python - Exif reading library

7
votes

Is there an exif library out there for Python 3.x? It seems every exif library I run into is for Python 2.x only. I don't need anything too fancy. Just reading the values is enough.

2
pythonimagepython-3.xexif
It's kind of cheating, but we call Phil Harvey's exiftool from Python using subprocess with the -json -fast -@ argfile options. It's simple and complete, and it's fast when you need process thousands of images in batches (as we do). – Ben Hoyt

2 Answers

14
votes

Option 1. Use pyexiv2. See: pyexiv2 Bug #824440: Python 3 support You need boost-python for py3k and also to manually apply the patch posted at the end of the bug above, but aside from that it works. Probably easiest to get up and running under latest Ubuntu.

Option 2. Use PIL Downside: this branch/fork doesn't seem to be actively developed.

from PIL import Image
from PIL.ExifTags import TAGS

image = Image.open("test.jpg")
exif = image._getexif()
# decode exif using TAGS

Option 3. Use PythonMagick

from PythonMagick import Image

img = Image("image.jpg")
print img.attribute("EXIF:Orientation")

See also: Exif manipulation library for python

5
votes

For reference, the pyexiv2 homepage now has a deprecation warning which points to Gexiv2, a GObject-introspection based wrapper around libexiv2 (the same library pyexiv2 wraps) specifically for the purpose of Python 3.x support.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, installation of Gexiv2 is still painful and thus far I've been unable to get it working on Ubuntu Precise (looks like the libs are out of date - probably serves me right for sticking around on an LTS...), so PIL is still the best option for reading EXIF tags in Python 3.