C#: Read Image Metadata Using BitmapMetadata Class

Introduction

In this post, I will demonstrate how to read image metadata using BitmapMetadata class in C#.
Before staring explanation, we should notice there are two namespaces that can handle image in C#.

• System.Drawing namespace: I tested in this post
• System.Windows.Media.Imaging

In this post, we will use classes under System.Windows.Media.Imaging.

Code for Reading Image Metadata

Actually code itself is quite simple :) Please see code below.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace MetadataExample
{
    public static class ReadImageMetadataExample
    {
        public static void a(string fileName)
        {
            var fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);
            var img = BitmapFrame.Create(fs);
            var metadata = img.Metadata as BitmapMetadata;

            Debug.WriteLine("=== metadata ===");
            if (metadata == null)
            {
                Debug.WriteLine("No metadata");
                return;
            }
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.ApplicationName }.GetName(), metadata.ApplicationName);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Author }.GetName(), metadata.Author.ToCommaSeparatedString());
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.CameraManufacturer }.GetName(), metadata.CameraManufacturer);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.CameraModel }.GetName(), metadata.CameraModel);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Comment }.GetName(), metadata.Comment);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Copyright }.GetName(), metadata.Copyright);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Keywords }.GetName(), metadata.Keywords.ToCommaSeparatedString());
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Location }.GetName(), metadata.Location);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Rating }.GetName(), metadata.Rating);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Subject }.GetName(), metadata.Subject);
            Debug.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", new { metadata.Title }.GetName(), metadata.Title);
        }

        // some trivial helper extension methods to printing out propert info
        private static string ToCommaSeparatedString<T>(this ICollection<T> collection)
        {
            return collection != null ? string.Join(",", collection.ToArray()) : null;
        }

        private static string GetName<T>(this T item) where T : class
        {
            return typeof(T).GetProperties()[0].Name;
        }
    }
}

Example Result

I will show you an execution result of the above C# code.
I passed the image below to the above C# code.

The respective output result of the above image is below.

=== metadata ===
ApplicationName: Picasa
Author: 
CameraManufacturer: 
CameraModel: 
Comment: Test Comments
Copyright: 
Keywords: 
Location: /
Rating: 0
Subject: MetaData Example
Title: MetaData Example