P: Retain date and time during JPG export according to exif

[SFsix]

When exporting raw files to JPG all JPG files exported will have the date and time modified to the current date and time the file was actually exported. This can cause issues in programs that rely on the creation date and time instead of the date and time inherent to the exif files (like MacOS Photos!).

Therefore, I suggest Adobe to add a checkbox during JPG export, to retain the date and time according to the information alrady present in the exif files.

Silkypix is already capable of this as show in the attachment below.

Thank you.

[richardplondon]

Your screenshot from Silkypix shows an option to "set Date Taken to file creation date". That is the reverse of falsifying the file creation date, so that it matches the Date Taken. I say "falsifying" because the file creation date for an export, is only accurate when reporting the date and time of export. Let's say you exported some photos on Monday, then you re-exported some of them on Tuesday over the top. It is part of the file creation date's 'job' to distinguish the Monday ones from the Tuesday ones. 

In my experience, photo viewing applications and web gallery systems only report (read, fall back on) the file creation date when they have been DENIED any industry-standard Date Taken metadata within the file.

That would normally be, because Lightroom or LrClassic export settings prevented the inclusion of such metadata. People might choose this, IMO, when they want to minimise file size severely, or else to positively conceal any and all circumstantial facts 'about' the bare photo shown. But it is not the usual practice since the EXIF metadata is generally useful to convey.

So perhaps trial a more generous inclusion of metadata when exporting? (you still do not need to go the whole hog with this). Then see what MacOS Photos, or else the client's web gallery, then makes of these versions.

[SFsix]

It's just a wrong translation in Siklypix. But this checkbox does exactly what I want it to do: Set the modification day of the file to the digitzed date of the exif no matter when I've initited the export process.

I have already tried using different raw converters and manipulating exif information. But MacOS photos just doesn't use any of this information. Apple themselves have suggested to me, to manually change the date and time within Photos 😕 I consider this a bug of Apple Photos, but nonetheless it could be worked around by adding a simple checkbox in LRc just like Silkypix.

[richardplondon]

Modification date, or creation date? This is getting more confusing still.

In a quick web search, it appears MacOS Photos may be looking for the EXIF DateTimeOriginal field.

I have just inspected one of my own recently exported JPGs, using 'exifdata.com'.

This came from a camera Raw, and referred to the camera's own internal clock for date and time.

The file's metadata reports the original photo capture date in:

Exif IFD - Date Time Original

Exif IFD - Create Date

IPTC - Date Created

IPTC - Digital Creation Date

XMP - Create Date

XMP (photoshop) - Date Created

Composite - DateTime Created

Composite - Digital Creation Date Time 

and it reports the export date in:

IFD0 - Modify Date

XMP - Modify Date

XMP - Metadata Date

File modification date and file creation date report normally for this particular instance of the file, considered as a file and not as a photograph.

[johnrellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

"When exporting raw files to JPG all JPG files exported will have the date and time modified to the current date and time the file was actually exported. This can cause issues in programs that rely on the creation date and time instead of the date and time inherent to the exif files (like MacOS Photos!)."

I think there are multiple issues tangled together here, and from what you've described so far, there isn't any need for LR to set the Date Modified of an exported photo to anything other than "now".

1. If the photo in your catalog has a capture date in its metadata, then LR will include the capture date in the exported photo's metadata (in EXIF:DateTimeOriginal), provided you've set the the Export option Metadata > Include to include the capture date, and Mac Photos and other correctly implemented photo programs will read that capture date.

2. If the photo in your catalog doesn't have a capture date in its metadata, then LR won't include the capture date in the exported photo's metadata.  Many programs will then use the file's Date Modified or Date Created (maintained by the operating system and displayed in File Explorer / Finder) as their notion of capture date.  

3. For photos imported into LR that don't include capture date in their metadata (e.g. scans or photos downloaded from metadata-stripping web services), you can set their capture date to the imported file's Date Modified or Date Created using the menu command Metadata > Edit Capture Time.  You can do this for an entire batch of photos at once:

1. In the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser, select the Date column, and in the Date column, select Unknown:

2. Select all the displayed photos and do Metadata > Edit Capture Time. Select Adjust To Specified Date And Time and click Change if you want to "freeze" the photos' capture time to their current file date-modified times. Sometimes, even though the date-modified times have been changed, the files' date-created times are still what's desired -- in that case, select Change To File's Creation Date instead.

But in either case, note that each file will be adjusted either to its individual file date-modified or file date-created -- the files will not, repeat NOT, all be adjusted to the same date.

[Greg34328544prlu]

Please put in a fix that Lightroom keeps the edited date as the original time and date the picture was taken. 

[Lumigraphics]

This is not a fix.

If you read the other posts, there are numerous places in a file metadata where date info is stored, plus info stored in the computer filesystem.

Any app must read the correct metadata. Filesystem dates have to be accurate or backup programs won't work correctly (imagine exporting an image on Monday, making edits on Tuesday and exporting an updated version, but the file date and time remain the same. That updated image wouldn't be backed up.)

[Gerold36869085b4v8]

Per default LR classic sets both the JPG file change date and the creation date to the actual date of the export. But I would like that the creation date is set to the picture capture date from the matadata. Is there any possibility to change that during the export? It seems there is a possibility to define a metadata preset but I see no possibility how to use it.
I know that this file data change could be done after LR export with e.g. XnViewMP , but I would like to avoid this additional step. Thanks for any hint.

[JohanElzenga]

When you export an image, you create a new file. That means that the file creation date is the export date. The capture date of the image should still be in the metadata of this file, however. Lightroom does not have an option to change this.

[johnrellis]

Others have requested this ability.

You could use the Run Any Command plugin to use the free Exiftool utility to set the file creation date to the capture date.

[johnrellis]

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

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-retain-date-and-time-during-jpg-export-acco...

[J_MacDonald]

Like so many others, I am experiencing this too even though in the past (not sure when it started) it never happened. 
Where it bothers me in in Google Photos.
If I take a photo and upload it to Google Photos it will be analyzed for time of the photos creation, reference my phone's location at that time, and then place my image on a map. 
This is very helpful when doing a search for images taken in a specific place.
Also, for ME as a photographer, the importance of the images creation (taken) date and time is more important than when I sat down at my computer to edit it.

[Lumigraphics]

You do understand that image creation date in the metadata and file creation date in the computer filesystem are NOT the same thing? And that there are in fact multiple dates stored in the metadata?