Date Picture Taken of the photo is empty

[H Paul]

Hi & Thanks,

Basically, I have a camera photo. I put a label on it and save it.
After I saved, the attribute Date Picture Taken of the photo is empty when I check the photo with window explorer.

What is the issue here?

public class Sticker {
	private final static Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(Sticker.class);	
	private static Font font;
	private static Color fontColor;
	private static Color stickerBGColor;
	private static String fontName;
	private static int fontStyle;
	private static int fontSize;
	private static int fontSize_64;
	
	static {
		fontColor = Color.BLACK;
		stickerBGColor=Color.WHITE;
		fontName = "Arial";
		fontStyle = Font.PLAIN;
		fontSize_64 = 64;
		fontSize=fontSize_64;
		font = new Font(fontName, fontStyle, fontSize);
	}

	private Sticker() {}
	
	private static BufferedImage loadImage(String absolutePath) throws IOException {
		return ImageIO.read(new File(absolutePath));
	}
	
	public static void stickALabel(Item item) throws IOException {
		stickALabel(item.getAbsolutePathFilename(), item.getLabel());
	}
	
	public static void stickALabel(String filename, String text) throws IOException {
		BufferedImage image=loadImage(filename);
		Graphics graphic = image.createGraphics();
		graphic.setFont(font);
		graphic.setColor(fontColor);
		FontMetrics fontMetrics = graphic.getFontMetrics();
		int textWidth = fontMetrics.stringWidth(text); 
		if (logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
			logger.debug(image.getHeight() + " "+ image.getWidth() + " " +textWidth );
		}
	
		graphic.setColor(stickerBGColor);
		int xCoordinate=image.getWidth() - (textWidth+10);
		int yCoordinate=image.getHeight()-(fontSize+10);
		int stickerWidth=textWidth+10;
		int stickerHeight=fontSize+20;
		graphic.fillRect(xCoordinate, yCoordinate, stickerWidth, stickerHeight);
		
		graphic.setColor(fontColor);
		xCoordinate=image.getWidth() - (textWidth+5);
		yCoordinate=image.getHeight()-15;
		graphic.drawString(text, xCoordinate, yCoordinate);
		graphic.dispose();
		if (logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
			logger.debug(FilenameUtils.getExtension(filename) + " " + filename );
		}
		saveImage(image, FilenameUtils.getExtension(filename), new File(filename));
	}

	private static boolean saveImage(RenderedImage image,
            String formatName,
            File output) throws IOException {

		return ImageIO.write(image, formatName, output);
	}	
}

[Tony Docherty]

The date information is held in the meta data of the file. I'm not sure how this can be set but I know there are free Java libraries for reading the data such as http://code.google.com/p/metadata-extractor/. Sorry I can't be of more help other than suggesting you google for details on how to set the meta data.

[H Paul]

Thanks Tony,

Download MetadataExtractor and used it. I noticed:

Before saved (using the code posted) Exif information of the camera photo are there.

After saved (using the code posted) Exif information of the camera photo are NOT longer there.

Is there alternative to using javax.imageio.ImageIO?

[Carey Brown]

Not sure if your creating a platform independent application, but if not, there is a great command line tool (free) called exiftool that you can exec(). I've found this tool to be more robust and complete than metadata-extractor. But of course it's not a java library.

[H Paul]

With the java code posted as I need to put a label over the picture, the tag DateTimeOriginal which is Date Taken Picture of the photo jpg file is no longer there.

I try to use exiftool to add that tag (as it's a new tag as the existing one is gone), I could not see what the syntas is.

-To mod the existing tag
exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal+=5:10:2 10:48:0" mypicture.jpg

-To add the new tag DateTimeOriginal, what is the syntax? Could not figure out.

[Tony Docherty]

Read section 5 of the tools FAQ at http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/faq.html

[H Paul]

1. Thanks Tony & Carey,
2. Used & OK. (use java code to put a label and exif to add dateTimeOriginal)

exiftool -exif:dateTimeOriginal="2014:01:01-00:00:00" A.JPG