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Botched Capture Dates on added LR photos

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Stumped

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Lightroom Classic version: 9.2.1
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So I was following the suggestion here: easy steps to add gps data ? to add GPS coordinates. That worked. BUT, now in looking at some of the photos the Capture Date has been changed to the date I added them to the LR catalog.

Why did this happen?
How do I stop if from happening with future GPS updates I want to do?

Most weird, the date seems to have been changed on some pictures in the folder but not others.... The 2003 date is the date they were taken. Here are 2 examples showing 1 with the correct date and the 2nd picture in which the Capture Date was changed to the date the picture was added to the catalog. These are in the same folder.
Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 12.23.58 PM.png
Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 12.24.40 PM.png

If I go to a backup on external drive that was done before these changes, the correct dates show - 2003

Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 12.33.11 PM.png

Suggestions on easiest way to get the correct date in the LR catalog?
 
I opened the thread to edit, but took too long and I couldn't add this above....

Finally - Observation: FWIW, In the top 2 examples im pretty sure they were taken with 2 different cameras. Notice the DSCN vs AA file naming. I also went into anther folder that I added to LR to update the GPS and noticed the same thing - some pictures with correct date and some that changed to the date of import into LR. Here are 2 more examples - 1 from a Nikon and 1 from an Olympus camera.

Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 12.45.07 PM.pngScreen Shot 2021-05-02 at 12.44.33 PM.png
 
ok, to possibly confuse the issue.... or at least me... Here is another picture, 3 different views - 1) screenshot from iPhone which I sync to my Mac via finder. 2) The picture details from Mac / Finder and 3) Details of pic from Added to LR catalog. Why the different dates? 2005 is the correct date and the phone has been synched to Mac since April 10. I was thinking the above examples was a LR / import / added issue, and may be. But this (below) looks to be a combo problem - Apple, LR who knows what? Im baffled.

Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 1.27.28 PM.png
 
ok, one last thing. Maybe this is a bug? Maybe im doing something wrong?? I have 35 or 36 files that begin with AA in the name that the Capture Date was changed to 2021 - from above examples. But when I do a Date filter search in LR only 2003 and 2008 shows.

Screen Shot 2021-05-02 at 2.25.08 PM.png
 
Based on the year (2003), the problem photos may not have industry-standard capture dates recorded in their metadata -- either they're scans or they come from old cameras that didn't comply with modern standards. When LR can't read a capture date for a photo, it behaves very inconsistently. These bugs have been in LR forever, and despite some half-hearted attempts, Adobe hasn't been able to fix them.

Before suggesting likely workarounds, it would be better to confirm this is what you're experiencing. Upload one of the problem photos to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here (upload the original, not an exported version).
 
tks John. I can upload the photo and paste the link here in the am from google pics. Will that work?

Also, what you mention makes sense except that only some of the photo dates were changed but not all even though they were taken at the same time/year). also, why different dates showing for the same photo (seafood one for instance) in different apps?
 
It looks like Google Photos didn't modify the photo -- it has the same metadata as the Google Drive version.

As I suspected, the photo is missing capture date in its metadata. In fact, it's missing almost all metadata except the location fields that you added on 4/10/2021 with LR -- there's no camera model, no exposure information.

In this case, LR uses as capture date the operating system's last-modified date for the file. If the file gets modified for any reason, then the date gets updated to "now", and LR will change its notion of capture date to that date ("now"). So if you make any change to the photo in LR, and then do Metadata > Save Metadata To File (or you've set Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes), LR will modify the file, and then its capture date as shown in LR will change!

See this post for how to workaround these bugs: Sort by capture date issue
 
so apple will show 2003 or 2005 (and conflicting modify date) original shoot dates in some of the examples above, but LR will not recognize them and changes the date to a modified date? Also does not answer why different pictures in the same folder that have meta info some were changed and some were not??
 
so apple will show 2003 or 2005 (and conflicting modify date) original shoot dates in some of the examples above, but LR will not recognize them and changes the date to a modified date?

Welcome to photo date hell. Let's walk through an example.

