P: Still inconsistent capture date/time for photos and videos

Actually one more question John. I did what you suggested and everything seemed to work well. While my files were being corrected for date and time I deleted a picture I did not want. I removed it from disk. Since all files were selected, that deleted all of my pictures and videos. They were in my Win 7 recycle bin and I was able to restore them to the correct folder in my HD. My last catalog backup was 6 weeks ago. Is there anything I can do to recover my edits or did I lose all the work I did this past month and a half?

Thank you again John. You're the best!

Select multiple videos or photos, choose "Adjust to a specified date and time" (the default), then click "Change All".

Here's a recipe for reproducing the bug with editing IPTC > Date Created in the Metadata panel or using Metadata > Copy/Paste Metadata to copy IPTC > Date Created. This was tested in both CC 2015.12 and LR 5.7.1, OS X 10.12.6 (i.e. this behavior has been present since at least LR 5.7.1):

1. Create a new catalog.

2. Download and unzip https://www.dropbox.com/s/6b0s00up2i7lm04/iptc-date-bug.2017.08.21.zip?dl=0

3. Import the three pics in the unzipped folder "iptc-date-bug".

4. Select All Photographs and do View > Sort > Capture Time and View > Sort > Ascending.

5. Observe that the pics sort in order test1.jpg, test2.jpg, test3.jpg:



6. Observe that for test1.jpg and test2.jpg, the date under the thumbnails match the capture date/time shown in Metadata > Default, Metadata > EXIF > Date Time Original, and Metadata > IPTC > Date Created.

7. Observe that for test3.jpg, there is no capture time shown in Metadata > Default, and Metadata > EXIF > Date Time Original and Metadata > IPTC > Date Created are blank.

8. Select test2.jpg, and in the Metadata > IPTC panel, change Date Created to 2014-08-21T14:04:51.  Do the same for test3.jpg.

9. Observe that the various dates shown for test2.jpg and test3.jpg are inconsistent:

test2.jpg:
Thumbnail: 8/21/16 (wrong)
Metadata > Default > Capture Date: 8/21/16 (wrong)
Metadata > EXIF > Date Time Original: 8/21/16 (wrong)
Metadata > IPTC > Date Create: 8/21/2014 (correct)

test3.jpg:
Thumbnail: 8/21/14 (correct)
Metadata > Default > Capture Date: 8/21/16 (wrong)
Metadata > EXIF > Date Time Original: (wrong)
Metadata > IPTC > Date Create: 8/21/2014 (correct)

The Metadata Working Group's "Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata Version 2.0", which Adobe employees have previously stated controls LR's metadata behavior, requires that all three date/time fields match after one of the fields is changed.

10. Observe that the pics are no longer correctly sorted by the dates shown under their thumbnails:



11. Select all three pics and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File.

12. In a command shell, execute this command:

exiftool -a -G -exif:datetimeoriginal -xmp:datecreated -iptc:datecreated test2.jpg test3.jpg

Observe this incorrect output:

======== test2.jpg
[EXIF]          Date/Time Original              : 2016:08:21 14:04:51
[XMP]           Date Created                    : 2014:08:21 14:04:51
[IPTC]          Date Created                    : 2014:08:21
======== test3.jpg
[XMP]           Date Created                    : 2014:08:21 14:04:51
[IPTC]          Date Created                    : 2014:08:21

Note that in test2.jpg, EXIF:DateTimeOriginal doesn't match XMP:DateCreated and IPTC:DateCreated. Also note that in test3.jpg, there is no EXIF:DateTimeOriginal.

However, the "Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata Version 2.0" requires that in each file, all three fields should exist and contain the same value.

This post, among others, discusses the underlying architectural problem in LR: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-still-inconsistent-capture-date-tim...

LR should maintain internally a single field representing "capture time", and it should use the Metadata Working Group's rules for mapping that field to and from the EXIF, XMP, and IPTC date fields in the file and to and from the Edit Capture Time command and the Metadata panel > IPTC > Date Created field.

This was tested on LR CC 2015.12 / OS X 10.12.6.

Here's a recipe for reproducing the bug with photos that are missing EXIF:DateTimeOriginal:

1. Create a new catalog.

2. Download and unzip https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21811200/capture-time-bug.2017.08.21.zip

3. Import the three pics in the unzipped folder "capture-time-bug".

4. Select All Photographs and do View > Sort > Capture Time and View > Sort > Ascending.

5. Observe the following inconsistent ordering of pics:



Inconsistency A: The pics are not ordered by the capture date/time shown under the thumbnails.  

Inconsistency B: The date/time shown under the test2.jpg thumbnail doesn't match the capture date/time shown for that file in the Metadata panel.

Inconsistency C: The Metadata > Default tagset shows a capture date/time (see the screenshot above), while the EXIF tagset shows no Date Time Original and the IPTC tagset shows no Date Created:




(The Metadata Working Group spec calls for EXIF:DateTimeOriginal and IPTC:Date/TimeCreated to match.)

The proximate cause of these symptoms is that test2.jpg has EXIF:ModifyDate but no EXIF:DateTimeOriginal.  This often occurs when importing scans and other images not produced by digital cameras.

This post, among others, discusses the underlying architectural problem in LR: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-still-inconsistent-capture-date-tim...

Hi John. Would you please take a minute to explain the three steps above in a little more detail? 
1. Select all the videos. In LR, correct?  
2. Metadata > Edit Capture Time- I see: Adjust to a specific time and date, Shift by a set number of hours and Change to a file's creation date (does is not the correct creation date) - Which of these options do I select?
3. OK 
Thanks in advance. 
LR6/Win7

See this post for more details about the underlying problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-still-inconsistent-capture-date-tim...

In the original topic, Alan Harper wrote:

"This is a long-time issue in Lightroom. The only one of the dates you can edit in the metadata panel is not the one that Lightroom uses to sort by. Some of these metadata fields are supposed to be kept in sync, and by editing one of them, you break that rule too.

"My advice is to use the Metadata : Edit Capture Time command if it fills your needs. In this way, Lightroom has the ability to keep everything copacetic. If you still feel the need to copy/paste the capture time, then look at this post for a couple of ways to make it work."

When I copy/paste the metadata (with capture date/time selected) of one photo to another photo (which didn't have any date/time set), the metadata is copied correctly, but the sorting of photos (sort on capture date/time) is not reapplied.

Manually changing the ordering does not seem to work. When switching back to 'order by capture date/time' the photo is still not put in the right position.

When changing the capture date/time via Metadata > Edit Capture Time, the photo is correctly reordered.

My expectation is that after pasting metadata, containing a new capture date/time, the photo would be reordered correctly.

I'm using Lightroom 6.12.