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in my library many old pictures are displayed with the wrong date

Explorer ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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on the disc each image has two dates.

1) date picture was taken

2) date picture was stored on disc

for images scanned in from slides or negatives the date stored on disc is recorded in Lightroom as the date the picture was taken.

that implies that, when displaying images sorted on date picture was taken the complete view is a mess.

does anyone has a solution for this ?

in view of the number of images manually correcting the date is no option

thanks in advance

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

If you had uploaded a sample photo to Dropbox or similar, we could have saved you many hours of work.

As you've discovered, PSE allows capture date/times with unknown (unspecified) seconds, minutes, hours, days, or months, but LR does not. The industry standards are ambiguous about unknown date/time fields (details upon request), and most programs don't implement them.  Further, at least as of version 8, PSE had many bugs with unknown fields (and knowing Adobe, I very much doubt they ever fixed t

...

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Community Expert ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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Lr uses the metadata that has been stored with the picture. If the create date is wrong, you can change that in Metadata->Edit Capture Time...

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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Explorer ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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the sheer fact that windows only allows correct dates to be stored in date fields means that a date correctly specified in Elements as e.g. 1943 with month, date and time unknown is recorded in the image as 1-1-1943 00:00. i.e. incorrect information but in a correct format.

so, importing the image into Lightroom provides incorrect information anyway.

i am very disappointed that Lightroom itself does not offer similar functionality to Elements by allowing the user to change 1-1-1943 00:00 into 1943 only and use that info for sequencing etc. .

apparently, in importing images from windows files, Lightroom starts making its own assumptions if it encounters problems with such dates. but than using a different date like the file creation or change dates makes things a lot worse because that information is even more wrong.

and importing via the function "importing the elements catalogue" does not copy information stored in the catalogue but changes it to incorrect information based on a assumption. why doesn't Lightroom enable correct information to be specified by the user.  Surely you will agree that pictures belonging to e.g. relatives that have passed away long time ago should still be included in Lightroom with correct information and sequencing ?  i now have pictures from e.g. 1918 showing up between images of this century.

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LEGEND ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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on the disc each image has two dates.

1) date picture was taken

2) date picture was stored on disc

for images scanned in from slides or negatives the date stored on disc is recorded in Lightroom as the date the picture was taken.

To build on Abambo's reply: For the capture date shown in LR, LR normally uses the EXIF metadata capture date stored in the photo.  If it can't find a capture date in the metadata, it uses the file's Date Modified, the date/time that Windows or OS X last modified the file.

Since it appears that LR is using the file's Date Modified, that suggests the scans don't contain any capture date in their EXIF metadata. Do you think the scans do contain a capture date in the EXIF metadata but that LR isn't read it for some reason?  (You would have had to set such a date using some other software.)  If so, upload one of those files to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here, and we can take a look at why LR isn't finding the EXIF capture date.

If you haven't stored a capture date in the file, then as Abambo indicated, you'll have to use the menu command Metatata > Edit Capture Time to set it.

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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to avoid any misunderstanding.

i am in the process of changing over from Elements to Lightroom.

so with Elements the date the picture was taken is included in the scanned files and in Element the date is reflected properly.

i mentioned the scanning because it only happens with those images, so far with digital images no problems.

i have included, for one picture:

. a screen copy of Elements showing the correct date in the bottom left

. a screen copy of Lightroom showing the creation date on disc top left and bottom right with the meta-data

. property displays of windows of the image on disc.

Although the language is in Dutch I think you can follow this easily

("genomen op" meaning date recorded and "gemaakt op/gewijzigd op"  meaning created/changed")

I hope this clarifies the point i was trying to make i.e. Lightroom is (but not in all circumstances) taking the wrong dateelements-details.JPGlibrary-details.JPGproperties-details.JPGproperties-general.JPG

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LEGEND ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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How can the date the image was take be displayed properly on a SCANNED image from a slide or negative. To my knowledge no film camera recorded the date of capture in a digital format that, again to my knowledge, could be read with any scanner on the market and then recorded into the EXIF of the digital file of that slide or negative.

