Batch Time adjustment

[wgimblet]

Is there a way to adjust the 'Date time original', 'Date Time Digitized' and 'Date Content Created' for a large group of photos?
I have a set of photos from a different camera where the clock was different.
I am now trying to combine these photos with another set taken from another camera with a different time setting.

I am batch renaming photos based on date and time and would like them all to reflect the true time they were taken which will help with ordering the photos correctly.

What I am looking for is a time shift method, as in adjust them all by -1hr:42min for example if that was the error on the clock.

As a separate question, what does the +1:00 do next to the current time information, I have adjusted this and it makes no difference to the overall time.

Many thanks in advance.

[andy@damroundup.com]

Funny - I am doing something very similar for a client but each photo needs to be adjusted individually... which leads me to a question about order of operations which may be helpful here as well.

So - I am doing the following:

1 - Highlight an image, go to the Date Time Original field in the Details Pane and click it to bring up the calendar
2 - I choose a different year and then click outside the calendar - I verify that the image shows the correct Year.
3 - If I then go to rename the image, the Old Year is used in the filename and the Date Time Original reverts back to the old date.

Ok - I guess the rename is using the File info that this point and the edit to the image details only affected the catalog.. so, I then:

4 - Perform steps 1-3 above and right click the image and choose Metadata->Save Metadata to File

I check the Image Details and once again see the original date in place (!)

5 - After this, I then try soemething else - I do steps 1-3 above and then choose AutoSync... then do the rename again.. and... the file does not rename but the Details still show the new date.

So - I guess I'm confused... what should be the steps to
a) change info on the details screen, rename a file and ensure that all catalog changes are stored into the actual file..

I have autosync turned on so I would think all data should be written out to he file as soon as I make them to the Details pane? Thx - Andy.

[Hert]

The +01:00 is the timezone

To shift redate you should be able to use the Ctrl+Shift+D shortcut

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hert - I was also wondering about a command to only grab the date portion of Datetimeoriginal... %exif:DateTimeOriginal{length=10} doesn't seem to work - I don't need the time.. just the date portion.

I am creating a video to show the above behavior... not sure if this is a bug so didn't want to report to mantis yet but let me know if it should go there instead of here.

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hi hert - here is the video showing this behavior... you'll even see what appears to an autosync before a rename that changes the date back... I'm confused! Thx again - Andy.

http://www.jingothecat.com/idi/ididateissue/index.html

[andy@damroundup.com]

Hmmm... this behavior is occurring with Auto-sync turned off... and if you just click the image again.

So - edit the date/time original and then just click the thumbnail - it reverts back to the original value.. I must be missing something here.. are we unable to edit the date/time original from the Details Panel?

Using the Redate command works just fine...

[Hert]

I can change the date/time original fine here.
1. Select a thumb
2. In Detail, change the date
3. Click any other thumb (this will auto apply the changes)

[gcoupe]

Andy, looking at your video, what you are missing is that in order to apply changes to a single, selected, image, you need to do step 3 in Hert's message above. That is, to apply the changes, you need to step away from your selected image by clicking on any other image... This confused me no end in the beginning as well.

For applying changes to a batch of images, you get an additional "Apply" button appearing on the Details panel. This time, you need to explicitly click this to apply the changes, instead of simply clicking away from the selected images...

[andy@damroundup.com]

Thank you Geoff/Hert... that is interesting but seems very confusing... it baffled me and I am pretty darn savvy when it comes to these programs! Was there a programming/design need to force a click on another image for the changes to apply? I guess I thought as soon as I made an edit to the detail data - is would file to the catalog and sync to the image (with autosync on). If not, then force the "apply" button within the details panel for single image changes as well - in fact, I was looking for one after the changes didn't work because I thought perhaps it was at the bottom of the panel and I was missing it....

Now.. my final holdup - how to apply only the date part of the datetimeoriginal within the rename script? I tried using a {length=10} but that doesn't appear to work for this field... any thoughts? If I can just grab the date portion - then I don't need to step out of Idimager for this project and run scripts through exiftool... I can if needed - but it would be much easier to stay here since I can leverage the "date counter" variable to auto-append that based on the number of images per day... my end goal is to have filenames from datetimeoriginal that read: 2011_05_05_001.jpg, 2011_05_05_002.jpg... 2011_07_03_001.jpg, etc...

Many thx all!!

