Metadata Writeback – Create Date – Improperly Formatted Data

[rccampbell]

I am having an issue with metadata writeback.  Specifically, several thousand of my files are displaying the writeback symbol (pencil symbol) indicating a writeback is needed.  I'm not sure what has happened....I do not recall performing an operation that would have updated thousands of files.  In any event, when I attempt to perform the writeback it fails.

Closer examination reveals that the metadata requiring writeback is the "Create Date" metadata.  Furthermore, it looks like this data has been updated using an improper format.

For example:  On a photo, the "Date Subject Created" field is set to "2003:01:01 00:00:00-05:00".  The "Create Date" is set to "2003:01:01-05:00-05:00".  I believe this "-05:00-05:00" is improper.

See Capture 01.jpg and Capture02.jpg files attached.

How can I modify the Create Date for these thousands of files to a proper format that will permit me to writeback the data properly?

[Mario]

"Create Date" and "Date Subject Created" are usually set from existing EXIF data during the initial import of an image.
Depending on the corresponding option in Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2, the tags are marked as pending write-back or not.

IMatch then does not touch the timestamps again, unless you user updates them or runs a command that updates them.

It seems that the entire time portion of the time stamp is missing. It has only the date and the time-zone offset. Very strange.
Also, the time portion of the "Date Subject Created" is exactly 12:00:00, which is rather uncommon.

The "Last Modification Date" of the file is last Saturday. To you recall what you did with the file last Saturday?
Did you re-import the files? Were they updated by an external application?

The fix for this problem is thankfully quite easy - assuming that it's OK to set the "Create Date" to the same value as the "Date Subject Created" - which is usually the case, unless you are working with digital scans of old photos.

Which may be the case here, since the file name contains the timestamp 07/11/2008 but the two XMP dates have timestamps from 2003? Any idea about that?

The #1 tool in IMatch for everything related to modifying date and time is the Time Wiz. I have created this tool to enable users to set, shift, modify and fix time stamps in images.

For your case, where we need to reset the "Date Created" timestamp to the same value as the "Date Subject Created", the following settings will do the trick:



Use this variable as the source:

{File.MD.XMP::photoshop\DateCreated\DateCreated|format:YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ssTZO}

This sets the "Create Date" for all selected files to the "Date Subject Created".
Try with a few sample files first, then select all files with the problem and run TimeWiz.

[rccampbell]

Thank You!  This works!  I was aware of the Time Wiz tool and had tried to use it to fix my problem.  Evidently, some portion of my syntax was incorrect.

Also, for what it's worth, the date stamp of Jan 1, 2003 at 00:00:00 is somewhat arbitrary.  These were scans of photographs taken years ago and that is my "generic" date/time in cases where the "real" date/time is unknown.

Thank you again for the solution!

[Mario]

Evidently, some portion of my syntax was incorrect.

The format is critical, since datetime variables are formatted in your local date and time format by default.

Thank you again for the solution! 

You're welcome!
If possible, give something back and tell others about IMatch.

[Stenis]

Yes it worked - for about 10 sekonds and then they pop up and are back again as pending transactions.

I just can´t get these 123 files to rest.
It is files from four or five different folders and not processed at the same time originally. Now they are said to classified as file "with problems".

To be continued - this is not good.