Change DATE only in datetimeoriginal

[Phil Harvey]

What you want to do is equivalent to this:

exiftool -m '-DateTimeOriginal<2014:04:05 ${DateTimeOriginal;s/.* //}' '-CreateDate<2014:04:05 ${CreateDate;s/.* //}' '-ModifyDate<2014:04:05 ${ModifyDate;s/.* //}' FILE

- Phil

[orbspider]

Ok, thanks Phil, so if that's the only way I'll use it, I just thought there might/could be an easier way of writing the command!

[orbspider]

Uh oh,
all the hr:min:sec time stamps got changed to the same- for 150 images (20:06:01.00) -might well be taken from the first image and written it to all of them??
that's not current time here.

[Phil Harvey]

More likely the times got messed up by an earlier incorrect command.  The command I gave should work.  (Note the quoting is for Mac/Linux)

Code Select Expand

> exiftool -alldates tmp
======== tmp/a.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2003:10:31 15:44:19
Create Date                     : 2003:10:31 15:44:19
Modify Date                     : 2003:10:31 15:44:19
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files read

> exiftool -m '-DateTimeOriginal<2014:04:05 ${DateTimeOriginal;s/.* //}' '-CreateDate<2014:04:05 ${CreateDate;s/.* //}' '-ModifyDate<2014:04:05 ${ModifyDate;s/.* //}' tmp
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files updated

> exiftool -alldates tmp
======== tmp/a.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2014:04:05 15:44:19
Create Date                     : 2014:04:05 15:44:19
Modify Date                     : 2014:04:05 15:44:19
    1 directories scanned
    1 image files read

You should be able to fix your problem with this command (assuming the "_original" files still exist):

exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.%e_original -m '-DateTimeOriginal<2014:04:05 ${DateTimeOriginal;s/.* //}' '-CreateDate<2014:04:05 ${CreateDate;s/.* //}' '-ModifyDate<2014:04:05 ${ModifyDate;s/.* //}' DIR

If you really want to set all of these date/time tags to a specific date while leaving the time the same, then I can't think of an easier way.

But if you just want to shift the date/time values by a constant amount, then you could use -alldates+="YEARS:MONTHS:DAYS 0" instead.

- Phil

[orbspider]

Code Select Expand

dav>10:46:59:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -alldates test.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2014:05:01 18:38:36
Create Date                     : 2014:05:01 18:38:36
Modify Date                     : 2014:05:01 18:38:36
dav>10:47:11:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -m '-DateTimeOriginal<2013:05:05 ${DateTimeOriginal;s/.* //}' '-CreateDate<2013:05:05 ${CreateDate;s/.* //}' '-ModifyDate<2013:05:05 ${ModifyDate;s/.* //}' *
Warning: Bad PreviewIFD directory - test.jpg
Warning: Deleted bad PreviewIFD directory - test.jpg
    1 image files updated
dav>10:47:41:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -alldates test.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2013:05:05 20:14:05
Create Date                     : 2013:05:05 20:14:05
Modify Date                     : 2013:05:05 20:14:05


Obviously it's the old date Y:M:D going on as the new time, so anyhow, and with the shift method:

Code Select Expand

dav>10:59:03:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -alldates test2.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2006:01:05 18:57:24
Create Date                     : 2006:01:05 18:57:24
Modify Date                     : 2006:01:05 18:57:24
dav>10:59:10:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -m -alldates+='8:2:1 0' test2.jpg
    1 image files updated
dav>10:59:38:/media/FILES/my pictures/3$ exiftool -alldates test2.jpg
Date/Time Original              : 2014:03:06 18:57:24
Create Date                     : 2014:03:06 18:57:24
Modify Date                     : 2014:03:06 18:57:24

much better results!

[Phil Harvey]

You must be using a very old version of ExifTool.  The advanced formatting feature was added in version 9.15 (over a year ago).  If you update your ExifTool, then the first technique will work.

- Phil

[orbspider]

indeed it is, v 8.60-2 from Debian stable repo.