# Why are my photos' dates wrong?



## goproguy (Dec 15, 2019)

So, in August of this year my family went to Disneyland with my brother's family to take my nieces and nephews to see it. I took like 2300 photos or so and spent weeks editing them and culling and editing and, well you get the picture \_(*^*)_/    (I'm sorry ,I had to try to get the little guys putting his hands up and shrugging, but  I ended up with a derped out Spleens the cat...)

Now, I've been done editing for a while and I need to get the photos onto my archive drive, but they are not in the right folders. 
I use a YYYY/mm/dd_original name and number_ system to name the exported photos (looks like 20190814SNY07640.tiff). This has worked for years just fine, or maybe I didn't notice, but  somehow the problem occurred nonetheless. 
The folders that I create upon export are for the 14th, 15th, and 16th, but we were only there ONE day. 
I see that the "created date" on the photos is  August 26th (when I edited them first), but that the modified date is August 14th (when we were actually there).

My questions are:
1. How does Windows get those two numbers mixed up?
2. Why does Exposure x4 or my Sony a7 iii spread the photos out over 3 days, when they were from the same day? 
3. How do I fix it?

I use exposure x4 because LR is too much for me right now and shoot the Sony a7 iii. Not sure if this screenshot is helpful showing the mod and create date.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Dec 15, 2019)

When the you take a picture, the file created and stored on the card has the cature time (as set in your camera !) as Create, modify , and access date.
When you copy the file on yur computer disk, this in fact create a new file which inherit the metada from the original on the card, exept it's creation and access date that are set to the date of the copy. This leads to file with the modified date earlier than the created date.
If then you modify the file (with PS, for exemple, the created date wil stay unchanged, but modified and accessed date wil be updated.


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## clee01l (Dec 15, 2019)

Date Created is the date the file was created. There is another date in the file header for image files called Capture Date. This should be the Date your camera put on the file on the camera card in the camera. 
Windows does not show this date in any of the default date fields but it is in the header. There are about 5-9 date type fields in the typical image file header. 
If you import the original image file from the camera card into Lightroom and shoes to store them in date named folders using one of the folder schemes that LR offers, there will be stored in Capture Date maned folders. Any other process between the camera card and Lightroom CAN put different dates into the derivative files, but Capture Date should be preserved if the app is honoring all of the “rules” for dates. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## goproguy (Dec 15, 2019)

clee01l said:


> Date Created is the date the file was created. There is another date in the file header for image files called Capture Date. This should be the Date your camera put on the file on the camera card in the camera.
> Windows does not show this date in any of the default date fields but it is in the header. There are about 5-9 date type fields in the typical image file header.
> If you import the original image file from the camera card into Lightroom and shoes to store them in date named folders using one of the folder schemes that LR offers, there will be stored in Capture Date maned folders. Any other process between the camera card and Lightroom CAN put different dates into the derivative files, but Capture Date should be preserved if the app is honoring all of the “rules” for dates.
> 
> ...



Ok, so how do I find that? I'm looking at the properties tab, but I dont see a way to get more date and time info. Do I need to open it with another app than Explorer?


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## clee01l (Dec 15, 2019)

goproguy said:


> Ok, so how do I find that? I'm looking at the properties tab, but I dont see a way to get more date and time info. Do I need to open it with another app than Explorer?


Open Windows Explorer in table view for the folder with the image files.   There is a default set of columns that list metadata about the files ((Date Created, Size, etc.) Right click on one of the column heads and a drop down list of additional columns is exposed.  Choose Capture date as an additional column.  
Here is a similar screen using MacOS Finder (I don't run Windows)


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Dec 15, 2019)

In Windows 10, you can do as explained by Cletus, the metadata containing the capture date is simply called "Date". You can add it as a column.


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## goproguy (Dec 15, 2019)

Thank you guys. So that solves the mystery of why it happens, but how do I make the next export work right? I'm NOT using LR because I can't afford the subscription. I use Alienskin exposure x4 instead. Do I need to come up with a better/different system?


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## clee01l (Dec 15, 2019)

I think you need to move up to a better system.   If you can't afford an Adobe subscription at $10USD/ month, you can look at and try On1 PhotoRAW, Affinity or CaptureOne.   They don't require a subscription but the initial fee can be substantial.


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## goproguy (Dec 15, 2019)

I have affinity and like it, but then organization is an issue. Is there a way to use keywords in it?

Capture one has started down the subscription path too. Not totally yet, but....


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## clee01l (Dec 15, 2019)

goproguy said:


> I have affinity and like it, but then organization is an issue. Is there a way to use keywords in it?
> 
> Capture one has started down the subscription path too. Not totally yet, but....


Actually, the subscription model is the future of App Development and sales.  Office is available as a subscription now and I'm sure there are others.    The target community is the office world which has deeper pockets and sometimes pays 100s of thousands for an in-house Developed product


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## goproguy (Dec 15, 2019)

clee01l said:


> Actually, the subscription model is the future of App Development and sales.  Office is available as a subscription now and I'm sure there are others.    The target community is the office world which has deeper pockets and sometimes pays 100s of thousands for an in-house Developed product



I'm not surprised.  I just don't see why Adobe killed off the one time buy. If I were them, I'd keep it and give better deals for the subscribers. Like you can get LR for $200 or get LR AND PS for $100 a year. 

Anyway, any idea how to fix this in the future?


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 15, 2019)

goproguy said:


> Anyway, any idea how to fix this in the future?


You'd probably be much better off asking that question at the Alienskin support site.


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## goproguy (Dec 16, 2019)

Looking at the images in Exposure,  I think that my camera was set 6 hours slow. That is probably the issue. Thank you guys for your help.

This image shows the time that X4 sees AND that I can edit it easily. I looked up organization in X4 and found a video that they published showing that you can just add or subtract ( plusing or minusing as my calculus teacher called it) time to it. So all I have to do is add a few hours to the files and they SHOULD be fine.


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