Saving Metadata (cmd +S) into the file changed the Capture Date / Time

[evan.sante]

I was wondering if anyone else has seen this behavior?

Before doing a backup of a hard drive, I saved the Metadata (cmd +S) into the files for all of the images in a Catalog... when I did this, it changed the Capture Date / Time to Todays date on 30% of the images.

So I now have 5,000 images all saying that they were taken on April 6, 2023? Has anyone else seen this or know what might have caused this??

There is a post on the indesign group https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/captions-using-metadata-from-lightroom-quot-capt...  that sayes that it's because there was no capture date in the file the problem with that is that the imeges were initially imported into Lightrrom by Capture Time and placed into the appropriate folder by Capture time

M2 Mac, Current version of MacOS and Lightroom CC

[Ian Lyons]

Cmd+S normally does not change the capture date of a file captured on a digital camera, although I've seen happen with scanned files. Therefore, it would be helpful if you provided details on format and source of the problem files. Are they Raw, JPEG, TIFF, PSD, and were they scanned or oginally captured on a digital camera?

[evan.sante]

All Captured using a digital camera... The files were converted to DNG on import / JPG were left as JPG Files. It's a clients catalogue so I can’t be specific about the camera model.

But as I indicated the initial import process was to import into a Subfolder / Organized by Date

[Ian Lyons]

Creating a DNG generates a new file 'Creation Date', but should leave the Capture Date as the original.

Please provide a screenshot of Ligtroom 'EXIF and IPTC' metadata panel (see attached scresenshot) showing the date and time. A screenshot of the 'Default' metadata panel would also be useful.

[evan.sante]

Unfortunately that’s the issue… The file imported properly but after saving the Metadate into the file the Capture Date was changed… I noticed the problem when I tried to do a filter by Date, which showed the Metadate Saved Date and not the Capture Date…

[Ian Lyons]

The metadata saved date is not the same as the 'Capture Date', and it should always reflect the date/time on which the metadata was last updated (i.ee when you used Cmd+S).

[evan.sante]

I’m not describing this properly hopefully this makes mor sense… The images was taken on 03-04-2015 it’s NOW 04/05/2023 (This is the date when I saved the Metadate into to file).

Metadata Panel

Should be:

Date Time Original = 03/04/2015

Date Time Digitized = 03/04/2015

It now is:

Date Time Original = 04/05/2023 (This is the date the Metadata was saved into the file)

Date Time Digitized = 04/05/2023  

When I Library / Filter / Metadata / Date it returns the file as being shot on 04/05/2023

[johnrellis]

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These symptoms occur with photos missing the metadata field EXIF:DateTimeOriginal (the industry standard field for recording capture date).  For such photos, LR uses the file's last-modified time for its notion of capture date. But when the last-modified time changes, such as when you do Metadata > Save Metadata To File, LR immediately updates its notion of capture date with the new last-modified time.

Adobe considers this behavior "as designed". There are other bugs in LR's handling of photos missing EXIF:DateTimeOriginal, but this is the strangest.

You can tell if a photo is missing EXIF:DateTimeOriginal by looking at the Metadata panel's EXIF tagset:

The workaround is straightforward: Select the affected photos, do Metadata > Edit Capture Time, and immediately click Change All.  This does not, repeat not, REPEAT NOT, change all the photos to the same date. Rather, it sets each photo's EXIF:DateTimeOriginal field to have the capture date that's currently displayed in the Metadata > Default > Capture Date/Time field.   It's harmless to do this on photos that already have a value in EXIF:DateTimeOriginal.

For the photos whose last-modified times have been changed by Metadata > Save Metadata To File, you'll have to either recover previous versions from backup, change them manually using Metadata > Edit Capture Time, or use the Exiftool utility to see which file and metadata dates might still be useable, if any.