag 0.27 (== 0.27.0 code).
  5. Support for Visual Studio 2019 using Conan and CMake
29-Mar-2019 Exiv2 v0.27.1 RC1 (0.27.1.1)
Exiv2 v0.27.1 RC1
02-Jan-2019 Exiv2 v0.27.0a
No code changes. The source bundle has to been repackaged. https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/issues/620
20-Dec-2018 Exiv2 v0.27
Thank You to Dan and Luis for their huge contribution to this release.

Contributors: Ben, Freddy, Gilles, Henri, Michal, Phil, Shridar, Toni and Thomas.

The headline features are:

  1. Security fixes
  2. Bug Fixes
  3. Rewritten CMake Support
  4. Conan Support to build dependencies
  5. Adobe XMPsdk 2016 support
  6. New python test suite
  7. AppVeyor, Travis, CodeCov and GitLabs monitor submissions
  8. Support for MinGW/msys2
  9. Jenkins buildserver operates from GitHub
  10. Jenkins buildserver operates from GitHub
  11. New Documentation: Markdown, ReleaseNotes, Platform/ReadMe.txt and Website

With Exiv2 v0.27, Team Exiv2 will offer "Long Term Support" and plan "dot" releases with security and critical fixes in 2019 and 2020.
07-Dec-2018 Exiv2 v0.27 RC3
Third (and probably final) Release Candidate for Exiv2 0.27.

Very useful feedback from Gilles and others. Every issue raised has been fixed and listed in releasenotes.txt.

Built and tested in 104 configurations:
Platform Compilers Bits Config Library Kind Total = 104
Linux gcc, clang 64, 32 Static, Shared Release, Debug Normal, Full 32
MacOSX clang 64 Static, Shared Release, Debug Normal, Full 8
MinGW gcc 64, 32 Static, Shared Release, Debug Normal, Full 16
Cygwin gcc 64, 32 Static, Shared Release, Debug Normal, Full 16
MSVC 2015, 2017 64, 32 Static, DLL Release, Debug Normal, Full 32

A Normal build is Exiv2 with expat and zlib. A Full build also includes Video and Webready support.

No open issues. The code is now frozen.

See ChangeLog for details.
15-Nov-2018 Exiv2 v0.27 RC2
Second Release Candidate for Exiv2 0.27.

Lots of productive feedback from RC1. Issues raised have been fixed and listed in releasenotes.txt

See ChangeLog for details.
27-Oct-2018 Exiv2 v0.27 RC1
First Release Candidate for Exiv2 0.27.
  • Security Fixes.
  • New build and test infrastructure.
  • Many bug fixes.
  • Support for MinGW/msys2.
  • Buildserver rewritten.
  • Support for Adobe XMPsdk.
17-May-2017 Exiv2 v0.26 slipstream
Commercial License was discontinued and all mention removed from documentation. No code changes from v0.26.
28-April-2017 Exiv2 v0.26
Many bugs fixed. Support for ICC Profiles, CMake/Visual Studio Support. Metadata piping with the exiv2 command-line utility. Optional user defined configuration file for lens recognition.

See ChangeLog for details.

