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Known Participant
February 17, 2024
Question

LR showing and sorting according to an incorrect read on capture date/time.

  • February 17, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 1704 views

Hi folks, I am having an issue where, upon importing to LR, organized by date, LR seems to be putting files into incorrect folders that do not align with the actual capture/date time of the photo. Please see screenshot which displays the difference in how LR is showing the "Capture Date/Capture Time" vs how macOS is showing the "created" metadata, which is actually the correct capture date/time of the photo.

 

Not thats its totally relevant as I imagine an expert will have the answer figured out on their own...but the only possible reason for all of this that I can come up with is that perhaps this could have something to do with moving these files around from drive to drive over the years? maybe LR is reading some metadata field when looking for capture date/time that is actually reporting the last time some specific file copy even happened (even though the file has been moved multiple times since the Oct 2. 2020 thats being reported, but I digress) for some reason, whereas macOS is reading some other EXIF field that is reporting the true capture date/time?

 

As always thanks so much to the power users for all of your help!

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3 replies

Community Expert
February 18, 2024

I don't import any videos to LrC but understand that the way capture date / time is encoded and interpreted can be less reliable and standardised, than it is with still photos.

 

If the imported video shows the correct info (for the original shooting of the video) in the file creation metadata, but something wrong shows as the Catalog's idea of when the capture was: you can Edit Capture Time and reset the Catalog to employ the file creation date instead. Doing this will not by itself move the file concerned, into any different folder. YOu would need to do that.

 

I had an issue some time ago with a tiimezone-shift causing a lot of photos from some travel to auto-file into inappropriately dated folders at import, and similarly this required both adjusting all their capture times and then moving a percentage of the photos into the adjacent "day" folders from within LrC. The fix was to adjust how I handled timezone settings in the camera going forward. 

 

So far as preventing this other issue from happening in the future, with videos, I haven't the experience to advise. But it's a similar case in that LrC provides no automatic way to move already-imported files into different folders after correcting their capture details.

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2024

MacOS shows the file creation date, not the capture date. That means that if you created a new copy, the file creation date will be the date you created that copy.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
johnrellis
Legend
February 18, 2024

"That means that if you created a new copy, the file creation date will be the date you created that copy."

 

Not always, it depends on which app created the copy.  Finder and most other Mac apps preserve Date Created when they copy a file, but many third-party apps (like LR) don't, because they don't use Apple's frameworks for building apps and it takes extra effort for such apps to preserve creation date (not a lot of effort, but it's not something they care about).

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 18, 2024

Yes, by 'Creating a new copy' I did not mean simply duplicating it in the Finder, but for example exporting a copy from Lightroom. The file is a movie, so any editing of it will have created a new copy.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
Known Participant
February 17, 2024

Hi, even further confusing me, please see additional screenshot. This shows an image (the one thats selected/labeled blue) that was shot on Oct 26 2020. For some reason, on import, LR put it into the 2020-10-28 folder, despite showing the capture date at Oct. 26 2020 in the metadata panel! The screen also shows the file in macOS, where the "content created" field appears to show the correct capture/date time. There are so many date fields it seems and I can't make any reliable sense of how any of this is working.

 

Thanks again

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2024

Why do you say that the image is in the 2020-10-28 folder? The screenshot clearly shows (three times actually: at the top of the Finder window, in Lightroom at the top of the film strip, and one more time in the metadata panel) that it is stored in the 2020-10-26 folder, which is the correct folder.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
Known Participant
February 18, 2024

I'm sorry, I should have clarifid. I moved it there manually before taking this screenshot. I have just done another import and LR did the exact same thing on other files. I can screenshot that if you'd like.