Sorting Photos on Export - Help!

[DouglasSC]

Hi folks.

I imported photos from both my camera and smartphone and sorted them by the Date/Time they were taken. In Lightroom Classic they were then displayed in the correct order. When I go to the Web option again they are displayed in the correct order in the Classic Gallery that I selected. I tick for all Meta data to be exported but when I do the actual export this information is not utilised and they appear in my folder (on an Apple Mac) sorted by file name and grouped in the chunk from my phone and the others from my camera with no way to sort by the time captured as Lightroom overwrites all the data to show that they have just been created at the time of Export.

How can I stop this happening and get them exported in the correct order I require of actual capture time?

Thank you.

Douglas

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

This is perfectly normal. A camera original file's photo capture date and file creation date naturally start out the same (camera Raw, camera JPG), but that does not apply for other file versions which are later derived from the same photo.

The date / time an export was created / modified are accurately stated when you view the file properties, because those have only to do with the individual life history of that file. Factually, it DID come into existence only when the photo involved was exported from LR. That has nothing to do with any picture metadata also involved (such as the known date that the photo was taken, or the camera info, etc). Such picture metadata is independently recorded within the exported image and gets automatically picked up in various contexts.

For example, your OS (Mac or Windows) offers some sort of a Photos gallery app. This has the option to group and sort photos by when they were taken and does this automatically, using the embedded metadata, regardless of on what accidental date they were variously exported from LR, or otherwise modified, as shown in their file properties.

Or if you upload (say) to online picture hosting, it's relevant info about the photo and the camera which gets extracted and shown; not technicalities about the file.

Also your OS file browser can be set to show the Date Taken for picture files, as well as various other metadata. Or you can use some sort of picture viewer utility which prioritises that sort of info.

That said, it is convenient for exported files to sort chronologically by capture (not by export) and regardless of which camera they were taken with, across all contexts. One easy way to achieve this is to prefix the filenames of all exported files, with their capture dates in standard form. This can be set up via the Lightroom Export dialog and the renaming options dialog. My own exports from LR are in the form "20171030-[camerafilename].jpg" where the YYYYMMDD format sorts correctly and tells me instantly for any photo export, on what day it was shot. And the format of the [camerafilename] is distinctive of which camera was used; and the camera's image numbering that is embedded within that, makes sure the reference is unique.

[DouglasSC]

Thanks very much for that tip! I had generally just used the straightforward Export down at the bottom right of Lightroom and it created a Gallery with reduced size images perfect for Facebook.  I just let them export at full size to see how the sort worked and it was almost perfect so i will use your suggestion from now on where I use mixed cameras.

Thanks again!

Douglas