Slide Presentation: Exiv2v0-26.pdf
10-Oct-2015 Window dressing
We re-designed the website for improved useability and for use on various devices with different screen sizes.
21-Jun-2015 Exiv2 0.25 released
This release contains a large collection of new features, new lenses and bugfixes across all areas of Exiv2. See the ChangeLog for the complete long list of changes. Both 2013 GSoC projects, 'Web Ready' by Tuan (mentored by Robin) and 'Video Write support' by Mahesh (Abhinav) are included as build options, the latter builds together with Video Read support, which is no longer part of the standard build.
03-Oct-2014 We have moved
You shouldn't actually notice anything of that, except that we have at the same time also upgraded to a more recent version of Redmine, with new features and a slightly updated look. I also had to update some of the Redmine links. If you find any remaining issues with the sites, please report them to us in the forum.
02-Dec-2013 Exiv2 0.24 released
Exiv2 introduces its first support for Video metadata. Many more cameras and accessories are now recognised. Numerous bugs fixes, build and test improvements. More details: ChangeLog.
02-Dec-2013 GIMP meets (g)exiv2
Improved support for Exif, XMP, and IPTC along with a viewer/editor will be part of GIMP 2.10. GIMP has adopted gexiv2, and therefore Exiv2, for their photo metadata needs. Yay!
23-Apr-2012 Exiv2 0.23 released
Exiv2 can now finally write metadata to Canon CR2 images. Besides, this release adds support for Pentax makernotes in Pentax native DNG images, updates various lens lists and contains the usual new minor features and bugfixes, which are all detailed in the ChangeLog.
18-Sep-2011 Exiv2 0.22 released
This release adds support to access previews and read and write XMP metadata in Postscript images. It also introduces a new MSVC project for 64 bit builds as well as many smaller features and bugfixes, all of which are listed in the ChangeLog as usual.
14-Feb-2011 Exiv2 0.21.1 released
This release fixes several bugs that were present in 0.21 and is binary compatible with the previous version. As usual, the ChangeLog lists all changes in detail.
01-Dec-2010 Exiv2 0.21 released
This release adds read and write support for Samsung SRW images and Samsung makernotes. The exiv2 library now accepts a custom error handler and has a setting to control which messages are generated. The exiv2 command line tool has a new 'quiet' option which uses the new functionality to suppress all library warnings. Some important API changes will allow many future image format and makernote enhancements to be done in a binary compatible fashion. The new exiv2.hpp umbrella header file further shields applications from library changes. The ChangeLog lists these and various smaller enhancements, bug fixes and tag updates in detail.
30-May-2010 Exiv2 0.20 released
This release includes Sony, Nikon and Pentax makernote updates and a significant performance improvement for Nikon makernotes. Writing to Minolta raw images (ORF) is now supported. Several TIFF tags and the XMP KDE Image Program Interface (kipi) schema, iView Media Pro schema and Microsoft Expression Media schema have been added. See the ChangeLog for a complete list of all enhancements and bugfixes in this release.
30-Dec-2009 Exiv2 0.19 released
This release has a dramatically reduced memory footprint when writing to TIFF and TIFF-based images as the images are no longer completely loaded into memory. In addition it improves performance of read operations for such files by about a factor six on Windows. It also provides extended Nikon makernote support. Exiv2 is now able to read and write many additional Nikon makernote tags, including encrypted tags. The XMP toolkit used by Exiv2 has been upgraded to the latest available version, iptc4xmpExt and plus XMP schemas have been added and several XMP conversion issues fixed. The ChangeLog lists all these enhancements and various other features and bugs that have been addressed for this release.
24-Jun-2009 Exiv2 0.18.2 released
This release fixes several important issues found with PNG write-support, writing to certain NEF images and writing comments to JPG images, among others. It also contains minor Nikon and Minolta lens updates and updates Polish translations. The ChangeLog has the complete list of changes, as usual.
06-Apr-2009 Exiv2 0.18.1 released
This release adds write-support for Adobe Photoshop PSD images, read-support for Panasonic RW2 images, Panasonic and Nikon makernote updates, and a number of improvements under the hood and bug fixes, detailed in the ChangeLog. It also includes a new utility, organize, contributed by Brad Schick.
08-Jan-2009 Community website
Brad has migrated the Mantis issue tracker and the commit info list to a Redmine installation. This also includes a new forum, which replaces the Exiv2 Yahoo! group, and a new Exiv2 Wiki, all integrated, with a common look-and-feel and a single sign-on. From the main website, these project resources are accessible through the Project link in the sidebar.
Thanks to Brad Schick for this latest innovation as well as his reliable sysadmin services and sponsorship since the early days of the project!
18-Dec-2008 Exiv2 0.18 released
Here is the final 0.18 release with write-support for TIFF, DNG, NEF, PEF, PNG and JP2 images, makernote updates and access to image previews. On Windows, Exiv2 can now be built as a DLL.
In addition to the changes in the 0.18 pre-releases, the Exiv2 command line utility has new options to show all (Exif, IPTC and XMP) metadata and to list and extract preview images, while the library enhancements are mostly bug fixes and minor features. See the ChangeLog for details.
04-Nov-2008 Exiv2 0.18-pre2
With this pre-release it is now possible to build an Exiv2 Windows DLL.
A new API was added to access image previews of any image. In addition to Exif thumbnails this allows retrieving various other previews from RAW images and Exif MakerNotes through a common interface.