Using a utility, I changed the file-created and file-modified dates of seafood.jpg to 4/1/2003 01:23:45 AM:
1620073578388.png

Normally, Finder will show the metadata capture date for Content Created, but when the file is missing a metadata capture date (as seafood.jpg is), Finder appears to use the file-created date for Content Created.

After importing seafood.jpg into LR, it shows the capture date as 4/1/2003 01:23:45 AM:
1620072763054.png


Since the file doesn't contain a metadata capture date, LR has used the file-modified date for the capture date.

Next, in LR I do Metadata > Save Metadata To File, causing LR to update the file and the operating-system to change the file-modified date to "now":
1620073767396.png

The file-created date remains 4/1/2003 1:23:45 AM, and thus Finder still shows that as the Content Created date too. (Note that in some circumstances, when LR "modifies" a file, it actually deletes the old version and creates a brand new one, in which case both the file-created and the file-modified dates get set to "now".)

Since the file-modified date has changed, LR immediately changes its capture date to the new file-modified date:
1620073913168.png


In you screenshots above, you show seafood.jpg on the iPhone with a date of 4/11/2005, while in Finder its dates are 4/10/2021. I don't know the exact sequence of events or how precisely it was "synced from the Mac", but it's possible that originally the copy on the Mac had file dates of 4/11/2005, the file was copied to the iPhone, and later LR or another program changed its file-created and file-modified dates to 4/10/2021.

Also does not answer why different pictures in the same folder that have meta info some were changed and some were not??

There are a few possibilities:

- If LR did Metadata > Save Metadata To File on some files and not others, or if you have the option Automatically Write Changes To XMP set and you modified metadata of some files but not others, then LR will show the new file-modified dates as the capture date for those files with changed metadata.

- Perhaps at some point you did Metadata > Edit Capture Time on some of the files and not others. As explained in the post I linked to, Edit Capture Time causes LR to get a consistent capture date in its catalog, and it will stop using the ever-changing file-modified date.

- Perhaps some of the photos were imported into LR much earlier than the others. I can't recall the exact version history of LR, but a year or two or three ago, in a failed attempt to fix all these bugs, LR changed to its current behavior. Prior to that, Lr would permanently record the contemporaneous file-modified date as its capture date, at the time of import. If the file was subsequently modified, LR would not update its capture date (as it does now).

* * *

You could try to reconstruct all the tangled history. But the rules going forward:

- After importing photos missing capture date in their metadata, immediately select all of them and do Metadata > Edit Capture Time, Change All. This does not change them all to have the same date; rather, it causes LR to record capture date for those photos consistently and stop using the ever-changing file-modified date as its captured date.

- For existing photos, also use Edit Capture Time, Change All, though you have to be more careful in doing batches of photos and check the results after each batch (because of the tangled history of what past versions of LR have done to your catalog).
 

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Welcome to photo date hell. Let's walk through an example.

Using a utility, I changed the file-created and file-modified dates of seafood.jpg to 4/1/2003 01:23:45 AM:
View attachment 16546
Normally, Finder will show the metadata capture date for Content Created, but when the file is missing a metadata capture date (as seafood.jpg is), Finder appears to use the file-created date for Content Created.

After importing seafood.jpg into LR, it shows the capture date as 4/1/2003 01:23:45 AM:
View attachment 16544

Since the file doesn't contain a metadata capture date, LR has used the file-modified date for the capture date.

Next, in LR I do Metadata > Save Metadata To File, causing LR to update the file and the operating-system to change the file-modified date to "now":
View attachment 16547
The file-created date remains 4/1/2003 1:23:45 AM, and thus Finder still shows that as the Content Created date too. (Note that in some circumstances, when LR "modifies" a file, it actually deletes the old version and creates a brand new one, in which case both the file-created and the file-modified dates get set to "now".)

Since the file-modified date has changed, LR immediately changes its capture date to the new file-modified date:
View attachment 16548
Tks for the time and explanation..... But.... Yes, hell is right. So for the above seafood example, if im following all the above correctly. the capture date still gets changed to 050321 BUT the created date stays to what you set - 040103 ? So I get confused here - what does apple read to show 04112005, created or capture?

