Lr Classic - batch edit capture time problem - only some are changed

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
November 5, 2025
6 replies
319 views

Hello. I select a group of photos I've scanned - go to: Metadata / Edit capture time - I change the date ('Adjust to a specific date and time' is chosen under 'Type of adjustment') click change, but only some change to that new date. I think the ones that aren't changing are from a previous scan. I'm sure I haven't had this problem before.

Windows

Correct answer JohanElzenga

This option confuses many people. It does not change the capture date and time to the same new date and time for all selected photos, but changes the date and time of all selected photos by the same amount. The reason is that this function is not meant for scanned images, but for digital camera images where the camera was set to the wrong time.

S

soundandseaphotography

Participant

This is not his issue nor mine. We KNOW and understand what you are saying. It is not working and its clearly a bug that needs to be fixed.

johnrellis

Legend

Batch-changing capture time is a widely used command, so if there were a blatant bug in it, there would be very many more reports here. To understand what might be going wrong in your case and possibly build a reproducible test case for a bug report, please attach a full-resolution screen recording (not a phone video):

Windows Snipping Tool: https://www.descript.com/blog/article/how-to-screen-record-on-windows

Mac Quicktime Player: https://support.apple.com/guide/quicktime-player/record-your-screen-qtp97b08e666/mac

To keep the recording small, make the LR window as small as possible, and tell the tool to record just the window.

S

soundandseaphotography

Participant

it happened yet again. Only fixed 80% leaving my gallery out of sorts. I have a business to run and do not have time to record this until after my busy season is over. I have used lightroom professionally for a decade and shoot weddings where timing can be off between myself and second photographers. Until earlier this year I never had any problems. With over 300 weddings edited in lightroom I know the difference between when it worked and now randomly it doesn't. It needs a fix. That is how I found this thread btw, so clearly there are a few of us out there. Will record in my off season if it isn't fixed by then.

JohanElzenga

Correct answer

Community Expert

This option confuses many people. It does not change the capture date and time to the same new date and time for all selected photos, but changes the date and time of all selected photos by the same amount. The reason is that this function is not meant for scanned images, but for digital camera images where the camera was set to the wrong time.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

CliveYetAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Johan. Thank you. I do understand that this function does not change to the same date. I wanted incremental changes. You may be right about the intended use, but it is also useful, in fact essential for scanning. I'm sure this wasn't a problem before the latest Lr update but can't say 100%. Anyway, because I need it now, I bought John Beardworth's plug-in which does it (re-date all the chosen photos incrementally). So it must be a Lr issue - unless I'm missing something - which is possible

johnrellis

Legend

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@CliveYet, to test my understanding, you've selected a batch of photos, done Metadata > Edit Capture Time, selected Adjust To A Specified Date And Time, and only some of the photos have their capture times shifted -- the others remain untouched.

Adobe will only pay attention to bug reports if they can easily reproduce the behavior. I just tried a batch of 25 photos, and the capture times were shifted as expected.

To avoid playing twenty questions, I suggest a next step is to attach a full-resolution screen recording (not a phone video) of the entire LR window in Grid view, showing the misbehavior. Make sure that the full file name with extension (e.g. .jpg or .nef) and the capture date/time are displayed on the thumbnails via View > View Options > Compact/Expanded Cell Extras, e.g.

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