Another backward-compatible API change allows advanced Exif pretty-printing functions to refer to all Exif tags.
Further Exif improvements and fixes are detailed in the ChangeLog.
Again, please use this pre-release to test with backups of your images and to adapt applications to the modified interface, and raise issues in the forum. Your feedback is important to finalizing release 0.18.
11-Sep-2008 Exiv2 0.18-pre1
This pre-release adds write-support for TIFF, DNG, NEF, PEF, PNG and JP2 images and provides the basis for write-support for other TIFF-like RAW formats.
The library's API was streamlined and internal symbols removed from the ABI. The benefits of this change are manifold. In particular, the reduced API is easier to work with and will ultimately be more stable.
Under the hood, the TIFF parser code was consolidated: JPEG images now also use the new TIFF parser to read and write Exif metadata and the old obsolete code was removed.
See the ChangeLog for a complete list of changes and links to even more details.
Please use this pre-release to test with backups of your images and to adapt applications to the modified interface, and raise issues in the forum. This feedback is key to finalizing release 0.18.
19-Jun-2008 Exiv2 0.17.1 released
This is a bugfix release for some important issues, some of which were introduced with the previous release. See the ChangeLog for details.
06-Jun-2008 Exiv2 0.17 released
This release considerably extends the functionality for dealing with XMP. It includes conversion of Exif and IPTC to/from XMP, XMP sidecar files and XMP pretty printing functionality. It also adds support for JPEG 2000 (JP2) and Photoshop (PSD) images, among other improvements and fixes.
06-Mar-2008 API documentation
The complete Exiv2 API documentation is now available online. Thanks to Dimitri van Heesch for doxygen, the great source code documentation generator tool!
10-Jan-2008 Exiv2 0.16 released
Here is the final 0.16 release with XMP support. It took longer than it should have and thus contains quite a list of bug fixes and enhancements.
09-Nov-2007 Exiv2 0.16-pre1
This is a pre-release of the upcoming Exiv2 0.16 with XMP support. Adding XMP metadata to an image is now just as easy as adding Exif or IPTC tags. In addition there is new support for Olympus ORF images and Pentax makernotes. Please try Exiv2 0.16-pre1 and report issues you may have with it to the Exiv2 forum.
24-Sep-2007 XMP testing
The XMP implementation is now in the trunk in SVN and it is reasonably complete and ready for testing. Please try it out and let us know your comments. See this announcement for more details.
31-Aug-2007 XMP support
We're working on adding XMP support to the library, which should become the main feature of the next release. Contributions are welcome, in particular we need input from potential users about API preferences and XMP test data. You are invited to join this discussion in the forum and contribute your viewpoints.
10-Jul-2007 Exiv2 0.15 released
This maintenance release fixes a number of bugs, adds support for Minolta G500 RAW files and has minor tag and some larger translation updates. See the changelog for a concise listing of patches in this release.
19-Mar-2007 Exiv2 0.14 released
Exiv2 now uses libtool's -version-info library versioning system, which will allow future releases to indicate their compatibility with previous releases. This release also fixes a few bugs and adds minor features and tweaks to the build environment. See the changelog for details.
03-Mar-2007 Exiv2 0.13 released
This release features the Native Language Support framework and partial translations for Finnish, French, German, Polish, Russian and Spanish. It adds read-support for Fujifilm RAF images and a number of other features and fixes, listed in the changelog.
06-Dec-2006 Internationalisation
A framework for Native Language Support (using GNU gettext) has been added to the Exiv2 library in the SVN repository. This will be the main new feature of the next release.
Messages from Exiv2 like metadata tag titles, content, descriptions are ready to be translated now. If you are interested to contribute to the project, take a look at the Exiv2 repository. You can start a new translation using the Exiv2.pot file or update an existing PO file. Please contact me to coordinate; Thanks in advance!
27-Nov-2006 Exiv2 0.12 released
This is a bugfix release with just a few new features thrown in. The exiv2 tool can now use the original filename when renaming images and the library has pretty-print functions for Exif GPS tags. See the changelog for more.
16-Sep-2006 Exiv2 0.11 released
This release adds PNG and Sony ARW file format support, both read-only. Canon makernote tags were updated and a few additional Canon composite tags are now recognized. Reading TIFF and related files is about six times faster now compared to the previous version. This release finally works with Visual Studio C++ 2005 (MSVC 8) and fixes various bugs. See the changelog for details.
21-Aug-2006 Duallicensing
Exiv2 is now also available with a commercial license, i.e., for a fee, which makes it suitable for use in closed-source projects. Contact me for details. See this discussion in the forum for more information on the implications of this change.
03-Jun-2006 Exiv2 0.10 released
Exiv2 can now read TIFF images and a number of TIFF-based RAW image formats, including Nikon NEF, Canon CR2, Pentax PEF, Sony SR2, Adobe DNG and Minolta MRW formats. Besides displaying the Exif metadata, you can easily copy it from TIFF or RAW files to JPEG files (with the insert action).
This release also adds Minolta makernote support among other changes.
08-Mar-2006 Announcing exiv2.org
The new address not only looks nice, it is also hosted on an account with sufficient bandwidth to support the steadily increasing number of downloads.
If you have a bookmark or page that links to the old Exiv2 homepage, please change it to the respective new page on www.exiv2.org/.
