LR2 Import problem - date picture taken

[InDAMpurgatory]

Hi All,

Let me first say that I love lightroom and its import function has allowed me to organize about 5',''' RAW photos via the copy/import I have taken over the last few years. I now have a clean set of files that are easy to back up.

Here is my problem. I have a ton of files taken with older digi-cameras back in the late 9''s early 2''''s that I wanted to import into my catalog and copy to a new file/directory structure like: YEAR/MONTH/DAY (2''8/February/'1/myimage_'''1.jpg). These files have the ACTUAL date the picture was taken in the DATE MODIFIED field. The date in the DATE CREATED field is garbage, they are usually all '1/'1/2''1 which would reset when the batteries would change. No, I have not figured out why this happened. Just that these files have followed me though about 4 different PCs and as many OSes. I have confirmed that the date in the DATE MODIFIED is good.

Issue: Lightroom uses the DATE CREATED field in its algorithm to create the directory structure along with the (re)naming of the files. This all makes perfect sense, but does not work with these older files (Like I said, I don't know if it is a camera issue or a FAT/NTSC issue).

Basically, I am pretty new to lightroom so I would like to know if I am missing something or if anybody knows of any software that I can use to "copy" the value in the date modified field of the file to the date picture taken field. I have started to write a program to do this in .NET but it is going to take at least another 6-8 hours to code and I have a wife, two kids, full time job, blah, blah blah.

You guys come highly recommended so I thought I would ask you.

Thanks!!

 

[RipIt]

If you know the modified date to be correct you can select all the files that are affected (or do this in batches) and use the Edit Capture time function under Metadata in the menu to change the effective capture time.

Exporting the original files to a temporary location and then re importing them with the appropriate Organize selection will create a folder structure based on the Edited capture time (ie. the time you actually took them?)

 

[RipIt]

IMPORTANT- before you try this PLEASE test it on a couple of duplicate images. I found with my test images that I had changed the date on in the manner described that upon editing in Photoshop and saving, the file was not imported automatically.

Error- This Photo could not be imported because it could not be read. It may be in an incompatible format.

However, the file was actually saved and can actually be imported with a synchronize.

 

[InDAMpurgatory]

Thanks RipIt! I had not tried that, but it got me exploring the metadata features of LR. It did not auto-magically fix my particular situation as it went with the date creation which was basically garbage too, and I don't think that there is going to be a good fix for me. I am guessing it would be extremely rare to use the 'modify date' to batch update another field on. This date can be totally unrelated to anything but for a bunch of my files it is all I have left that identifies when they were taken. It's funny that I am shooting now in raw with a 'pro' 12MP camera, but I still want to preserve vacation pictures I took with a 2.2 MP kodak P&S 8-1' years ago!

I think what I am going to do is use the feature you pointed out to me and just go folder by folder and update sets of files one by one in batches to a hand-entered date. It looks like LR makes this easy.

I am paying the price now for not having a good DAM strategy all along. Time to pay up. Thank goodness LR came along and can do about 75% of the heavy lifting for me!

 

[Brad Snyder]

You might want to look at Phil Harvey's exiftool. It's scriptable, and there are numerous GUI front ends available. Lots of recognizable software tools use this as the base engine. You would use this externally to LR, prior to import, to manipulate the metadata date fields to your liking, such as copying modified to created.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Once you have the proper create date embedded in the source files, LR import will be routine.

 

[InDAMpurgatory]

Thank you Brad!!

It worked! Well, at least my proof of concept with one folder did. I did not find any GUI that met my needs but after some struggle put together a command line with the right syntax to do what I needed. It's funny, I could not update the 'createdate' of the file with exiftool, but I could update the 'datetimeoriginal' which windows calls 'date picture taken'. Lightroom uses this value in its import so it worked and copied my folders into a new date based file structure. Awesome. Maybe if somebody is searching the forum for this sort of solution, this will help:

To use exiftool to change the 'date picture taken' with the 'date modified', use this:

exiftool "-FileModifyDate>DateTimeOriginal" C:\your_folder\your_folder