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RAW > DNG (how do I save the original "Created" date info)

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onewaymule

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Oct 26, 2011
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So I noticed that converting RAW files to .dng in Lightroom over-writes the original "created" date on the file.
So regardless of when the shot was taken, the time the dng file is created becomes the file's original creation date/time.

While this is technically true - that the .dng file was just created - it becomes an issue to go back and find out when a picture was taken.
For example, when reading the info for a picture using finder in os x.

Is there a way to permanently embed the original info in the new dng file?...In preference or plug-in or something to stop this from happening?

(I'm using LR 3.5 on OS X 10.6)
 
Hi, welcome to the forum.

I suspect you're not fully understanding the various dates as displayed by Lightroom and the Operating System (but as I'm on Windows, I'm assuming that the Mac OS works the same regarding file dates).

There are 3 date fields stored by Windows:

1. Date Taken - the capture date/time as recorded in the file's EXIF data. So for a RAW>DNG conversion, this date should be the same in both files.
2. Date Created - the actual date/time the file was first created in the OS file system. So for the newly created DNG, this would be the date/time the conversion was made. On Windows, this is the default date shown in the Explorer, is that the same on Mac?
3. Date Modified - the actual date/time that the file was last modified/updated (for newly created images that haven't been otherwise processed, i.e. the DNG, this is set to be the same as the Date Taken).

So in Explorer and probably Finder the default date displayed will be the date/time of file creation, but the date/time that the original RAW was shot should still be available by viewing the Date Taken field (which is what you should be looking at if you want to sort on capture date).

Within Lightroom there are typically 3 date fields:

1. Date Time Original - the capture date/time as recorded in the file's EXIF data. Will not be changed through a DNG conversion.
2. Date Time Digitised - not sure about this one, in the majority of cases it will be the same as DTO. Again, will not be changed through a DNG conversion.
3. Date Time - this appears to be the same as Date Modified, hence for the newly created DNG it will be different to DTO/DTD.

Hope that all makes sense.
 
^That guy answered your question way better than I can, but I will say this. I've got the same exact software and OS you run and I convert every RAW file to DNG. The time and date of capture is maintained. All my files show the time, down to the second, of each image.
 
Hi, welcome to the forum.

I suspect you're not fully understanding the various dates as displayed by Lightroom and the Operating System (but as I'm on Windows, I'm assuming that the Mac OS works the same regarding file dates).

There are 3 date fields stored by Windows:

1. Date Taken - the capture date/time as recorded in the file's EXIF data. So for a RAW>DNG conversion, this date should be the same in both files.
2. Date Created - the actual date/time the file was first created in the OS file system. So for the newly created DNG, this would be the date/time the conversion was made. On Windows, this is the default date shown in the Explorer, is that the same on Mac?
3. Date Modified - the actual date/time that the file was last modified/updated (for newly created images that haven't been otherwise processed, i.e. the DNG, this is set to be the same as the Date Taken).

So in Explorer and probably Finder the default date displayed will be the date/time of file creation, but the date/time that the original RAW was shot should still be available by viewing the Date Taken field (which is what you should be looking at if you want to sort on capture date).

Within Lightroom there are typically 3 date fields:

1. Date Time Original - the capture date/time as recorded in the file's EXIF data. Will not be changed through a DNG conversion.
2. Date Time Digitised - not sure about this one, in the majority of cases it will be the same as DTO. Again, will not be changed through a DNG conversion.
3. Date Time - this appears to be the same as Date Modified, hence for the newly created DNG it will be different to DTO/DTD.

Hope that all makes sense.


Thanks for the detailed answer.

The problem is OS X "Date Taken" does not show in Finder. It has Date Created, Date Modified and Last Opened.
See here:
Screen shot N+V.png

Of course, I would love to have Date Taken show in finder. A quick search online did not result anything useful.
Good news is that I can open the .dng file in Preview and the entire EXIF info is visible in the Inspector.

Now how do I get finder to show the Date Taken info....


 
Need a Mac guy for that, I'm afraid. On Windows the detail view in Explorer can be customised to show an incredible variety of detail for each file, and I can't imagine Finder being any less capable.
 
As far as I can tell, it isn't in the Mac Finder functionality.
I don't use Finder as much as Explorer because of it's limitations (I live in both the PC and the MAC worlds)
 
Hi,

Finder uses the filesystem date created and does not look into the exif data for any dates. This used to bother me also but since moving to LR I am doing doing all my date related searches there and it is no longer an issue.

If you really want to pursue the problem then you will need to get and learn exiftool. It can read and update both exif data and filesystem data. It is powerful but quite a complicated Unix command line tool that takes requires some experience working from the Unix prompt in the Terminal window. It should be possible to create a script that modify the date created on your DNG files to be the same as the image date created. But would it really be worth the effort.

-louie
 
It is an convenience sometimes but not enough to deal with a complicated solution.
Will see if there are any alternative which are simple...

Thanks for the response guys.
 
same problem in windows

I have the same problem in windows 7. Converting Panasonic RW2 raw files to DNG via the Adobe converter results in the Date Taken column appearing showing blank in Explorer; the relevant column is there, but no info is shown in it. Therefore the only place I can order photos successfully by date taken is in Lightroom, which obviously isn't ideal for moving things around into folders.
 
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