In you screenshots above, you show seafood.jpg on the iPhone with a date of 4/11/2005, while in Finder its dates are 4/10/2021. I don't know the exact sequence of events or how precisely it was "synced from the Mac", but it's possible that originally the copy on the Mac had file dates of 4/11/2005, the file was copied to the iPhone, and later LR or another program changed its file-created and file-modified dates to 4/10/2021.
The picture was indeed taken 0411205 and has never been imported or copied to LR. Only added recently added geotagging info. Thats the same with all these examples, they have never been inside LR. In fact, I was/am hesitant to add, copy, move, whatever to LR as im new to it basically and am still learning and did / don't want to mess up too much before I fully understand the program and im still a new. Since I started using LR, maybe 2 years ago, ive only imported new pictures taken since then to LR and none of the examples ive used fall in to that category.



There are a few possibilities:

- If LR did Metadata > Save Metadata To File on some files and not others, or if you have the option Automatically Write Changes To XMP set and you modified metadata of some files but not others, then LR will show the new file-modified dates as the capture date for those files with changed metadata.
Yes I have used this feature before im pretty sure and have used the auto feature. but, not on any of these pictures in the examples and now for a long while now have set to save metadata manually.


- Perhaps at some point you did Metadata > Edit Capture Time on some of the files and not others. As explained in the post I linked to, Edit Capture Time causes LR to get a consistent capture date in its catalog, and it will stop using the ever-changing file-modified date.
have never done this.


- Perhaps some of the photos were imported into LR much earlier than the others. I can't recall the exact version history of LR, but a year or two or three ago, in a failed attempt to fix all these bugs, LR changed to its current behavior. Prior to that, Lr would permanently record the contemporaneous file-modified date as its capture date, at the time of import. If the file was subsequently modified, LR would not update its capture date (as it does now).
nope.

* * *

You could try to reconstruct all the tangled history. But the rules going forward:

- After importing photos missing capture date in their metadata, immediately select all of them and do Metadata > Edit Capture Time, Change All. This does not change them all to have the same date; rather, it causes LR to record capture date for those photos consistently and stop using the ever-changing file-modified date as its captured date.

- For existing photos, also use Edit Capture Time, Change All, though you have to be more careful in doing batches of photos and check the results after each batch (because of the tangled history of what past versions of LR have done to your catalog).
this is still confusing as why some changed and some haven't. I do understand why the ones that changed did so - as you mentioned, it seems to taken the added to LR date and inserted it ( if this was the cause - the dates do seem to match when the pics were added to LR). But what's more baffling, why didn't the other photos change?
 
So I get confused here - what does apple read to show 04112005, created or capture?
The seafood.jpg you uploaded doesn't contain a metadata capture date and your screenshots show the file-created and file-modified dates as 4/10/2021. Some hypotheses:

- seafood.jpg originally had file-created and file-modified dates of 4/11/2005. After it was copied to your iPhone from the Mac, some program modified it on the Mac on 4/10/2021. Since both its created and modified dates are the same, that could well have been LR that modified it (most but not all native Mac programs, including Finder, preserve file-created dates).

- Perhaps the version you're seeing on the iPhone was copied from some other version than the one on the Mac and in LR.

How are you copying the file from the Mac to the iPhone?

But disentangling the history of what happened may not be worth your time. You'll have to correct the files that were somehow modified regardless, and if you use the workaround with Edit Capture Time, you'll avoid problems going forward.
 
How are you copying the file from the Mac to the iPhone?
I sync via usb cable through finder. Also, what makes this interesting like I said is that the original dates still show up on the iPhone AND I have synced the phone multiple times since making the location changes in LR. Tks for continuing to listen and help. Im curious and still perplexed.
 
History...... For all examples.

