PSE 18 Metadata and date/time of shots blues

[ddw]

Hello,

I often have PSE 18 telling me of dates that I know are WRONG as far as when I took the picture.  And, there are so many 'date/time' categories.  For example:

'Date Created' and 'Date Modified' under 'File Properties'.  Then under 'Camera Data' -- I will have:

'Date Time, Date Time Original, Date Time Digitized'.

Finally, if I am in the 'Details' View -- I will have a date on the left-hand corner of the thumbnail pic.  That is a whole bunch of dates.  Sometimes I can detect certain patterns that make sense; ie. Date Original and Date Time Digitized and the date on the pic -- often match exactly in every detail.  However, sometimes they do not.

So, what is meant by 'Date Time'?  I find it troubling that it is often different that the other two (Date Time Original, Date Time Digitized).  Would someone please explain what is the definition of each one and why I so often seem to have some wild discrepancies?  For example, I know I took a certain picture on March 8th, 2015,YET that date will be on NONE of the four dates that I have mentioned above.  In fact, it might give the 'Date Time Original' as something as seemingly random as qNov. 26th, 2018, for that picture that I KNOW I took on March 8th, 2015.  Any ideas on that?

Finally,  both photo below were taken within a month of each other, from the same camera (Sony A6000). With the upper photo – TONS of data is available. With the bottom photo, hardly any Metadata is available. Can somebody please explain this one to me? I don’t get it. I’m using PSE 18 on a Windows 10 PC. Thank you very much!

[Bailey]

Hi ddw,

Regarding the date a photo was actually taken on not matching the date in the Organiser, you haven't mentioned if the date and time in your camera is set correctly. That is the first thing I would check.

I'm sure michelb will be around soon to help with your other queries.

[michelb]

If you look for the different types of dates used by Windows to sort pictures, you'll find more than a dozen.

For Elements, this old faq is still valid:

www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_All_the_different

The operating system needs its own types of dates, for instance to manage backups.

The only relevant type of date in Elements is the 'date_taken', which appears under the thumbnails and in the exif data in the details panel on the right. That date is the only one used in the indexes of the database.

In your second screenshot, it's a copy and a very small one. That looks like a copy made with 'Save for Web', which is a save throwing away most metadata. The date under the thumbnail should be the right one.

There may be a number of traps with dates:

- the date of the camera as stated by Bailey

- obviously scanned pictures

- videos without the right metadata

- time zones

- ...

[ddw]

Awesome! You are exactly right Michel. The photo with hardly any data was used on FB. So, just to be redundant, that is why that pic does not have much metadata, correct?


Awesome info! Thanks all!

DDW

[michelb]

Mar 22, 2019 20:50:07 GMT ddw said:

Awesome! You are exactly right Michel. The photo with hardly any data was used on FB. So, just to be redundant, that is why that pic does not have much metadata, correct?


Awesome info! Thanks all!

DDW

Yes, sharing with social media like FB or using 'Save for Web' try to get the smaller size for your images. There is not only resizing and compression, there is also  throwing away some metadata to get smaller file sizes.

[BuckSkin]

Mar 17, 2019 0:05:51 GMT ddw said:

Hello,

I often have PSE 18 telling me of dates that I know are WRONG as far as when I took the picture.  And, there are so many 'date/time' categories.  For example:

'Date Created' and 'Date Modified' under 'File Properties'.  Then under 'Camera Data' -- I will have:

'Date Time, Date Time Original, Date Time Digitized'.

Finally, if I am in the 'Details' View -- I will have a date on the left-hand corner of the thumbnail pic.  That is a whole bunch of dates.  Sometimes I can detect certain patterns that make sense; ie. Date Original and Date Time Digitized and the date on the pic -- often match exactly in every detail.  However, sometimes they do not.

So, what is meant by 'Date Time'?  I find it troubling that it is often different that the other two (Date Time Original, Date Time Digitized).  Would someone please explain what is the definition of each one and why I so often seem to have some wild discrepancies?  For example, I know I took a certain picture on March 8th, 2015,YET that date will be on NONE of the four dates that I have mentioned above.  In fact, it might give the 'Date Time Original' as something as seemingly random as qNov. 26th, 2018, for that picture that I KNOW I took on March 8th, 2015.  Any ideas on that?

I know this is a few months old, but I will stick in my two mites worth.

As far as I am concerned, correct and absolute Date/Time TAKEN is the ONLY date that is of any use to me and I wish I could somehow disregard and never see any of those other dates; most of those other dates are there for other types and uses of files and really have little to do with photography.

Along the same line of thought, after giving it a long and very frustrating run for it's money, I gave up on the Organizer and wish I could somehow surgically remove it entirely from my Elements; the main reason I quit the Organizer is it insisted on corrupting the metadata in my image files, most especially the Date/Time Taken.

I finally figured out that the Organizer was changing the Date/Time Taken by exactly my offset from Greenwich Mean Time; in an effort to remedy this, I went for months with my computer clock set for Greenwich Mean Time; so long as I did this, my times remained as they were; however, having the clock set to a wrong-for-me time created a host of other problems.


When I started avoiding the Organizer, almost all of my metadata problems went away; I say almost all because the Editor has a bad habit of changing or eliminating my meticulously entered IPTC/XMP data if the image file has seen any other program prior to seeing Elements.

I have learned to expect this and try to catch it and replace the lost info as I go along. 
Not a single one of my many other programs has these bad habits.