Win Explorer can see image dates that PM can't see?

[janeenadamsmartin]

I am sorting old photos and renaming them from camera assigned name to standard date-time format with PM.  Some of my old photos appear to be given to me and already named by author, others appear to be downloads from my cell phones, palm pilots, etc. which were all dumped on the same day.

PM is picking up the date that I received the photos or downloaded them as opposed to the date the photo was taken.   However if I use Windows Explorer with Detail view, I can see the photo date.  (it differs by years, instead of 12/2012, they are from 6/1999, etc -- however, I don't recall copying all the old photos on my hard drive in 2012, so the date it is seeing seems strange, too). 

Is there something I am doing that is preventing PM from seeing the photo date?   Do I need to pick a different variable than {dats}?

Thanks,
jan

[Hayo Baan]

Can you upload an (unaltered) image so we can see what could be the issue?

[janeenadamsmartin]

Sure,  this one got renamed to a 2012 date, it looks like I may have copied it to my computer on that date, but the Windows Explorer details reveal a 1998 date.   My guess is the photo is 1999, but who knows, maybe 1998 was correct!

Thanks for offering to look, Hayo!
jan


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[Hayo Baan]

Hi Jan,

I've quickly analysed your file and found the date Microsoft is using: 1998:12:13 00:38:43. This date is present in the exif field Date/Time Original.

I'm not 100% sure about the algorithm as used by PM, but what I think is happening is:
1. PM looks for the exif field Date/Time Created (which should normally be present too afaik)
2. If it doens't find it it uses the file creation date/time

If this is indeed the way PM works internally, then the fix could be to introduce another fall back step in between where PM looks for Date/Time Original too.

If this isn't what's causing the problem, I'm sure that with your file Kirk and team will be able to determine what to do from your file too 

Cheers,
Hayo

[janeenadamsmartin]

Thank you, Hayo.

I downloaded ExifTool last night, and whoa -- that looks like a couple of hours of reading before I try using it.

Thank you for your sleuthing!   I wonder if the Date/Time Oiginal field is not populated until the file is renamed to something else  (eg "gate.jpg).   If the Date/Time Original field was always populated, PM would have probably used that.  So maybe for those files I need to copy Date/Time original to Date/Time Created...   I think that is something ExifTool can do. 

My homework... unless Kirk saves me with some other quick fix!
jan

[dennis]

Jan,

This photo was taken before Exif was implemented by Olympus.  They used to put ASCII "picture info" in the APP12 JPEG marker.  Photo Mechanic doesn't parse this old info and so it cannot find the date/time original (which is stored as the number 913509523 and I suspect is the number of seconds since Jan 1st 1970).  Exiftool is able to parse this info and comes up with 1998:12:13 00:38:43 (Exiftool parses a lot more than just "Exif").

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/APP12.html

We don't currently have plans to support this pre-Exif ASCII camera info.

There may be a way to have Exiftool set the file's modification date (in the file system) to this embedded date/time value and then PM would pick that up.  I'm not sure what the command would be.  Anybody know if this can be done?

--dennis

[janeenadamsmartin]

Thanks, Dennis.   What an interesting story... I had no idea I was that old, :-(, lol!   Now I can tell people I took digital photos back when "exif" didn't exist!

I only have a handful, and it is probably easier for me to look in WinExplorer for the year and date the photo manually plus a {seqn}.   I am not going to do anything with these photos other than retain the memories.

jan