Hi,
I entered for each one of around 300 scanned photos the date in the 'date picture taken' field hoping they would appear in the Google Photos or Apple Photos timeline accordingly when uploaded, but they don't.
The dates range from 1940 to 2008.
I used this command thinking it would be straightforward (trying it for one photo):
exiftool -creationtime>filemodifydate FILE
The result is the FileModifyDate with a date offset of 100 years prior:
FileModifyDate : 1847:03:17 06:14:15+00:00
FileAccessDate : 1847:03:17 06:14:15+00:00
FileCreateDate : 2020:07:26 20:20:31+01:00
ProfileDateTime : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
CreateDate : 2020:06:30 19:54:32+01:00
MetadataDate : 2020:07:12 06:09:11+01:00
HistoryWhen : 2020:06:30 19:54:32+01:00
CreationTime : 1947:03:18 06:14:15
ModifyDate : 1947:03:18 06:14:15
Any light into this will be appreciated,
Federico
ExifTool uses standard Perl date/time routines to do the necessary conversions. These routines are based on an epoch date of 1970, and the behavior before that can be funny.
It is very unlikely that you would have any digital files created before this time. If you want to set an earlier time you must be using the system date/time for something other than the intended purpose.
Previous posts
Nov 2017 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,8704.msg44652.html#msg44652)
Jan 2018 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,8848.msg45531.html)
May 2018 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,9192.0.html)
Aug 2018 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=9403.0)
March 2019 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,7384.msg51768.html#msg51768)