Info from a mobile phone photo?

[Dan_1981]

Couple of related questions here...

1: If someone sends you a photo taken by a mobile phone - either via MMS or via email can you get any info from the picture itself on when it was taken etc? If so how?

2: On the iphone when browsing photos is there an "info" bit about each photo? eh date & time taken?

Cheers

Dan

[marshalla]

There may be some data embedded in the image in the EXIF area - any decent photo viewer/editor should be able to show you the content. It's not a requirement - but phones which can do geotagging use this area for those data too.

AFAIK the iPhone does embed EXIF data.

Anything sent over MMS may, however, be mangled by the network so the provenance of the data may be suspect.

[Dogsey]

Download Irfanview, if there is any EXIF info in there it will read it.

[Dan_1981]

Dogsey said:

Download Irfanview, if there is any EXIF info in there it will read it.

Thanks so far guys - will it do anythign that I can't see in elements?

I've got the pic on my phone - sent to me via MMS, so I then have to email it to myself.

By the time I open it in Elements - its shoing no info in the file info for camera, date etc.

It just shows as created when I save from the email.

Cheers

Dan

[marshalla]

Dan_1981 said:

Dogsey said:

Download Irfanview, if there is any EXIF info in there it will read it.

Thanks so far guys - will it do anythign that I can't see in elements?

I've got the pic on my phone - sent to me via MMS, so I then have to email it to myself.

By the time I open it in Elements - its shoing no info in the file info for camera, date etc.

It just shows as created when I save from the email.

Cheers

Dan

Windows Picture viewer used to show the EXIF data in the "Advanced" section. No idea about Elements. Sorry.

However, it sounds like the info. is not there when it hits your phone. e-mailing it shouldn't affect the contents of the file in any significant way. Can you connect the phone up as a USB drive and check it that way ?

[Dogsey]

Dan_1981 said:

Dogsey said:

Download Irfanview, if there is any EXIF info in there it will read it.

Thanks so far guys - will it do anythign that I can't see in elements?

I've got the pic on my phone - sent to me via MMS, so I then have to email it to myself.

By the time I open it in Elements - its shoing no info in the file info for camera, date etc.

It just shows as created when I save from the email.

Cheers

Dan

I don't know Elements, but I wouldn't have thought so - If Elements is able to show EXIF then it should show any info embedded in the photo, if there is no info available then either the mobile phone hasn't written it or it may have been stripped from the image. I know my SE phone does embed the EXIF.

[marshalla]

It looks like my suspicion about the MMS system stripping out the EXIF data is correct :

http://www.gersbo.dk/2008/04/geo-tags-and-mms-is-a...

[Dogsey]

marshalla said:

It looks like my suspicion about the MMS system stripping out the EXIF data is correct :

http://www.gersbo.dk/2008/04/geo-tags-and-mms-is-a...

Makes sense I guess, strip out as much information as is possible to make sending the photo easier / quicker on the MMS system.

OP, looks like the only way you'll get the info then is to get the original image either uplaoded to somewhere like Flickr or to get it emailed directly from the originators phone.

[Dan_1981]

Thanks for all the help guys - much appreciated.