1. take pictures, camera, phone , however - cant remember on these old ones - 2003 to 2008 or so
2. stored on pc and now Mac in their own folders outside of LR
3. have gotten synced always via cable through iTunes and now finder
4. recently, last month, have taken some older pictures, including these examples and added them to LR to add geotagging - either coordinates when I had them through the LR map, or universal location code or city/country location - typed in LR field.
5. manual LR metadata save from LR to disk only on the ones I changed
6. synced phone through Finder w/ manually selected photo directories as usual

one more example.
Screen Shot 2021-05-04 at 3.20.59 PM.pngIMG_6315.jpegScreen Shot 2021-05-04 at 3.17.29 PM.pngScreen Shot 2021-05-04 at 3.18.33 PM.png
 
I sync via usb cable through finder. ... the original dates still show up on the iPhone AND I have synced the phone multiple times since making the location changes in LR.
I did some tests, and this behavior is a deficiency in Finder-to-Photos syncing -- when just the file-created, file-modified, or metadata capture dates have changed on the Mac, they don't get synced to the iPhone Photos app (or at least, the Photos app doesn't show the new dates). To have the new dates appear, you have to remove the photo from the synced folder, sync, make sure the photo is deleted from the Photos app, then add the photo back to the folder and sync again.

I did these tests using the utility A Better Finder Attributes to change file-created and file-modified and the Exiftool utility to change metadata capture date. LR wasn't involved.
 
History...... For all examples.
The AC024.JPG example is fully explained: In LR, you changed the location fields and did Save Metadata To File. That changed both the file date-created and the file date-modified to "now". Since the photo doesn't have a standard metadata capture date, LR immediately updated its notion of capture to date to the file date-modified ("now"). And then when you synced again from Finder to the iphone, either the sync failed to sync the new dates, or the Photos app failed to display the new dates.
 
John: I'm posting on behalf of Stumped who we are helping sort being able to reply to posts right at the moment.

Reply:


"Tks John for your time and troubleshooting... A few more questions / observations if you will. Also, if you can reply " " listed per item so that I make sure I don't miss anything here. Thanks so much.
So it seems to be a syncing / missing metadata combo problem. As far as the Date getting updated, it doesnt seem to be happening in LR as the correct Capture / Created Date still show on the iPhone.

1). the terms Date Created and Capture Date are interchangeable between LR and Fider/Mac? i.e, if I modify Capture Date in LR it should update Date Created on Mac when I update metadata?

2). even though the incorrect (2021) dates now show in LR when looking the Metadata info, LR does not actually see them ---> When I filter by metadata, the 2021 dates do not show in the column.

3). Because the correct dates show on iPhone and not on the Mac , when I sort by date on the Mac as they are all 2021 now. As you mention, to get them all correct, I would need to correct the dates in LR, update the metadata to Finder/Mac, remove the effected pictures from iPhone sync folder, uncheck the folder sync option for the effected folder(this will effectively remove them from the iPhone), sync to remove them, then put them back and sync again to get them back to the iPhone.

4). none of this has to be done unless I want to sort by date in LR or the Mac. So, if I leave all alone but then get a new iPhone and set it up as new, the incorrect dates will get copied from Mac to iPhone BUT if I restore from back up the older correct dates will then be on the new iPhone? Thoughts? "
 
1). the terms Date Created and Capture Date are interchangeable between LR and Fider/Mac? i.e, if I modify Capture Date in LR it should update Date Created on Mac when I update metadata?
No, LR's Capture Date is (usually) the same as Finder's Content Created. They both show the capture date stored in metadata inside the file, usually the EXIF DateTimeOriginal field that cameras record when you push the shutter button. I think they have different rules about what to display when there isn't EXIF DateTimeOriginal in the file, but I haven't reverse-engineered Finder thoroughly to know for sure.

The Finder's Date Created is when the file was created, and Date Modified when the file was last modified by any app. For files coming from digital cameras, these are usually the same or within a second or two of the metadata capture date stored inside the file. When LR does Save Metadata To File, sometimes it modifies the existing file, changing just Date Modified to "now", leaving Date Created unchanged. But sometimes it writes a new file, deletes the old one, and renames the new file to have the same name -- this changes both Date Created and Date Modified to "now".
 
