Tutorial:
How to rotate raw-files with Exiftool

Content:

1. Introduction
2. Read all metadata
3. Read orientation metadata batch file
4. Change orientation metadata batch file

3, Read orientation metadata batch file:

To make it easier to use Exiftool I have made two batch files, one that read the orientation flag of the .cr2 files and one that change the meta flags that belong to orientation in the file without alter any other data. With these batch files you don't have to run Exiftool in the command window direct which can be complicated if you are not used with it.

You maybe have to change the parameters in the batch file to adapt it to your camera or your need of rotation.

Here you find a list of what metadata (Exifdata) it could be in the photo file header:

• https://exiftool.org/ TagNames/ EXIF.html

It was a bit tricky to get this to work, there are not only one flag in the Canon .cr2 files, there are two ! One flag has the name "orientation" and the other has the name "camera orientation". The last one you don't find in the above list, it looks to be camera specific.

This is the batch file that read the two orientation flags in the .cr2 file.

If you run (double click on it) the read-cr2.bat file it will display all .cr2 files orientation data in the directory in the command window like this. The command window opens automatically.

Note:
The information say that the Camera Orientation flag is "Rotate 90 CW", that is portrait orientation, something we want to change to "Horizontal" later.