Lightroom and capture date

[Angiea1114]

I’m not properly versed in all the techy details and I did try a search but I’m getting overwhelmed.

i just started using Lightroom as an organization for YEARS of pictures. We transferred folders from my husband‘s laptop , to my Dropbox and then I downloaded them from dropbox to an EHD connected to my computer.

I set up Smart collections by weeks and I ASSUMED the creation date of the photo would remain as it was and now I see it has changed the creation date to the day we Transferred the photos from his computer to my computer via the method described above. Why is this happening and more important, can I ( and How) do I stop it from  doing this??? Otherwise this program is useless in this manner for me.  What am I doing wrong?

[ManiacJoe]

Mac or Windows? Which version?

In the menu /help/system-info, what is the exact version of Lightroom you are using?

[johnrellis]

Are these photos older, or have they been processed with other photo software?  If they are missing the capture date in the industry-standard metadata, then it is very possible that the mere act of copying them from one computer to another is changing what you call the "creation date", and that the problem is unrelated to LR.

To build on ManiacJoe, here's the complete list of questions:

1. Which version of LR (do Help > System Info).

2. Which version of Mac/Windows on the LR computer.

3. Which version of Mac/Windows on your husband's laptop.

4. How were the photos copied from one to the other.

5. Are the victim photos older (e.g. scans) and/or have they been processed with other photo software in the past?

With these answers, we can proceed to the next step.  There is most likely a workaround, but it will take attention to detail and multiple steps. 

[Just Shoot Me]

Where exactly are you seeing this date?

Is it in LR or in the File manager program for the OS you mar using?

In LR in the Library module look in the right hand panel in the Metadata section for "Date Time Original", "Date Time Digitized" and "Date Time" sections.

Like this.

If you are using the OS File Manager program it will show you the Date and Time the Files were copied to the hard drive. Not the Capture date and time the image was taken.

This is normal behavior for the File Manager program for your OS.

[Rob_Perrin]

First, I'm amazed exporting from LR doesn't currently have this as an option...easy to do. 

I submitted a request to Adobe to add it...we'll see if it ever happens.

There's obviously a need, otherwise the below programs wouldn't have been created.

Use one of the below programs to change the "File Modified" date/time back to the "Capture Date/Time" that's in your EXIF data.

The top 2 have previews to show the changes before you actually make the changes, which is nice.

They are all extremely affordable, from Free to $15 to $30.

For me, this is important due to needing the Modified date/time to remain original so I can import the images with their associated scanned data date/time group.  Current project 1800 images.

https://www.advancedrenamer.com/

https://www.infonautics-software.ch/dateidatumkorrigieren/

https://www.relliksoftware.com/exifdatechanger/#download

Cheers,

Rob

[johnrellis]

I submitted a request to Adobe to add it

Did you post the feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum, where Adobe wants all such requests?  Lightroom Classic | Photoshop Family Customer Community (I can't find it there.) Providing feedback to individual customer support representatives won't be very effective, since such feedback gets lost in the noise.

[johnrellis]

this is important due to needing the Modified date/time to remain original so I can import the images with their associated scanned data date/time group.

Can you elaborate on this? When LR imports photos missing capture date (e.g. scans), it uses the files' last-modified dates as the capture dates to be recorded in the catalog. Then when you export such photos, they will have those capture dates written in the industry-standard EXIF metadata field that all other metadata-aware programs recognize.

Is this not working for you?

[Rob_Perrin]

School Photography/High-Volume

I'm using LR to prep images that I'm going to import into another non-Adobe program, PhotoLynx FLOW, and have it assign the images to a specific Subject based on the Capture Date/Time group combined with Bar Code Scanner Date/Time data.  FLOW does not look at the EXIF Capture Date/Time data (that's another issue), it only looks at the Modified Date/Time group.  (I just realized I'm making an assumption about FLOW, based on a previous experience...so I just emailed PhotoLynx Support to confirm or disprove my assumption.)

However, if LR had the function to export and assign the Capture Date/Time from the EXIF as the Modified Date/Time...this wouldn't be an issue and something others would appreciate as well.

Maybe it's an OS limitation.  But considering there are programs like the ones above that can make the Modified time, the Capture time...I would think LR could do the same.

Thanks for asking.

[johnrellis]

Got it, that makes sense. You could add this detailed use-case to this existing feature request: Lightroom: When exporting jpegs allow the user to set the date time created/modified to the original... (It's curious that a product from a company providing "Software to Automate the Photographic Industry" doesn't read the EXIF capture date.)

Another workaround is to use the free ExifTool utility to set the file modified dates from the EXIF capture dates. ExifTool is the most authoritative and reliable tool for manipulating metadata, though it has a steep learning curve.  See this thread for an example: Set the file modification and creation date from EXIF info

You could use the Run Any Command plugin to run ExifTool over a batch at the end of an export.  (ExifTool can process roughly 10 photos per second.)

[Rob_Perrin]

I just found out FLOW DOES read the EXIF Data...so my initial assumption was incorrect...so I'm glad I realized I was making that assumption.  So for me...."needing" the Modified Date to be the Capture Date, no longer exists. Sigh.... : )

[johnrellis]

Glad you got it sorted out. It's often not easy figuring out how metadata flows between different apps that each takes a somewhat different approach.

[Rob_Perrin]

I made the assumption due to another issue, where Tech Support from my Lab mentioned the Date/Time group that was showing in my browser.  So that added to my assumption.

A totally weird anomaly with FLOW when importing images and corresponding data...is it looks at the first Image File listed (Alpha-Numerically) in the Import Folder...so if you have camera Roll-Over (which was my issue) and keep the file names, then the "first" file name it reads is *_0001, which doesn't make any sense at all.  One would think it would start with the EXIF data in the first place.  Once we added an 'A_' prefix to the true first captured image, it worked like a champ.  I'm getting too old for this.....   ; )

[cinemarob]

I am on a Mac so none of these programs will run on my local machine.

However, on photo.stackexchange.com I found some similar discussion here:

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/27245/is-there-a-free-program-to-batch-change-photo-files-...

There is a command-line tool called jhead which can be used to batch edit file modified dates to match photo exif creation date.

[Lumigraphics]

If you make any file system changes, those are reflected in the date modified. Its actually a bad idea to reset file system modified date if you use backup software as it will cause havoc with those backups. That's one reason there are multiple date fields.