File Info window in Photoshop

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
#1

Is there a way I can access the data in the Description field in the File Info window in Photoshop without actually using Photoshop?
Maybe a shell script or something?

Thanks!

#2

Hi,

some of the parameters are saved in the metadata and can be retrieved with Spotlight (shell command mdls)

#3

The problem with IPTC is not all apps write the info in the same place within the file.

Have a look at Man page for sips . which you can use to extract the Description from a file, but as I said above you may not get the Caption, or not all of it.

I wrote an app to help me at work in part look at the Caption/Description info. I used Exiftool within it, which I found to be more consistent.

The site has plenty of Examples to get you started.

wow… when I wrote my app i was using v7.25, it now on v7.74

A lot of changes, updates, fixes, …

#4

Thanks guys, this was perfect! sips works great but has problems handling special characters while mdls handles them fine.
I’m gonna play with them and decide.

For anyone interested in these solutions, here is some simple samples:

Using SIPS:


set theInfo to (do shell script "sips tornado.jpg -g description")
display dialog theInfo

Using MDLS


set theInfo to (do shell script "mdls -name kMDItemDescription tornado.jpg")
display dialog theInfo

Thanks again for the great help!
Enjoy!