2). even though the incorrect (2021) dates now show in LR when looking the Metadata info, LR does not actually see them ---> When I filter by metadata, the 2021 dates do not show in the column.
Right, LR acts inconsistently when a photo doesn't contain a metadata capture date. It actually stores its notion of capture date in multiple fields internally in the catalog, and when you import a photo missing metadata capture date, it doesn't update all those fields to have the same value. So the date displayed under the thumbnails in Grid view, the dates in the Date column of the Library Filter bar, the dates shown in the Metadata panel, and the dates used for sorting by Capture Time can all be different, and you'll see screwy results.

This is why the first thing to do when you import photos missing capture dates is to do Metadata > Edit Capture Time / Change All. That will update all the internal capture dates stored in the catalog for a photo to be consistent. And when you then do Metadata > Save Metadata To File, the metadata capture date (EXIF DateTimeOriginal) will up updated to that same capture date, so other apps like Finder and iphone Photos will see it too.
 
3). Because the correct dates show on iPhone and not on the Mac , when I sort by date on the Mac as they are all 2021 now. As you mention, to get them all correct, I would need to correct the dates in LR, update the metadata to Finder/Mac, remove the effected pictures from iPhone sync folder, uncheck the folder sync option for the effected folder(this will effectively remove them from the iPhone), sync to remove them, then put them back and sync again to get them back to the iPhone.
Right.
 
4). none of this has to be done unless I want to sort by date in LR or the Mac. So, if I leave all alone but then get a new iPhone and set it up as new, the incorrect dates will get copied from Mac to iPhone BUT if I restore from back up the older correct dates will then be on the new iPhone? Thoughts? "
While you could restore from backup and then make sure you never do Save Metadata To File in LR, that is very fragile, since some app down the road is likely to change the file Date Created and Date Modified dates (e.g. the old Mac iPhotos didn't preserve Date Created, but I don't know about the new Mac Photos.) Relying on the operating system's Date Created / Modified is just too fragile. That's why the photo industry defined metadata that can be stored inside the files.

If you want to ensure those early dates are preserved for the long-term, I recommend:

1. Restore the files from backup.

2. Import them into LR.

3. For those files that are missing metadata capture dates, select all of them and do Metadata > Edit Capture Time.

4. Select the option Change To File's Creation Date.

5. Click Change All.

6. Verify that the files still show the correct capture date inside LR.

7. With all the files selected, do Metadata > Save Metatadata To File. Now the files will have the correct capture dates stored in their metadata (though the Date Modified and possibly Date Created will be set to "now").

8. Sync the photos with the iphone via Finder.
 
While you could restore from backup and then make sure you never do Save Metadata To File in LR, that is very fragile, since some app down the road is likely to change the file Date Created and Date Modified dates (e.g. the old Mac iPhotos didn't preserve Date Created, but I don't know about the new Mac Photos.) Relying on the operating system's Date Created / Modified is just too fragile. That's why the photo industry defined metadata that can be stored inside the files.

If you want to ensure those early dates are preserved for the long-term, I recommend:

1. Restore the files from backup.

2. Import them into LR.
Taking the above file, AA001, it has a Created and Modified date of 2003(at the very top of the thread) you will see the LR version and the unmolested version w/ the 2003 date. If I restore the backup to the Mac, thats ok then im at step 1. But there is no other metatdata. If I then import into LR, won't I then be w/ no metadata still but the date in LR gets changed to the at the moment import? Thats where I got to this in the 1st place, right? Then for steps 3 and 4, changing to Creation Date will be the "now" date, right? Maybe ill just try it w/ this one and see.....


3. For those files that are missing metadata capture dates, select all of them and do Metadata > Edit Capture Time.

4. Select the option Change To File's Creation Date.

5. Click Change All.

6. Verify that the files still show the correct capture date inside LR.

7. With all the files selected, do Metadata > Save Metatadata To File. Now the files will have the correct capture dates stored in their metadata (though the Date Modified and possibly Date Created will be set to "now").

8. Sync the photos with the iphone via Finder.
 
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