Of course, but often I find an old plot and have no idea of the context or I want one specific plot from a folder of countless plots that all look relatively similar. Images can be extracted from PDFs so the metadata might still survive even in digital publication.
I have already done a little bit of work testing how to read it which turned out to be quite simple. It relies on exiftool which I see you have experience with.
This is off the main topic though so let’s move further conversation to a new thread. I’ll post something at some point today once I’ve built a full example. I’m still a bit uncertain of how much is possible or the best approach.
Edit: Added link to the new thread