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DateTimeOriginal seems to be a joke!

Started by nun, April 06, 2016, 11:42:27 AM

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nun

Hi,

Err, look, if I edit the -DateTimeOriginal of a pic,
The new file has -DateTimeOriginal set to the current time I'm running exiftool.

Basically I need it to not be creating a new file or it seems to be a largely pointless exercise.
Have I missed something?

I've tried the two overwrite options but the effect is still the same.
I'm using Apple OSX 10.11.2

thanks for any help!


Nun


Phil Harvey

Hi Nun,

If you edit any file with ExifTool, then the FileModifyDate is set to the time you run ExifTool unless the -P option is used.

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

nun

Thanks for the reply Phil.

I tried that, still the same result.
Pic in current folder's date time is completely unaffected by either/both of the following commands:

exiftool -P -overwrite_original_in_place -DateTimeOriginal-='0:1:0 0:0:0' .
exiftool -overwrite_original_in_place -DateTimeOriginal-='0:1:0 0:0:0' .

I was expecting to see the "created" date time jump back a month.

Thoroughly confused, but still grateful for the tool because today's date is still much better than the 2012 one my camera somehow defaulted to
after some accidental random keypresses.
I'll run it on the real folder of photos soon anyway if you've no further suggestion.
It would be nice to set the time to blend them properly with my wife's camera's pics by date time,....

Phil Harvey

The filesystem creation time for the file will always be set to the time you run exiftool unless the -overwrite_original_in_place option is used.  See FAQ 24 for an explanation of this.

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

nun

#4
Okay so after trying to make sense of all this, I'm giving up.

Conclusions:

1) DateTimeOriginal probably isn't what it intuitively sounds like, despite the documentation's best efforts to convince us that it can use a powerful offset function to change the value that you/I might hope it does.

2) DateTimeOriginal's true function is obscured by other unintuitive-ly named args and methods that serve to add further confusion. Note that if you're writing a parameter value it would seem unnecessary to need to set a 'Preserve' or 'Overwrite_in_place' argument as well, just to allow the edit. In my opinion, all of these methods should be renamed, and if DateTimeOriginal does not refer to the original date of the creation of the photo, but just the creation of a copy of the file, then that should be made clear in the documentation that appears when you first run the program without args.
   
3) It's a huge pity if DateTimeOriginal does actually work as expected in Windows, but not OSX, and it's just poor documentation/method naming that obscures this functionality in OSX. Perhaps a method called 'OSX_DateTimeOriginal' could address the esoterica to make it work as expected?   

see:  "Warning: Sorry, FileInodeChangeDate is not writable
Nothing to do."


thanks for listening, I hope my thread helps others reach a parsimonious answer to this issue.


EDIT:  Oh Crap!
please accept my apologies, Phil.

I've just put the photos into my PS3 and lo & behold they're now in a folder dated 2011.
In other words, the last edit to DateTimeOriginal DID WORK AS EXPECTED.

I just wasn't seeing the right info about the pictures in my OSX GUI, and assumed, wrongly, that where it says
"Created" it means "originalDateTime" when it actually does not.

I'll obviously have to use exiftool to read the exif data as well as write it, because OSX MountainRangeWhatever gives unintuitive info.

Sorry again!

nun

So as a final clarification on this issue:

1) I wanted to store my holiday photos on my PS3 in an appropriately ordered folder, so I needed to edit the relevant date field.
    ExifTool DID allow me to do this with precision.

2) Confusion arose because I edited the 'DateTimeOriginal' field instead of the 'Create Date' field. This did achieve what I wanted, but it's highly unintuitive.

thanks

Nun

Phil Harvey

The confusion is because other software names things differently.  This is FAQ 3.

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).