P: Edit Capture Time issue - Need a way to set all photos selected to same date & time

[Skidoo100]

Edit Capture Time issue - When I select a number of photos and use "Adjust to a specified date and time", rather than all having the specified date & time they are changed but have different dates & time around what was specified. Have not determined pattern, maybe offset from original date.Windows 7 SP1 64bit, Lightroom 5.2

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[SLOPhotographer]

I just scanned 7000 of my father's slides dated from 1950 to 1977. The creation date in the file is the date of the scan. He has the actual dates on every slide and I've been changing them to that date using Metadata>Edit Capture Time>Adjust to a Specified Date and Time where I enter, for example, 11/1/1964.

I typically change a number of photos selected at one time and sometimes it works and I see the new date in the right column in Library as Capture Date. But somewhat randomly, it will change all but the last few photos to the correct date and the remaining ones are a date in the far past, near past or future (e.g. 6/2/1908 or 5/1/1964 or 3/21/2021--all examples I've seen today while trying to get 11/1/1964). It does always seem to work correctly if I only change one photo at a time--but lack of a negative isn't a proof that it does always work for one at a time, especially since I nearly always do multiples.

This is costing me lots of time and frustration with so many slides to change. Help please.

Lightroom Classic 10.1 Camera Raw 13.1 on Dell XPS13 laptop with Win10 latest release

[tmickow]

You may be tripping over a common misunderstanding of what that function does.  Adjust to a Specified Date and Time will change all the selected images by the same amount.  It does not change them all to the same exact date/time.  See this post - 

Lightroom Classic: Edit Capture Time issue - Need a way to set all photos selected to same date & ti...

[SLOPhotographer]

Thanks, that must be it. But they really need a way to change a selected group to the same Date, as the old 7 year ago post you give says. Not too fast acting on this...[that's a hint, Adobe]

I'll try the plugin referenced in that post. Really appreciate your answer--many thanks.

[Dick Kain]

Another factor that might be affecting your experience concerns whether you selected the set of files from the grid view or from the filmstrip. If they are selected from the filmstrip, only one of them will  be affected - and that seems to be true for all kinds of actions, such as pasting settings.

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[johnrellis]

As a workaround, see the Capture Time To Exif plugin.

[jerrygib56]

Sorting by "date taken" is the most common sort sequence for most viewing programs.  LR Metadata - edit Capture time uses something of a relative change process that often ends up with wild unmeaningful dates.  That works great to sync various camera's used during a single shoot.  But for scanned pics, or many other intermediate sources of pics (like Shutterfly) that date is changed to the "date captured"  (date processed by that scanner or intermediate program).  Example, to merge a number of pics from an event like a family birthday or wedding taken by multiple family members.  I know the real date and want a way to force the date that I specify to change uniformly as I enter it across the entire batch.  I may want to set the correct date first, then guess at the relative time to make the sequence seem logical.  (Walk down the aisle comes before the I do and kiss).  Having pics from one good modern camera is a big aid as a master source, but for many family event pics received from multiple sources, all you have are the date a scans of old prints was made, or the date accepted into an intermediate system like Shutterfly.  I have had ten plus different dates for the same event, some years apart.  Let me force the date to what I know to be valid for an entire selected batch.

Perhaps two selection buttons - "Relative Change" and "Specified Change."

[COBill]

I like this but for a different reason. I use Google Albums for sharing my photos and Google sorts buy one of the dates in the images (not sure which one). So I'd like this option as well or if someone can suggest a separate program for batch changing these dates to a starting data plus time increment. 

[jerrygib56]

There are many external to Adobe photo programs that many of us use to share photos.  Most all of them would benefit from this batch date idea.  My 37 grandkids cannot afford to all buy and learn LR.  I do that for them then export to share.

[johnrellis]

As a workaround, see the Capture Time To Exif plugin.

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[MH_Schaumburg_IL]

LR Classic 10.4

MacOS

Images on QNAP Network Accessible Storage.  LR catalog on iMac computer.

From GRID VIEW with sort via Capture Time, select multiple TIFF images, mouse click on Correct Time MM and then change it, use keyboard arrow key to move right to the DD and then change it, use keyboard arrow key to move to the right to the YYYY and then change it, use keyboard arrow key to move right to the HH or  AM/PM and change the item(s), click Change All.  

Two bugs:  if you do not type quickly in the YYYY field, to enter the 4-digits, the field will only display one or sometimes two characters; you assume it took all 4-digits but when you later check the YYYY in the metadata panel, you see the error.   Second bug:  not all of the multiple selected images get changed to what you had entered; sometimes the month or day is incorrect; the bug may be caused by changing the HH or AM/PM; or the bug is caused by clicking on the up or down little arrow of the AM/PM, or the bug is something different; I have never changed the Minutes or Seconds; I have always changed the MM, DD, YYYY.

[GoldingD]

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/change-exif-dates/

[johnrellis]

Re typing the year too slowly, there was a bug report filed two years ago that didn't get copied from the old forum to the new one:

https://feedback-readonly.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-year-field-in-edit...

It appears this is a Mac OS defect. For example, when I type a year into the app Better Finder Attributes 5, it has the same problem with typing slowly.

[johnrellis]

"not all of the multiple selected images get changed to what you had entered"

When multiple photos are selected, Edit Capture Time > Adjust To A Specified Date And Time doesn't set all of the photos to have the same date/time. Rather, it shifts the date/times of the other photos by the amount the most selected photo was shifted:

LR provides no way to set a batch of photos to have the same date/time. As referenced in the article linked by GoldingD, you'll have to use the Capture Time To Exif plugin to do that.

[MH_Schaumburg_IL]

Thank you GoldingD and johnrellis.  I have about 5000 scanned negative & slide images (range of years is 1940s to 2010) that I need to change the capture times.  Some of the images were captured in the same day and approximately the same time, and I would select those images and make the change to all (some of the scans for the same date & time images were done on the scanner many months apart).  It now appears I need to do each individual picture.  That's a huge amount of time to do changes.  I wish Adobe would create a better solution to modify the capture times for multiple images. 

[johnrellis]

The Capture Time To Exif plugin is widely used and gets the job done.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography , please merge with the existing feature request:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/lightroom-classic-edit-capture-time-issue-nee...

[Geordie Jasper]

Background

• I am scanning thousands of slides and negatives into Lightroom
• I have details of many images recorded
• I am manually applying Data/Time capture metadata to groups of images in Lightroom: the Time is unknown so I use 00:00:00

Problem

• When I make a bulk metadata adjustment to Date/Time the date is OK but the time is incremented by the time difference of the scanned image.
• I currently amend each photo individually, which is not really a practical solution

Solution sought

• I want to apply a specified Date/Time to every photo selected
• (Dealing with an unknown day or month is a different problem which I'm skipping here - I have read the forum discussions on the topic)
• Is there an appropriate plugin or external application?

Supplementary question

• I  have other metadata recorded, such as camera, lens, exposure, etc.  How do I record these in Lightroom?

[JohanElzenga]

Use a plugin like Capture Time to Exif. http://lightroomsolutions.com/plug-ins/capture-time-to-exif/

[Per Berntsen]

Supplementary question

• I  have other metadata recorded, such as camera, lens, exposure, etc.  How do I record these in Lightroom?

By @Geordie Jasper

Use the LensTagger plugin.

[Lumigraphics]

You can also do bulk operations using EXIFTool.

[Geordie Jasper]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query.  I have followed your advice and installed appropriate plugins.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-edit-capture-time-issue-need-a-way-to-set-a...