How do I get only a tag value from exiftool output in Bash?

Question

I want to capture the camera make in a Bash variable using `exiftool`, but the default output includes the tag name and colon. For example, `exiftool -make x.jpg` returns `Make : SAMSUNG`. How can I make `exiftool` print only the tag value so I can assign it cleanly to a variable?

user1943 · Accepted Answer

From the man page:

-s[NUM] (-short)

    Short output format. Prints tag names instead of descriptions.
    Add NUM or up to 3 -s options for even shorter formats:

       -s1 or -s        - print tag names instead of descriptions
       -s2 or -s -s     - no extra spaces to column-align values
       -s3 or -s -s -s  - print values only (no tag names)

-S (-veryShort)
    Very short format. The same as -s2 or two -s options.
    Tag names are printed instead of descriptions, and no extra
    spaces are added to column-align values.

So, any of the following will work:

exiftool -s -s -s -make x.jpg

exiftool -s3 -make x.jpg

exiftool -s -S -make x.jpg

Note that combining multiple -s options into -sss, such as increasing -v/-vv/-vvv verbosity in some Linux/Unix command line utilities such as tcpdump, will not work.

How do I get only a tag value from exiftool output in Bash?

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