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Lisa 7
Participant
April 7, 2020
Question

Putting Date Stamp on photos in Print while making Collage (Custom Package)

  • April 7, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 954 views

I would like to apply a date stamp to different photos in Lightroom, while in the print module (custom package), while making a collage.  This is an example of a collage that I created below.  I have to use a secondary program to put the dates on first, then bring them into lightroom.  Is there some kind of plugin I could get?  Something that I could set up with my templates to use the date the photo was taken?  This feature would be very helpful when making yearly photo books.  I have several templates that I use.  I was hoping there was some type of watermark customization, but I looked there as well as identy plate and nothing.  I know if I did an index print it would give me the full date underneath the photos, but I want a collage that can be customized.  Not a bunch of white lines like the index print.  Currently I have Lightroom 6, I dearly hope there is a way to do this, it would save me so much time!!!  I LOVE lighroom!!!!  Please see the dates in the bottom right of each photo so you can understand what I am talking about.     

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1 reply

Just Shoot Me
Just Shoot Me
Legend
April 7, 2020

This is something that LR Classic, or even the other Could Centric version of LR, can NOT do.

 

As far as I know the only way to do something like that is to do it in Photoshop using the Text tool to Add text to the image that has the date as the text.

D
DonH
Known Participant
April 7, 2020

This at best a somewhat inconvenient solution, but it should produce the desired result.

You can use the Book Module:

 

First, create a book from the collection of photos that you want to print and select an appropriate page size and aspect ratio from the upper right book menu - probably best as a jpg book at a proper dpi. (note below)

 

Second, lay out your collage using a custom layout of photo cells

 

Third, create a text overlay using the Photo Text or Photo Description fields.  Photo Descriptions can be more freely placed on the page (anywhere) than Photo Text, but it's easier to access and format the date field if you use Photo Text (Photo Description can only use filename, title, caption, or manually entered text - so you have another exercise to get the date into one of those fields).  If you only want one date on the page, you can manually enter it using page text.

 

Forth, export the page(s) from the Book Module as jpg (which you can reimport to LR for printing) or pdf

 

Finally, print the image (using Print Module if you reimported it - or some other way if you didn't).

 

Note on book size - If you don't see the exact size or aspect ratio in the book options, pick something you can resize or crop when you finally print and stay within the expected crop boundaries.

 

This is probalby a lot more complicated than what you want, but has the advantage that you would only need to set up the Book Module page layout once for any collage layout.  And obviously more practical if you already know how to use the book module!

 

I'm not aware of a more direct way to accomplish this only in LR.

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