# Slides and dates



## Pvonk (Apr 3, 2020)

I'm beginning the process of labeling slides from the 60's to the 80's in preparation for scanning (Epson V800 using Silverfast Ai/HDR)  for eventual storage in LR CC.  My problem is that most slides don't have a day identified, only year and month - if that!  I've been labeling the date part of the slide identifier (which will eventually be the file name) as 1975-00-00 or 1975-05-00 if parts of the date are unknown.  I'm using diaries from the past eras to determine exact dates-ish but most slides won't have month and/or day numbers.  What do I do about the dates entered as metadata.  Can I use something like 1975/00/00 or won't that be acceptable to the software (I may use Photo Mechanic prior to LR CC;  perhaps using 1975/01/01?  Any tricks that most people use?


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## Paul_DS256 (Apr 3, 2020)

I'm looking for this info as well.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 3, 2020)

1975/00/00 is the kind of thing that sooner or later will trip something up. So I would avoid it. 

I pick the best "real" date that I can and enter it in the Date Created field. So if something's probably in November, it's the 15th. But 1975/01/01 probably makes a lot of sense - you might not usually shoot on that day, so it serves as a warning of an approximate date.


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## Pvonk (Apr 3, 2020)

Yes, 1975-01-01 seems safer than 1975-00-00.  I'm not even sure if entering an invalid date won't be flagged as an error by software like LR or PM.  And if I do have photos taken on New Years Day, I can deal with the two "dates" with Albums.

This date string will be part of the filename.  Another part is ccsss where cc is the carousel number (01-99; I have 25 of them), and sss is the slot number, 001-100.  Using ccsss is important to assure a filename is unique.  For those interested, I'm using, for example,  1975-11-06-TK01003R where T=Transparency, K=Kodachrome, carousel 01, slot 003, R=RAW.  The T, K, and R refer to settings for Silverfast.  I will eventually get to the reflective photos (using R in place of T).  I do have some non-Kodachrome slides, so for these I assign P (for positive instead of K).  I could also use N, negative, if I decide to deal with any.  Once passed through Silverfast AI Studio to get RAW, I'll later use Silverfast HDR to process each file before passing them on to LR or perhaps PS if needed.  The end result is a file named, for example, 1975-11-06-TK01003P (P=processed).  This may be overkill, and I may streamline the nomenclature as I go through the workflow for the first carousel.

For those new to photography (i.e. those who are young), slides (those mounted on a thin paper frame) were often stored in a (circular) carousel that was placed in a Kodak projector to view a slide show.


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## PhilBurton (Apr 3, 2020)

Pvonk said:


> I'm beginning the process of labeling slides from the 60's to the 80's in preparation for scanning (Epson V800 using Silverfast Ai/HDR)  for eventual storage in LR CC.  My problem is that most slides don't have a day identified, only year and month - if that!  I've been labeling the date part of the slide identifier (which will eventually be the file name) as 1975-00-00 or 1975-05-00 if parts of the date are unknown.  I'm using diaries from the past eras to determine exact dates-ish but most slides won't have month and/or day numbers.  What do I do about the dates entered as metadata.  Can I use something like 1975/00/00 or won't that be acceptable to the software (I may use Photo Mechanic prior to LR CC;  perhaps using 1975/01/01?  Any tricks that most people use?


This is the problem of "fuzzy dates," which I also have for my old slides and negatives.  At least the slide processed by Kodak have a date stamp.  There is no date stamp  on negatives   that I processed at home.  I've researched this problem, and the only answer I've come up with goes like this:   I once had a conversation with a university archivist, who  used an Enterprise  scale DAM.  (read: $$$)  This DAM has fields for normal dates and additional fields for "approximate" dates by year or month or season or whatever.

I would love to be proven wrong.


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## Pvonk (Apr 3, 2020)

Well, I tried entering a date of 1970-0-0 and that was rejected in PhotoMechanic and it seems impossible in LR using "Editing Date and Time" (month is chosen from drop-down list).  So, I'll have to go with 1970, 01, 01.  I did work in the field of fuzzy theory at one time, but while fuzzy dates seems interesting, perhaps just sorting these types of slides in digital format into proper Albums might be the best way to implement "fuzzy."


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## Roelof Moorlag (Apr 4, 2020)

In his book 'Digitizing your photos with your camera and Lightroom' Peter Krogh describes his approach with hierachical keywords and 'circa dates' (from page 217). This is a sample off how i worked it out for my scans. Sometimes i know the exact date but most of the time i'm happy if i know in what year it was shot...


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## Dale Strumpell (Apr 4, 2020)

I find it useful to adjust the scan file's creation and/or capture date before importing into Lightroom. This enables the files to sort in Lightroom via capture date just like digital captures. The two apps I use for this are Graphic Converter and A Better Finder Attributes. Lightroom does have a function to change capture date, but there are advantages to using third party apps. Graphic converter, for example, can change both the capture date and the creation date in one function. If you have digital captures in which the creation date doesn't match the capture date, Graphic Converter will adjust creation date based on the capture date. I also prefer to rename scan files (before importing to LR) using the app A Better Finder Rename because it is much more powerful than Lightroom's renaming function. Finally, I too have an Epson v800 with the full Silverfast suite but I much prefer shooting slides with a dslr/macro lens/slide holder/lightbox to using Silverfast, because the scans are raw files which are then adjusted in Lightroom and because Silverfast has a terrible user interface.


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## cmphoto (Apr 5, 2020)

Try Capture time to EXIF by John Beardsworth.  I've used it a long time and it works perfectly.
https://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/jbeardsworth/jbcapturetimetoexif/index.phpCliff


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## Pvonk (Apr 5, 2020)

Thanks Cliff, but I'm using LR CC (cloudy).  Also thanks to the others above who have contributed ideas.


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