EXCHANGEABLE IMAGE FILE FORMAT Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is a standard that specifies the formats for

images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other systems handling image and sound files recorded by digital cameras. The specification uses the following existing file formats with the addition of specific metadata tags: JPEG DCT for compressed image files, TIFF Rev. 6.0 (RGB or YCbCr) for uncompressed image files, and RIFF WAV for audio files (Linear PCM or ITU-T G.711 -Law PCM for uncompressed audio data, and IMA-ADPCM for compressed audio data). It is not supported in JPEG 2000, PNG, or GIF.

Technical
The Exif tag structure is borrowed from TIFF files. On several image specific properties, there is a large overlap between the tags defined in the TIFF, Exif, TIFF/EP, and DCF standards. For descriptive metadata, there is an overlap between Exif and IPTC Information Interchange Model info, which also can be embedded in a JPEG file. When Exif is employed for JPEG files, the Exif data are stored in one of JPEG's defined utility Application Segments, the APP1 (segment marker 0xFFE1), which in effect holds an entire TIFF file within. When Exif is employed in TIFF files (also when used as "an embedded TIFF file" mentioned earlier), the TIFF Private Tag 0x8769 defines a sub-Image File Directory (IFD) that holds the Exif specified TIFF Tags. In addition, Exif also defines a Global Positioning System sub-IFD using the TIFF Private Tag 0x8825, holding location information, and an "Interoperability IFD" specified within the Exif sub-IFD, using the Exif tag 0xA005. Formats specified in Exif standard are defined as folder structures that are based on Exif-JPEG and recording formats for memory. When these formats are used as Exif/DCF files together with the DCF specification (for better interoperability among devices of different types), their scope shall cover devices, recording media, and application software that handle them.

Geolocation
The Exif format has standard tags for location information. Currently, a few cameras and a growing number of mobile phones have a built-in GPS receiver that stores the location information in the Exif header when the picture is taken. Some other cameras have a separate GPS receiver that fits into the flash connector or hot shoe. Recorded GPS data can also be added to any digital photograph on a computer, either by correlating the time stamps of the photographs with a GPS record from a hand-held GPS receiver or manually using a map or mapping software. The process of adding geographic information to a photograph is known as geocoding. Photo sharing communities like Panoramio, locr or Flickr equally allow their users to upload geocoded pictures or to add geolocation information online. Most of Nokia's Nseries mobile phones (such as the N95) are equipped with a GPS receiver, and using Location Tagger,a piece of software from Nokia Beta Labs. All captured images are tagged

with corresponding GPS coordinates when a GPS signal is available. The second generation of iPhone (known as the iPhone 3G) by Apple Inc. is also equipped with a GPS receiver, and uses the receiver to geotag photographs taken with the device. Subsequent generations (the iPhone 3GS, 4 & 4S) also support this feature. The first generation iPhone is not equipped with GPS, and uses a service provided by Skyhook to triangulate and approximate the location at which the picture was taken using nearby cellular phone towers and WiFi hot-spot signal strength data. The Skyhook service provides approximate GPS location information which is then added to the Exif data associated with the picture. Also mobile phones with the Android operating system as well as BlackBerry smartphones with a camera and builtin GPS or Bluetooth GPS addons can geotag images with the included camera application.

Program support
Exif data are embedded within the image file itself. While many recent image manipulation programs recognize and preserve Exif data when writing to a modified image, this is not the case for most older programs. Many image gallery programs also recognise Exif data and optionally display it alongside the images. Software libraries, such as libexif for C and Exiv2 for C++, Metadata Extractor for Java, or Image::ExifTool for Perl, parse Exif data from files and read/write Exif tag values.

Problems
Apart from not being a maintained standard, the Exif format has a number of drawbacks, mostly relating to its use of legacy file structures.

The derivation of Exif from the TIFF file structure using offset pointers in the files means that data can be spread anywhere within a file, which means that software is likely to corrupt any pointers or corresponding data that it doesn't decode/encode. For this reason most image editors damage or remove the Exif metadata to some extent upon saving. The standard defines a MakerNote tag, which allows camera manufacturers to place any custom format metadata in the file. This is used increasingly by camera manufacturers to store myriad camera settings not listed in the Exif standard, such as shooting modes, postprocessing settings, serial number, focusing modes, etc. As this tag format is proprietary and manufacturer-specific, it can be prohibitively difficult to retrieve this information from an image (or properly preserve it when rewriting an image). Some manufacturers encrypt portions of the information; for example, Nikon encrypts the detailed lens data in their newer MakerNote data versions. The standard only allows TIFF or JPEG files there is no provision for a "raw" file type which would be a direct data dump from the sensor device. This has caused camera manufacturers to invent many proprietary, incompatible "raw" file formats. To solve this problem, Adobe developed the DNG format (a TIFF-based raw file format), in hopes that manufacturers would standardize on a single, raw file format.

The Exif standard specifically states that color depth is always 24 bits. However, many modern cameras, such as the Nikon D70 which captures 36 bits of color per pixel, can capture significantly more. Since Exif/DCF files cannot represent this color depth, many manufacturers have developed proprietary, non-compatible Raw image formats. Some digital cameras can also capture video. The Exif standard has no provision for video files. Exif is very often used in images created by scanners, but the standard makes no provisions for any scanner-specific information. Photo manipulation software sometimes fails to update the embedded thumbnail after an editing operation, possibly causing the user to inadvertently publish compromising information. Exif metadata are restricted in size to 64 kB in JPEG images because according to the specification this information must be contained within a single JPEG APP1 segment. Although the FlashPix extensions allow information to span multiple JPEG APP2 segments, these extensions are not commonly used. This has prompted some camera manufacturers to develop non-standard techniques for storing the large preview images used by some digital cameras for LCD review. These non-standard extensions are commonly lost if a user re-saves the image using image editor software, possibly rendering the image incompatible with the original camera that created it. There is no way to record time-zone information along with the time, thus rendering the stored time ambiguous. There is no field to record readouts of a camera's accelerometers or inertial navigation system. Such data could help to establish the relationship between the image sensors XYZ coordinate system and the gravity vector (i.e., which way is down in this image). It could also establish relative camera positions or orientations in a sequence of photos. Since the Exif tag contains information about the photo, it can pose a privacy issue. For example, a photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera can reveal the exact location it was taken, which is undesirable in some situations. By removing the Exif tag with software such as ExifTool before publishing, the photographer can avoid possible problems.

Viewing and editing Exif data

In Windows XP, a subset of the Exif information may be viewed by right clicking on an image file and clicking properties; from the properties dialog click the Summary tab and then the Advanced button. However, using this tab to edit Exif information may damage certain Exif headers. As of the release of Service Pack 3, Windows XP still shows evidence of corrupting Exif tags when modifying JPG file properties via the file properties window.

On Mac OS X 10.4 and above, basic Exif information may be viewed in the Finder by doing Get Info on a file and expanding the More Info section. On Unix systems using the GNOME desktop environment, a subset of Exif data can be seen by right clicking the file in the Nautilus file manager and selecting properties. In KDE, it can be seen by right clicking in the Dolphin file manager, selecting "Properties" and then "Information". Many Unix image viewers give the full set of Exif data. In addition, there are many software tools available which allow both viewing and editing of Exif data. Sharing photographs with Exif information may present privacy problems such as revealing a location. Such information may be edited out before sharing the file. Alternatively, there are metadata removal tools that will remove Exif information.

Example

Konqueror screenshot showing Exif data