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e.j.v92227290
e.j.v92227290
Participating Frequently
February 20, 2022
Question

Auto change 'date taken' without impacting edit history

  • February 20, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 2085 views

I have a collection with also many older family pictures (dating as far back as around 1900). Obviously, these were originally scanned and imported into my LR Catalog as TIF files.

I have alread renamed the files, using a syntax with the following template (I do that for all my photos/pictures): YYYY MM DD - HHMMSS (with options _## appended).

Obviously, I don't always know when a picture of e.g. a grand - grand parent was taken, so sometimes names look like 1901 _01.TIFF or 1952 01 _06.TIFF.

I edited / improved the files in LR over time.

Now I'd really like to use a filer and e.g. show all pictures that were taken in 1936. Problem is that "Picture Taken" metadata reflects the date the picture was scanned.

I'd like to change that, and that is possible external to LR but that resets the edit history (and I do NOT want that).

Is it possible (e.g. internall with a plug-in or maybe using 'standard functionality' - I'm new and come from LR6, now using the latest LRC) to change this somehow without impacting edit history? Most brilliant would be if the date could be automatically read from my filename somehow.

Any suggestion would be very much appreciated.

 

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2 replies

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
February 20, 2022

"if the date could be automatically read from my filename somehow."

 

I don't know of a plugin that could do this. But if you're technically adept with command-line scripting, you could do this using the free Exiftool utility.   

e.j.v92227290
e.j.v92227290Author
Participating Frequently
February 21, 2022

There is a plug-in actually (from John Beardsworth, called "Capture Time to Exif") but when I played with that maybe a year ago (when I was still using LR6) it appeared that as this method also changes the file from the 'outside' (with Exiftool). LR will flag this and opt to either import the outside metadata change (which destroys my edit info - and that is not what I want) or discard the external info and keep the existing LR metadata (which discards the external date change).

Somehow, the change should be made from unside LR. There's tools like "Search Replace Transfer" (from the same author as mentioned above) that show this is possible but I have yet to find the real solution.

Which amazes me a bit as I'm guessing more LR users work with many scanned and therefore older photos. Wouldn't it be nice than if one could search and filter in LR to e.g. should pictures taken in a certain data-range?

I know: next time I should change that 'date taken' field BEFORE importing into LR... but it's too late now.

e.j.v92227290
e.j.v92227290Author
Participating Frequently
February 23, 2022

You could use VBA to read the full file paths of all the files, extract the date/times from the file names, and then generate a .bat file containing the Exiftool commands that will change the capture date inside the photos' EXIF. Before executing the .bat file, you make sure all the affected photos have had their metadata saved to disk, then you run the .bat file, then you select all the photos and do Read Metadata From File. (And of course, you've got backups of your catalog and photos!)

 

The easiest way to get the format of the Exiftool command is to use Capture Time To Exif:

(This is a Mac screenshot, though the Windows will be similar.)

 

I recommend omitting the "-overwrite_original_in_place" option, at least until you're confident that your scripting is working. (Normally, Exiftool makes a backup copy of each file it modifies.) 

 


I did some quick tests and I can confirm that this seems to work. Will build the Excel code that will process my files and then create a batch command file to first change one folder and then change (correct) all files.

It might take a while but I'll try to remember to report back here. Thanks for the tips & help from all!

 

PS. I will test this but how far can I set the date back in time? I have photos dating back to 1863 

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2022

Lightroom has a built-in option to change the capture date/time. It's under the 'Metadata' menu in the Library module. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/change-exif-dates/

-- Johan W. Elzenga
e.j.v92227290
e.j.v92227290Author
Participating Frequently
February 21, 2022

On the built-in option, yes, I'm aware of that and I apologize for not indicating this more clearly but that's not a solution as I need to set dates for thousands of files and I don't want to to that manually for all obviously. 

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