Manage EXIF Data of JPEG, PNG, TIFF & WebP Images in C#

In the previous post, we discussed how to deal with EXIF data of images in Java. Here, today we will look into achieving the same but in C#. If you haven’t visited the last post, but you want to extract, update, add or remove EXIF data of your images programmatically in C#, then this article will guide you through this. We will cover the following ways to manipulate with EXIF data in C#:

Metadata Management C# Library

GroupDocs.Metadata for .NET is metadata management .NET API. It has a long list of features for a wide variety of supported file formats. It has the ability to not only extract metadata from images but also it can add, edit, update, and remove metadata from the images and documents with various options.

In this article, we will use this API, so please make sure to download its binaries or install the API from NuGet.

Read EXIF Data from Images in C#

You can easily read the EXIF data properties by following the mentioned steps. Starting with the extraction of EXIF data from this picture, 93m tall Statue of Liberty. Here we will use a JPG file as an example image, however, we can use any file whether its a PNG, WebP, BMP, GIF, TIFF, or any other from the supported file formats mentioned at the end of this article.

Load the image source file containing EXIF data information using the Metadata class constructor.
Get its root package by calling GetRootPackage() method.
From the root package, get its ExifPackage from its ExifPackage property.
Once you have the EXIF package, you can now access the EXIF properties of the image; like Make, Model, Width, Length, DateTime, Copyright, Software, etc as shown below in C# code example.

// Extract EXIF Data Package Information from image in C#
using (Metadata metadata = new Metadata("statue-of-liberty.jpg"))
{
    IExif root = metadata.GetRootPackage() as IExif;
    if (root != null && root.ExifPackage != null)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.Make);
        Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.Model);
        Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.ImageWidth);
        Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.ImageLength);
        Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.DateTime);
     }
}

The above code will display the following available EXIF information of the provided JPG image.

Make : NIKON CORPORATION
Model : NIKON D7200 
Width : 640
Length : 384
DateTime : 2018:07:06 19:31:05

Reading EXIF IFD & GPS Information of Image

EXIF data also include the Exif IFD (Image File Directory) and GPS (Global Positioning System) Information. Now for IFD and GPS package information, you just have to access the respective properties of EXIF package i.e. ExifIfdPackage or GpsPackage. From these packages, you can extract much more information than mentioned below:

Device serial number
Camera Owner name
CFA Pattern
Speed
Image Direction
Date Stamp
Area Information
Altitude
Latitude
Longitude
etc.

Below mentioned code can be added in your above method to display EXIF data along with IFD & GPS information.

// Display EXIF IFD Package Properties like Serial Number and Camera Owner.
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.BodySerialNumber);
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.CameraOwnerName);
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.UserComment);
// Display EXIF GPS Information like Latitude, Longitude, etc.
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.GpsPackage.Altitude);
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.GpsPackage.LatitudeRef);
Console.WriteLine(root.ExifPackage.GpsPackage.LongitudeRef);

Read All EXIF Tags of Images in C#

You can extract all the EXIF properties of any image, you may do it in an almost similar fashion as above:

Load the image with Metadata constructor.
Get the root package by calling the method GetRootPackage().
Get the EXIF package from the ExifPackage property of the root package.
Iterate the EXIF package and get desired name-value pairs.
Similarly, get the IFD & GPS packages to displays its keys and values.

// Extract all EXIF Metadata from the image
using (Metadata metadata = new Metadata("statue-of-liberty.jpg"))
{
    IExif root = metadata.GetRootPackage() as IExif;
    if (root != null && root.ExifPackage != null)
    {
        const string pattern = "{0} = {1}";
        // Read all EXIF Package Tags and values.
        foreach (TiffTag tag in root.ExifPackage.ToList()) {
            Console.WriteLine(pattern, tag.Name, tag.Value);
        }
        // Read all EXIF IFD Package Tags and values.
        foreach (TiffTag tag in root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.ToList()) {
            Console.WriteLine(pattern, tag.Name, tag.Value);
        }
         // Read all EXIF GPS Package Tags and values.
        foreach (TiffTag tag in root.ExifPackage.GpsPackage.ToList()) {
            Console.WriteLine(pattern, tag.Name, tag.Value);
        }
    }
}

Update EXIF Properties in C#

You can change the existing EXIF data of any image easily. Following are the steps you may follow:

Update EXIF Package

Get the root package by calling the method GetRootPackage().
Set the ExifPackage properties by assigning the new values to corresponding properties like assign new value to:
- root.ExifPackage.Copyright – to set updated copyrights information.
Similarly, you can set the values for the artist, make, model, software, image width & height, DateTime, etc.

Update EXIF IFD Package

Similar to the setting properties of the EXIF package, we can update the properties of EXIF IFD and GPS packages.

Assign value to root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.CameraOwnerName to set camera owner.

You may visit the ExifIfdPackage or ExifGpsPackage classes to get an idea about how much you can customize for your images.

// Update or change new values in EXIF Data (EXIF Package & EXIF IFD Package).
using (Metadata metadata = new Metadata("statue-of-liberty.jpg"))
{
    IExif root = metadata.GetRootPackage() as IExif;
    if (root != null)
    {
        // Set the EXIF package if it is missing
        if (root.ExifPackage == null) {
            root.ExifPackage = new ExifPackage();
        }
       // Setting the desired values in EXIF Package and EXIF IFD Package.
        root.ExifPackage.Copyright = "Copyright (C) 2011-2020 GroupDocs. All Rights Reserved.";
        root.ExifPackage.ImageDescription = "Statue of Liberty for EXIF Data";
        root.ExifPackage.Software = "GroupDocs.Metadata for .NET"; 
        root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.BodySerialNumber = "GD-2020";
        root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.CameraOwnerName = "GroupDocs";
        root.ExifPackage.ExifIfdPackage.UserComment = "Nice image captured in 2018";
        metadata.Save("statue-of-liberty-updated.jpg");
    }
}

Remove EXIF Metadata from Images in C#

If you want to remove EXIF package from any file, just set its ExifPackage property to null.

// Removing the EXIF data from an image.
using (Metadata metadata = new Metadata("statue-of-liberty.jpg"))
{
    IExif root = metadata.GetRootPackage() as IExif;
    if (root != null)
    {
        root.ExifPackage = null;
        metadata.Save("statue-of-liberty-no-exif.jpg");
    }
}

Supported Images & Other Formats

These are the currently supported file formats by GroupDocs.Metadata for EXIF data information of images, audios, and videos. You may always visit the documentation for the updated information.

Document Type	File Formats
Images	BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, JPE, JP2, PNG, DJVU, DWG, DXF, WebP, TIFF, PSD, EMF, WMF
Audio & Video	MP3, WAV, AVI, MOV / QT, FLV, ASF, DICOM

See more about GroupDocs.Metadata

Documentation (.NET | Java)
Source code examples
API Reference
GroupDocs.Metadata – The Metadata Management Solution

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Manage EXIF Data of Images in Java

Manage EXIF Data of JPEG, PNG, TIFF & WebP Images in C# .NET