Exif / Iptc information

Hey Jack,

It does not read and display EXIF information in its raw format – rather, it imports the title/headline, description, keywords and categories. I’ve received requests to add full EXIF data reading to the engine which is on the list, but for now those are the only ones.

A way to test this is to use Photoshop or some other editor to add a title, description and keywords to an image then upload it. Symbiostock should successfully import those fields as the product’s fields.

I was thinking about showing the file size and pixel dimensions under the Extra Information tab, but that’s not so important now that I noticed them after choosing a license.

What I do think is important to show under the Extra Information tab are IPTC fields like Location, City, Region and Country. Also an option to search images for those fields. A filtered search with checkboxes is not necessary, but when I enter Dogs (tag/keyword) en Amsterdam (City) it should return pictures with that combination. Ofcourse I could enter Amsterdam as a Tag, but that is not the proper official way to enter IPTC information to images, and I want to follow those rules because my client also use them to search for images. I’m using Aftershot Pro by the way to manage all my images.

I think what we will end up doing is reading a few more EXIF fields such as Author, Location etc and add them to the search engine and also perhaps add that information under the technical tab. At this point, due to our workload I can’t give you an eta on this, however if it is something you want urgently you are free to use our support system to make a formal request.

https://www.symbiostock.org/support/

Thanks, that sounds great.

I just wanted to add ‘DateTimeOriginal’ to those fields ;). I just realized that this is important when showing news or event photos. Viewers/editors need to know at which date the picture was taken.

Hi Jack,

This feature has already been included in Symbiostock – just use the ‘read extra exif data’ function under Symbiostock > Settings and you can extract whatever you want from images for use in your website.

This is not working for me. Could it be that the GD library does not support this? My provider only has GD installed, not Imagick.

No, this function just requires the shell_exec command to function. However, you need to ensure that you re-read the image once you enable that so that Symbiostock can re-parse the extra fields once you add them to the settings.

So try re-saving the file to see if it then shows up. If you have further issues, it would be better to go to the Symbiostock forums and post more detailed information on what you’ve done.

I checked with my provider and at this point they don’t want to install shell_exec command on their shared hosting servers because of the security risk. Is there no saver method than shell_exec? Otherwise I would have to switch provider if I want to start using Symbiostock.

There are other functions, but chances are they have banned all of them as shell_exec isn’t any more dangerous than any other. In this case, you may have to switch providers. Additionally, if you ever decide to start adding videos to Symbiostock, you will need shell_exec as well.

Ok, and thanks for explaining.

I have been busy, and now that I finally wanted to start with Symbiostock I decided to go and look for another provider who offers shell_exec. At this moment that would be shared hosting. I’m surprised to see that almost all well known hosting provider here in the Netherlands that I would consider moving to, have shell_exec turned off for there shared hosting plans. They all say it is too dangerous because there is only one small and badly written plugin needed to get access to shell_exec and hack your site. Is there really no other option instead of shell_exec to get exif and iptc data from within images? An alternative that can be used if shell_exec isn’t found on the server? ??

PHP is a scripting language and because Symbiostock bridges that gap to do all sorts of media editing at a professional level that compares to desktop software, external problems must be used. There is no native option within PHP to read metadata or write it reliably.

However, the good news is that you are not alone in your hosting woes – we have therefore been arduously preparing a Symbiostock specific hosting solution for users which will provide an ideal environment for all Symbiostock functionalities, with all third party linux software pre-installed.

So if you want to, consider that as your option. We should be launching soon enough.

Ok, I will keep an eye on updates and news through the Symbiostock site.