View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0001997GeoSetterImage Datapublic2023-02-24 15:56
Reporterrturnock Assigned ToFriedemann  
PrioritynormalSeverityfeatureReproducibilityalways
Status assignedResolutionopen 
Product Version3.5 
Target VersionFixed in Version 
Summary0001997: Unable to access .HEIC files (HEIF)
DescriptionHEIC files do not appear and cannot be selected since they are a relatively new format. Consequently Geosetter cannot be used with these files.
Steps To ReproduceOpen a folder that includes both .JPG and .HEIC files and even without a filter applied only the .JPGs appear.
Additional InformationPerhaps a work around might be possible. If an HEIC file is renamed to be a JPG, edited in Geosetter, and named back can changes be made without affecting the image?
TagsNo tags attached.

Relationships

has duplicate 0001998 closedheiko Unable to access .HEIC files (HEIF) 

Activities

Malcolm_Ferguson

2018-12-08 00:13

reporter   ~0003604

Geosetter relies on ExifTool to read and modify metadata. The current version is 11.21, and it only has the ability to read the metadata from HEIC files, and no way to write it. Keep an eye here though for updates: https://sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/#supported

There are various free ways to convert these to JPEG without sharing your photos, although invariably this requires an iPhone or Mac. Mac has a command line utility called ‘sips’ that will preserve the metadata during conversion to JPEG. The Image Capture app has a checkbox bottom-left to keep originals or convert them during copy from my iPhone. And the iPhone itself has an option in the settings to automaticallly convert pictures to a compatible format if you’re on Windows. Yes, all of this loses the extra colour space data, loses the bitrate savings and loses some detail, but maybe this isn’t important given that images came from a mobile phone camera (not exactly high quality in the first place)

Malcolm_Ferguson

2019-04-14 05:42

reporter   ~0003704

ExifTool now supports writing to HEIC files.

Lightroom creates XMP files when saving metadata for HEIC files (i.e. treats them as a read-only RAW).

I have a Mac based workflow with GeoSetter running in a virtual machine. I get GeoSetter to work with my HEICs as follows:
1) Save metadata from Lightroom
2) Use the 'sips' command that comes with macOS to create JPEG sidecars
3) Make metadata settings in GeoSetter, which updates the sidecar
4) Read the metadata back in to Lightroom
5) Delete the JPEGs.

There is another bug in GeoSetter that's a bit annoying: with this setup all files appear duplicated if I show files recursively, so I have to go folder to folder. Maybe it gets confused by JPEGs with XMP sidecars?

This is the script I use to batch convert all the HEICs to JPEGs:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import os
import fnmatch
import subprocess
from distutils import file_util

if len(sys.argv) != 2:
    print("Specify root directory to parse from")
    sys.exit(1)

root_dir = sys.argv[1]

if False == os.path.isdir(sys.argv[1]):
    print("Directory '" + root_dir + "' doesn't exist")
    sys.exit(1)

print("Scanning '" + root_dir + "' ... ")

pattern = '*.HEIC'
for root, dirs, filenames in os.walk(root_dir):
    for f in fnmatch.filter(filenames, pattern):
        fullpath_RAW = os.path.join(root, f)
        fullpath_JPG = os.path.join(root, os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(fullpath_RAW))[0] + ".jpeg")

        print("Processing " + f + "...")
        print("\tRAW: " + fullpath_RAW)
        print("\tJPG: " + fullpath_JPG)
        subprocess.call(["sips", "--setProperty", "format", "jpeg", "--setProperty", "formatOptions", "30", fullpath_RAW, "--out", fullpath_JPG])

        print("\n")

And when I'm finished, I replace "<<ROOT_FOLDER>>" in this command:
find <<ROOT_FOLDER>> -name "*.jpeg" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm "{}"

Malcolm_Ferguson

2023-02-24 15:56

reporter   ~0004637

This workaround is not longer reliable for me because Lightroom is now reading and writing metadata directly. I've tried turning on XMP writing from Geosetter for JPEGs, but Lightroom doesn't seem to pick all of this up when I'm dealing with a HEIC with JPEG and XMP sidecars.

As Exiftool has also had HEIC writing support for some time now, so it would be great if Geosetter added HEIC as one of its known and internally supported file formats.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2018-11-03 18:10 rturnock New Issue
2018-11-03 21:45 heiko Relationship added has duplicate 0001998
2018-12-08 00:13 Malcolm_Ferguson Note Added: 0003604
2019-04-14 05:42 Malcolm_Ferguson Note Added: 0003704
2022-12-22 02:05 Friedemann Status new => assigned
2022-12-22 02:05 Friedemann Assigned To => Friedemann
2023-02-24 15:56 Malcolm_Ferguson Note Added: 0004637