Thanks to Brad for hosting and sponsoring the site.
04-Feb-2006 Exiv2 0.9.1 released
Exiv2 wrote an invalid Exif.Photo.UserComment tag when it was added to an image which didn't have this tag before. This bug is fixed in this release. It was introduced in release 0.8.
Added a method to class Image to check which types of metadata are supported.
See the changelog and this bug report for details.
26-Jan-2006 Exiv2 0.9 released
Completed Canon CRW support, tags can now also be written to Canon CRW images. See the documentation for the list of Exif tags that can be accessed in CRW files.
Added new options to the utility to deal with image file timestamps and to make the ISO setting of Nikon cameras accessible to applications that don't know Nikon makernotes by copying it from the makernote to the regular Exif ISO tag.
The changelog has the complete list.
19-Nov-2005 Exiv2 0.8 released
The Canon RAW support is currently read-only. Canon THM is also supported, since that is the same as JPEG. Note that THM files contain all the Exif stuff, CRW have only a few tags. Other improvements are mostly bugfixes to make Exiv2 handle various (more or less) exceptional situations more gracefully.
For application developers, there is a new precompiler define to suppress all output from the library and a small script, exiv2-config, to help with the compilation of your applications.
As always, check out the changelog for details.
09-Oct-2005 Vizrea agreement
I've recently entered into an agreement with Vizrea, under which the company can use most of the Exiv2 library (except for the Nikon lens table and related code) in their proprietary products under terms which are different from those of the GPL. In return Vizrea will assign the copyright of their changes to me and contribute them back to the free version.
Therefore, if this deal is successful, the free version of Exiv2 will benefit from the code contributed under the agreement. Since Brad, who wrote major portions of the existing library is with Vizrea, this will hopefully allow him to continue to spend time adding good stuff to Exiv2.
15-Jun-2005 Exiv2 0.7 released
The inside-out design change made class Exiv2::Image the top-level class of the library. This is the basis for support of other file formats (however, Exiv2 still only supports Jpeg for now). As a result, the C++ interface changed fundamentally in the way how metadata is accessed. Existing programs will need to be updated (see the examples). Thanks to the new I/O abstraction layer, it is now possible to access images in memory directly.
Additional makernotes from Olympus, Panasonic and Sony cameras are recognized and the Canon and Nikon makernotes have been updated.
Exif tags now have a default type, it works like the existing Iptc default type.
See the changelog for details.
06-Mar-2005 Exiv2 0.6.2 released
Utility: New -M option to specify modify commands directly on the command line, new -l option for a directory to/from which to extract/import files.
Bugfixes: Support for non-standard IFDs (as created by e.g., GraphicConverter for Mac), proper non-intrusive writing for the utility's modify command.
Build environment: Libtool support for correct (shared) library generation on various platforms, improved installation routine.
The changelog has the details.
17-Jan-2005 Exiv2 0.6.1 released
Bugfix: The Exif thumbnail is no more lost when Exif data is modified in an "intrusive" manner, e.g., by adding new tags. This was a bug introduced with release 0.6.
Feature: The new modify option adds metadata write support to the Exiv2 utility.
As usual, the changelog has more details.
09-Jan-2005 Support forum added
There have been more queries recently which may be of interest for other users. Going forward, please direct your questions to the new forum.
12-Dec-2004 Exiv2 0.6 released
This is a maintenance release containing numerous smaller improvements and fixes. The Exiv2 utility now also deletes, extracts, and re-inserts IPTC data and Jpeg comments from/into Jpeg files. The library now supports creation of all Exif metadata from scratch, including makernote tags and thumbnails. In addition, Exif as well as IPTC metadata with unknown tag names can be added and manipulated just like known tags. See the changelog for more details.
30-Oct-2004 Source online
Brad Schick, author of Robot Battle, now hosts the Exiv2 source code repository. He converted it from CVS to Subversion and provides a web interface, public bug tracking system and a nifty live list of the 50 last commits. Thanks! Check out the development section on the download page.
13-Sep-2004 Exiv2 0.5 released
This release adds support for IPTC metadata. IPTC datasets can now be manipulated (read and written) similar to Exif metadata. In connection with the IPTC feature, the existing Metadatum Key and Value concept was enhanced and the Jpeg file access code was revamped. The exiv2 utility has a new print option to show the IPTC metadata of a Jpeg image. Also, this release adds a configure script and MSVC project files (but no libtool support yet). See the changelog for details.
13-Sep-2004 Exif keys changed
Starting with release 0.5 the keys used to identify Exif tags are of the form 'Exif.groupName.tagName' to be consistent with the new IPTC keys. Existing programs need to be updated accordingly. Since the old keys are plain C++ strings, the compiler cannot detect the change. However, it will tell you to use the new classes Key and ExifKey in the critical regions of the code.
03-Jul-2004 Exiv2 0.4 released
This release adds support for three different Nikon makernote formats to the library. The generalised IfdMakerNote interface can accomodate more makernote oddities and allows for programmatic detection of the makernote format. The library now knows how to deal with broken IFDs. The Exiv2 utility uses a more intuitive and less rigid command line parsing logic. See the changelog for details.
03-Jul-2004 Nikon tags added
Tags for three different Nikon makernote formats are now available here.