# Sort by capture date issue



## bill.fischer5 (Apr 26, 2021)

My pictures are not completely sorted by capture date.  
I have chose the sort order from the view menu.  capture date. & Ascending are checked.    The pictures are not in the correct order.  They start with a photo from this year.  Then two from the earliest pictures in 2002.  After that there is a small  number of pictures that are in ascending order (2004 - 2007).   But then the pictures go back to the 2002 pictures.   I suspect that the order is correct from that point on

Is there a way I can reindex or repair the sort order?


----------



## johnrellis (Apr 26, 2021)

Given the dates, I'm guessing these are scans? Or from an old digital camera?


----------



## bill.fischer5 (Apr 26, 2021)

John, thank you for responding.  you are correct.  some are old camera and others are scanns.    Does this mean that my data integrity is ok?   If so is there a way I can correct the order?


----------



## johnrellis (Apr 26, 2021)

LR doesn't handle well photos missing capture date in their metadata (e.g. scans) -- it has some long-standing bugs.   When the capture date is missing, it tries to use other dates recorded in the metadata, and if those aren't present, the file's last-modified time as maintained by the operating system.    That's good, but unfortunately, LR doesn't do this consistently, with different dates recorded for a photo in different parts of LR.  

You can usually fix these inconsistencies by doing Metadata > Edit Capture Time, changing the displayed date if necessary (it may be already what you want), and then doing OK.   If Edit Capture Time is displaying the desired date, it's still important to click OK (to correct the inconsistencies).   If you find that Edit Capture Time is consistently displaying the desired date, then you can select a batch of photos at once, do Edit Capture Time, and then click Change All.  (If you read the command window carefully, you'll see it _won't_ change all the photos to the same displayed date.)

Before you start this, make sure you save TWO backups of your catalog (just to be safe), since LR won't let you undo Edit Capture Time changes.


----------



## bill.fischer5 (Apr 26, 2021)

johnrellis said:


> LR doesn't handle well photos missing capture date in their metadata (e.g. scans) -- it has some long-standing bugs.   When the capture date is missing, it tries to use other dates recorded in the metadata, and if those aren't present, the file's last-modified time as maintained by the operating system.    That's good, but unfortunately, LR doesn't do this consistently, with different dates recorded for a photo in different parts of LR.
> 
> You can usually fix these inconsistencies by doing Metadata > Edit Capture Time, changing the displayed date if necessary (it may be already what you want), and then doing OK.   If Edit Capture Time is displaying the desired date, it's still important to click OK (to correct the inconsistencies).   If you find that Edit Capture Time is consistently displaying the desired date, then you can select a batch of photos at once, do Edit Capture Time, and then click Change All.  (If you read the command window carefully, you'll see it _won't_ change all the photos to the same displayed date.)
> 
> Before you start this, make sure you save TWO backups of your catalog (just to be safe), since LR won't let you undo Edit Capture Time changes.


Thank you John.  So I understand that if I see that all the displayed dates are what I want I can do the batch OK.  That will connect each individual displayed capture date to it's image.  Thanks for the backup worning.


----------



## Califdan (Apr 27, 2021)

I don't think this is your problem, but another reason for images to be out of order is if you have expanded stacks.  When group images into a stack, but then expand the stack to see them all, LR places the previously hidden photos right next to the top one in the stack which cuase them to be out of order compared to other images not involved in that stack.


----------