So if the Date of capture is displayed properly in PS Elements then you the user must of set that for all those images.

Why haven't you imported your Elements catalog into the LR catalog?

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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of course the dates now present in the scanned images were set by me via Elements date assignment function.

as explained i only mentioned the scanning because those images scanned are effected, not the digitally recorded ones. 

As to importing from elements i have done that for multiple catalogs. but also there the dates are not included properly

But converting collections to new software just doesn't always fit a one tot one pattern.

and for this library i just had to fill it step by step from mulitple discfiles. 

and that should work as well isn't it ?

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LEGEND ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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As to importing from elements i have done that for multiple catalogs.

When you imported the photos into LR, did you use the command File > Import a Photoshop Elements Catalog, or did you do File > Import? 

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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i used File > Import a Photoshop Elements Catalog.

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Explorer ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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changing the date does work, even when selecting multiple images.

but there seems to be a pre-condition that all images to be changed are stored with of equal date and time.

otherwise the ones with a different date/time stamp are assigned totally unpredictable date/time stamps.

the reason why this is done is unclear to me but is very unhandy

also images with the same date/time as not always assigned the new date/time specified.

hours/minutes and seconds are sometimes assigned values where zeroes were specified.

in itself it is disturbing because of the inaccuracy in introduces.

buit if i now select a group of say 40 images for a certain date with the intention to change them more specific later on if  have to change them one by one because of the pre-condition mentioned earlier

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LEGEND ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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Changing the date does work, even when selecting multiple images. But there seems to be a pre-condition that all images to be changed are stored with of equal date and time. Otherwise the ones with a different date/time stamp are assigned totally unpredictable date/time stamps.

The command Metadata > Edit Capture Time confuses many people.  When you select multiple photos, it says:

So if you enter a date that adjusts the first photo by, say, +5 years, all the other photos will be adjusted by +5 years.

If you want to set a selection of photos all to the same date/time, you need the Capture Time To Exif plugin.

You could also add your me-too vote and detailed opinion to this long-standing feature request for adding a fourth option to Edit Capture Time to set all the selected photos to the same date/time (as PSE offers): Lightroom: Edit Capture Time issue - Need a way to set all photos selected to same date & time | Pho... . But in my opinion, it's unlikely Adobe will ever act on this feature request -- it's useful mainly for users with catalogs of scans, whereas Adobe has long said LR is intended for images from digital cameras (where the clock may be wrong but is still incrementing each photo's date).  That is, Adobe has never intended LR to be a general-purpose digital asset manager (DAM), though many of us use it as one.

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LEGEND ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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When I converted from Photoshop Elements 8 to LR 3, I had many problems with metadata, including metadata dates.  I had lots of scans, but I don't recall if the problems were specific to them. 

Again, I think the most expeditious way to resolve this issue is to upload a sample photo showing the problem to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here.  We can examine the photo's metadata in detail, see what might be going wrong, and suggest workarounds.

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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i am not familiar with Dropbox and cannot just link the image to this reply.

so, i have taken the liberty to attach the image to a reply i just sent off tot the e-mail i received from Adobe.

this replay may not reach you but do you know an alternative email address ?

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Community Expert ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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Attachements ae not allowed for the forums. You need to provide a link to a cloud service. Dropbox is quite heavily used, but other systems are available too. (I've read your previous post that you are not familiar with dropbox).

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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LEGEND ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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Just a guess here as I've never used Element. Maybe Elements doesn't write the date change to the image file itself, and or you have to issue a command to make it do that, and the date changes are only written to the Elements catalog file.

In LR collections are not the same as the catalog. So I'm not sure what you mean with the statement,

QUOTE:

"But converting collections to new software just doesn't always fit a one tot one pattern."

