photo files with date taken not date modified

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We are a two camera household who wants to have a single photo collection to show off via slide shows etc.

Our problem is that when we combine the two sets of images (say from a trip) and want to sort them so that they are in the order taken (which should be the Date Taken property) we can only achieve that effect if none of the images have been manipulated (which will give the Date Modified). Just rotating an image will mark it as modified and put the image out of order.

How can we preserve the Date Taken property?

Johanna

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If you view your files in Detail View, then right click on the column headings, you get a list of File Attributes that can be displayed.
Choose More.. from the list, and a Dialog box opens with even more attributes you can use. One of these is “Date Picture Taken.”

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Thank you John,

I was hoping that it would be easy.

Johanna

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So the plot thickens … and we find out what the question was really about. It concerns Thumbs Plus – a Irfanview type program that comes with a small pricetag.

And a search of their site says:
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.[how do I]..keep the creation date of a file from changing when I make changes to the file?

The modified and the creation date will both change if the file itself is changed and saved. If the file is copied, it will only change the created date, leaving the modified date intact. If the file is moved, neither date changes. These are Windows functions. Most people tend to ignore the created date altogether and just use the modified and accessed dates for reference.

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It seems to me that there must be more people in this situation. Surely other people manipulate their images after taking the shots – from simple cropping to complex photoshopping – but still want to sort thier images by date taken?

That quote seems like a cop out to me. I’m off to investigate Irfanview to see what it can do better for me (and my questioner, Mr Johbot)

Johanna

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I use IrfanView (and others) for manipulating photos after I have taken them.

IrfanView does not (seem) to change the Date Taken.

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And just to give you a bit more fuel for the furnace, I just did a small test with Paint Shop Pro AND FastStone Image Viewer (see attached) and neither program changes the date taken.

( FastStone Image Viewer ) ( )

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Digital photograph files contain metadata called EXIF data. Included in that camera data are the date and time the photo was taken. Most photo handling programs give you access to that data. If your programs do not you can use something like EXIFPRO to view the information. Some image manipulation programs provide the ability to excise that information from photo files and it is probably a good practice to not do that because you never know when it might be needed. Although it is ugly and hard to read you can also set your camera to write the file name as the date and then when your slide show is edited and ready you can change them to descriptive or sequential names.

Paul

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Johanna

From what I gather, you’d like to 1) manipulate the photo files without changing the creation date on the file stamp OR 2) be able to set/ restore the file creation date to the EXIF “Date Taken” (DateTimeOriginal)?

Scenario 1) I’m not too sure of, since I think it will depend on how the file is treated by the program and/ or Windows. For 2) I don’t know of an existing tool for this, but it might be possible to write a script to do this on a per file or per folder basis. (Interested?)

I have heard that XnView is better than Irfanview for photo processing and thumbs generation, as well as its capabilities with EXIF data. You might want to investigate.

I’m guessing you’re after 2) above.

Alan

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I think I’ve come up with an answer…

o Download the file jhead.exe (106KB)
o Download the attached zip file and extract the .VBS file to the same folder as jhead.exe (the desktop might be easiest for both)
o Drag & drop a folder containing your desecrated JPGs onto the fixdatetime.vbs icon

All the JPG files in the folder (including those in all levels of subdirectories) will be processed. If an EXIF datetime for when the photo was taken exists, the system datetime stamp for the file will be set equal to this “original” value. The whole process can be repeated as needed.

It works at my end, but as always with something new, try it on an expendable copy of a photo folder first, to make sure it doesn’t blow up.

Alan

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Hi Alan,

I really do appreciate your research in this one. I have downloaded XnView and installed that. It is what I want.

It looks and feels like an updated vesion of Thumbs Plus and it appears to have similar functionality. AND it will allow a sort on XIFF information.

So thankyou very much for that find.

(Now comes the hard part – to convince Mr Johbot that the move is a good thing. He doesn’t like change … but then he doesn’t like things not doing what he wants them to do … kind of like being between a rock and a hard place)

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Glad you found your graille. XnView is a well regarded and very capable program. Also, as mentioned by BigAl, FastStone Image Viewer – Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter is also probably a good candidate for your needs.

Alan

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Certain among us have film images with no dates. If digitized by a commercial processor they will usually include the date digitized, and if that was done shortly after the shots were taken then it is a ball park figure for the last possible shot on the film.

Consider yourselves lucky.

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