EXIFcare™ Technology

Taking care of your metadata

Metadata in digital photos has always been something fragile. Ever since the beginning of digital photography camera manufacturers tried to add useful photo information to the image files. However, this data was not recognized by common photo editing programs. In order to view the data included in the files special software had to be used. In most cases only the manufacturer’s own software could read it, and sometimes did not even exist any.
But even worse, because common software tools did not recognize the metadata, they were not able to save it either. As soon as a picture was saved after editing, all the metadata had been gone.

The situation improved after the introduction and broad adoption of the EXIF standard. All professional photo editing programs nowadays read and save EXIF metadata. The EXIF standard has its weak spot, though. Because it was impossible to include each and every tag that manufacturers wanted, the specification left room for so-called Makernote data. Each manufacturer can include their own data block which does not comply to any standard.
With Makernote data, the same problems as before are returning. Editing with imaging applications, even software with official metadata support, will likely destroy the Makernote. Even just editing standard EXIF tags, for example using the file properties dialogue in the Windows Explorer, will leave the file without this manufacturer specific data.

In order to protect your metadata from being altered or erased, Picmeta introduces the EXIFcare™ technology. This technology enables our products to not only read Makernote data from almost any digital camera, but also save it correctly after each operation. This means it is possible to edit EXIF tags, adjust the date/time of picture taken, execute lossless rotations and update embedded thumbnails, while retaining all the other metadata.
If you are in need of using software that is not as metadata-friendly as ours, EXIFcare™ allows you to backup complete metadata headers. This way, you can restore the data after editing your photos in other programs. This also prevents from standard EXIF tags being added or changed as it happens with many applications.

With EXIFcare™ you can trust in the best possible protection of metadata in your photos. The technology is included in our products Picture Information Extractor and PIE Studio and will also be the basis for our future development.

Photoshop PSD file support

Browsing, viewing and printing of .psd files

The latest versions PIE 4.1, PIE Studio 3.1 and PrintStation 2.6 include support for the Adobe Photoshop PSD format. Now, also those who do post processing with Photoshop fully benefit from our tools. PrintStation directly outputs images and portfolios of ongoing Photoshop projects whereas PIE can be a lean alternative to Adobe Bridge.

In addition, we have refined the handling of layout presets in the print applications. Presets are no longer overwritten automatically and it is easier to maintain basic presets for multiple repeating tasks.

PIE 4 Released

Edit tags, auto orientation, embedded thumbnails and more

This is the list of changes in the new edition 4 of the Picture Information Extractor:

  • New: Editor for EXIF strings, single file and batch mode
  • New: General use of the orientation tag makes manual or auto rotation almost obsolete
  • New: Thumbnail list now optionally uses embedded EXIF thumbnails for faster display
  • New: Auto rename now supports many more tags (see „More..“ button)
  • Update of EXIF thumbnails after image transformation
  • Tag editor allows to manually update or remove EXIF thumbnail
  • Added write protection check for remove/restore metadata
  • After transfer, file list is scrolled to show the last file transferred
  • Adjust EXIF date/time now also works if there is no EXIF header; it creates one based on the file modified date
  • More tags available for file list and report generator
  • Use correct camera white balance for RAW display
  • Fixed restore columns in the picture information view
  • Fixed mouse cursor reset in the viewer when changing direction

PIE 3.94, PrintStation 2.26, PIE Studio 2.66

Improvements and fixes

PIE, PIE Studio

  • New option for auto rename using file creation date
  • Transfer now preserves file creation date
  • New options to disable confirmation query and report for auto rename
  • Optimized Tab position in Advanced Information
  • Panasonic mts/m2ts files support for transfer and renaming
  • New option to enable/disable image preview during transfer
  • Transfer file progress bar more exact under Vista
  • Fixed crash when reading Pentax Makernote
  • Fixed bug that could cause crash if transfer was aborted
  • Fixed bug when transferring .wav files assigned to pictures files

PrintStation, PIE Studio

  • New print macro for file creation date
  • If psl-files are located in the same folder as the pictures, pictures will always be found even after moving or renaming the folder
  • Displays path names of broken links to pictures
  • Fixed update of marked pictures in the file browser after opening psl-file

All programs

  • Included Ascending/Descending option in menu View/Arrange By
  • Fixed bug that would cause sort column not restored correctly

Idioma Español

All products now include support for spanish language

We have included spanish language support in all our products. It is available in PIE 3.91, PIE Studio 2.61 and PrintStation 2.22.

Hemos incluido el idioma español en todos los productos que ofrecemos. Ademas es posible comunicar con nosotros en español.

Date/Time Hotfix

Fixed EXIF date/time in PIE 3.9 and PIE Studio 2.6

PIE 3.9 and PIE Studio 2.6 would read the wrong date/time tag after editing with applications that write the modified timestamp into the EXIF header, e.g. Photoshop. That is why it would show the modified date instead of date taken. This has been fixed.

Perfect RAW Companion

Reading of EXIF information in RAW files and improved Makernote support

The latest PIE 3.9 and PIE Studio 2.6 are the perfect companions for RAW files. After incorporating browser and viewer support we have now added the ability to read EXIF information for almost any RAW file format.

Besides, support for Makernotes is improved and includes cameras from: Canon, Fujifilm, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Sigma, Panasonic, Pentax, Sony

The new Report Generator feature allows to export picture information to standard text files with customizable columns. These report files can easily be imported into spread sheets or other applications.

New Releases Available

Lightning fast file browser, realtime thumbnail resizing, RAW support

We have released PIE 3.8, PIE Studio 2.5 and PrintStation 2.2. All applications come with a much improved file browser with new thumbnail features such as realtime resizing. Many more file formats are supported, including DICOM for medical imaging. PIE and PIE Studio now support RAW files from almost any digital camera.

See details of changes in the history logs, accessible from the download page.

As always, this update is free for registered users.