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Explorer ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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Ls,

Van: Just Shoot Me

Verzonden: vrijdag 22 september 2017 23:47

Aan: Herman van der Ent <vanderenth@hetnet.nl>

Onderwerp: in my library many old pictures are displayed with the wrong date

in my library many old pictures are displayed with the wrong date

created by Just Shoot Me <https://forums.adobe.com/people/JustShootMe> in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussion <https://forums.adobe.com/message/9843513#9843513>

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Explorer ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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what i meant to say is that what i now include in a new Lightroom catalogue does not necessarily currently also exist in Elements

this is a new "album" if you like.

so i cannot import it from elsewhere. i have to use images stored in files the create it. 

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Explorer ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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i have spent most of the day correcting date/time stamps in one Lightroom catalogue. .

i did this by making equal selections in Lightroom and Elements to obtain the correct dates/times.

It turns out that all incorrect items in Lightroom were originally pecified in Elements without a month, day or time.

so, somewhere in the properties of the image on the disc a correct date is visible but Lightroom knows the contents are not valid.

I just wonder how ?

So, where I suspected a software error it appears to be a design choice that i have serious doubts about.

Lightroom should not present incorrect dates by assumption but simply insert the information it receives (even if not complete) and enable the user the change that in what he knows to be correct.   The fact that a month, day and time are mandatory and valid goes against the library function  where such information from an analogue source  simply is not always available.

It is a pity that the functionality of Elements is not included in Lightroom.

I just hope Adobe does not just say "So be it"

I now need to look at my other catalogues how best to change them as well

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LEGEND ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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If you had uploaded a sample photo to Dropbox or similar, we could have saved you many hours of work.

As you've discovered, PSE allows capture date/times with unknown (unspecified) seconds, minutes, hours, days, or months, but LR does not. The industry standards are ambiguous about unknown date/time fields (details upon request), and most programs don't implement them.  Further, at least as of version 8, PSE had many bugs with unknown fields (and knowing Adobe, I very much doubt they ever fixed these bugs).   LR gets confused by them.   Windows File Explorer also doesn't follow the industry standards.

A few people have long requested that LR implement unknown date/time fields -- see this feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum: Lightroom ignores partial dates imported from Elements | Photoshop Family Customer Community  . You could add your me-too vote and detailed opinion to that feature request, but given how old it is and the ambiguous industry standards, I doubt that Adobe will pay much attention.  We could at least hope that LR did a better job of converting PSE catalogs containing dates with unknown fields, but again Adobe has shown little interest in fixing the numerous problems with PSE catalog conversion.

I use the convention that an unknown time is represented as "00:00:00", an unknown day as "1", and an unknown month as "1". So if you just knew the year, it would be represented as "1943:01:01 00:00:00".   Another person has mentioned he uses a similar convention but also adds a special keyword indicating the date has unknown fields.  This approach has obvious ambiguities, but it's better than nothing.

You could use the free ExifTool to find all photos with unknown date/time fields and then fill them in with 0, but ExifTool has a steep learning curve, so unless you're very experienced with scripting command-line tools, I recommend against trying it.

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Explorer ,
Sep 24, 2017 Sep 24, 2017

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in my opinion (as a former application developer) your should never present the user with incorrect information or allow him to import this.

So, in importing from a file or from an Elements catalogue Adobe should either reject entering the picture or flag is as incorrect.

But from a functional point of view , Lightroom simply lacks functionality.

As to dropbox, the time i spent was used for repairing the catalog. that time would have been required anyway

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Explorer ,
May 07, 2021 May 07, 2021

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And four years later I discovered, painfully, that this is still a problem.   I tried importing from PSE to Lightroom and saw that many of my photos now had the date of import rather than the date taken.   I think these were only my photos that had partial dates (as described above).   But even worse, I discovered that not only did Lightroom assign an incorrect date to the photos with partial dates, but IT ALSO CHANGED THE DATES IN MY PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS CATALOG TO THE SAME INCORRECT DATE!  I've never heard of an import program modifying the source of the import.  Unbelievable, Adobe!  Where did your programmers learn their trade?   Fortunately for me I had a current PSE backup and could restore my catalog.

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