[tstoddard]

Andy,

I believe, in your renaming template, you can simply format the date any way you want by using something like %yyyy_%mm_%dd

I also think there is a way to format a date value. Here is an example copied from the idimager manual: %ImagePhotoDate{dateformat=yyyy-mm}

I'm not at a computer with PSU installed so I can't test these solutions but I'm pretty sure one or both of them will work for you.

[andy@damroundup.com]

Thank you Tom - that was it and now it works... here is the rename script that does what I need in case it helps others down the road... thx again - now I can continue my work for the client!

Code: Select all

%exif:DateTimeOriginal{dateformat=yyyy-mm-dd}_%ImageNumber{Reset=DATE}.%FileExtension

[wgimblet]

Thanks for informing me of the Ctrl-SHift-D shortcut. I didn't appreciated what 'shift dates' did.

I am finding it very unpredictable in its behaviour but that could be down to the user.
If I select a group of photos in a folder and choose the Re-Date function / shift dates option, some of the photos update and others don't.
Having the 'Details' panel open, there appear to be three dates: Date Content Created (DCC), Date Time Original (DTO) and Date Time Digitized (DTD)
I select to change all dates (base date/time, date/time original & date time digitized) as well as 'change file date' as this seems to have the most success in updating the three dates mentioned above.

From experimenting, when I rename the files using %yy-%mm-%dd_%hh-%nn_%ss.%FileExtension it appears to be reading 'DTO' so this is the crucial one that needs to be set correctly.

As mentioned above, when I run the batch re-date, some photos update and others don't. For some of the photos just the DCC updates, while the other two dates flicker, as if they are trying to update, but not successfully, for other photos in the selection just the DTO updates and other photos do not update at all.

From this point it becomes a slow process to then change each individual one that has failed. Using the re-date function can be successful on a second go or the photo just will not update and I have to change the date within the details panel.

The only successful way that I have been able to do this is to use a third party piece of Exif software outside of Photo Supreme before 'verifying' the folder to update the photos before renaming.

What am I doing wrong?

[andy@damroundup.com]

Thank you Tom - that was it and now it works... here is the rename script that does what I need in case it helps others down the road... thx again - now I can continue my work for the client!

Code: Select all

%exif:DateTimeOriginal{dateformat=yyyy-mm-dd}_%ImageNumber{Reset=DATE}.%FileExtension

So - using the above code, I can generate filenames that are unique even for the same date. However, I did notice some odd behavior - lets say I have a 3 files with a datetimeoriginal date or 2011-01-02. When I run the rename script above.. there are times I get:
2011_01_02_1
2011_01_02_2
2011_01_02_3

This is what I want. There are also times when I run the same rename and get:

2011_01_02_1
2011_01_02_1(001)
2011_01_02_1(002)

Which is not what I want... why would the same rename produce these different results? Is there a way to control the %ImageNumber to avoid this behavior and always force a solid number increment on the same date? Is it related to multi thread operation on the file rename? Thx again.. Andy.

[andrew.heard]

Using ctrl+shift+D to redate (and re-time) photos quickly becomes very tedious if more than a few files need to be changed. It all relies on lots of mouse clicking rather than typing in numeric text.

Combined with another bug where AVI files I import get assigned dates/times decades in the future, and it is rather annoying and time wasting to correct all the time.

I've filed numerous bugs & suggestions for improving this form, many going back to the initial release of PSu. I'm hoping a major new version of PSu is released some time soon to address some of these productivity issues.

http://bugs.idimager.com/view.php?id=1253
http://bugs.idimager.com/view.php?id=1242
http://bugs.idimager.com/view.php?id=1243
http://bugs.idimager.com/view.php?id=1458

[andy@damroundup.com]

Agree - the ability to free type the date would be much appreciated though again, I wonder how often the average Joe user needs to redate images one at a time for hundreds of images (imagine they would be bulk batching this for a single incorrect date).

I would still love to know how to get the renaming script to stop putting in the (001), etc... it means I need to manually go back in and rename these files (which I am doing using xyplorer's fantastic rename function) to remove these extras and renumber.... hope there is a good way to do this as part of the rename script so this add'l step is not needed... very tedious when I have over 6000 images for a client to update the correct original date time (based on date embedded in the filename [using Xnview at the moment because I can free text this]) and then rename all the images using this original date/time from the updated exif... why did I take this project on again?!?!