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02-26-2012, 01:26 PM   #1
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Mass edit of capture year in EXIF with Lightroom

I have about 1300 pictures with the year off by one due to wrong setting in the camera. I just noticed it when I tried to submit a picture for Pentax day.

Is there an easy way to mass change the date with Lightroom 3?

02-26-2012, 01:31 PM   #2
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I don't know about Lightroom, but you can do it with exiftool.

ExifTool by Phil Harvey
02-26-2012, 02:42 PM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by TonyL Quote
Is there an easy way to mass change the date with Lightroom 3?
Not that I know of although it might be possible with a plugin. As noted, ExifTool is what I would try.
02-26-2012, 04:20 PM   #4
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I haven't tried this but it looks like you could in Grid view.

Change the photo capture time


02-26-2012, 04:27 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by RollsUp Quote
I haven't tried this but it looks like you could in Grid view.

Change the photo capture time
Then do that 1,300 times. The OP wanted a way to do it in a batch. AFAICT the only way to do that is to use ExifTool from the command line.
02-26-2012, 04:49 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by boriscleto Quote
Then do that 1,300 times. The OP wanted a way to do it in a batch. AFAICT the only way to do that is to use ExifTool from the command line.
Why 1,300 times? I just tried it with a folder containing 45 raw image files and it only took a couple seconds to change the date from 2/2/12 to 2/2/13. The Date time Digitized in the Metadata panel stayed the same while the Date Time Original changed to the new date. Is this not what the OP wanted?
02-26-2012, 04:51 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by boriscleto Quote
Then do that 1,300 times. The OP wanted a way to do it in a batch. AFAICT the only way to do that is to use ExifTool from the command line.
But you can do this in batch. Just select all photos you want to change in the grid view. Then set date and time for the active photo in the selection and all other will change by the same amount of time. It even says so in the page linked above:
QuoteQuote:
Important: If more than one photo is selected in the Grid view, Lightroom changes the capture time for the active photo by the specified adjustment. (The active photo is previewed in the Edit Capture Time dialog box.) Other photos in the selection are adjusted by the same amount of time. If more than one photo is selected in the Filmstrip in Loupe, Compare, or Survey view, the capture time is changed only on the active photo.


02-26-2012, 04:56 PM   #8
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Thanks for all the ideas. I will give a try to the LR in grid, and if not I will get ExifTool. ExifTool may be useful for other things too.
02-26-2012, 05:51 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by TonyL Quote
Thanks for all the ideas. I will give a try to the LR in grid, and if not I will get ExifTool. ExifTool may be useful for other things too.
If you use the command line version of exiftool, you may have to write a script to also manipulate the date to separate the time of the shot. The are several tags for the date. There is -DateTimeOriginal, -CreateDate and -DateTimeDigitized that I'm familiar with.

The argument to these tags is a string in the form, "YY:MM:DD HH:MM:SS" (year:month:day hour:min:sec). In a bash shell it would look like this:
$ exiftool -DateTimeOriginal='2012:02:26 16:51:00' IMG0001.dng
So you could put all your files you want to change to a given date in a directory and with one command easily change them all (using a wildcard in the file name). However, each picture has a different time. You may want to preserve that information. So that would require first reading the date, split the date from the time, construct a string with new date plus original time and write that to the file. This is easy or hard depending on your level of computer skills in that regard.

Last edited by tuco; 02-26-2012 at 06:05 PM.
02-26-2012, 06:49 PM   #10
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I see what you mean about the script. I will try to avoid it, but I should have no problem if I really need it, although it has been many years since I have touched a UNIX/LINUX system.
02-26-2012, 06:55 PM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by TonyL Quote
I see what you mean about the script. I will try to avoid it, but I should have no problem if I really need it, although it has been many years since I have touched a UNIX/LINUX system.
The Windows version runs in a "DOS Shell" too. But if you are familiar with a high level scripts such as Python (comes standard on a Mac and almost all Linux and free install on Windows) you could write it platform independently.

If you are really in a jam, PM me. I can send you a small, simple Python script to take care of the problem using exiftool.
02-26-2012, 09:38 PM   #12
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Thanks. I may be a couple or three week ends before I can get to it.
02-26-2012, 10:12 PM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by TonyL Quote
Is there an easy way to mass change the date with Lightroom 3?
YES. In the Library module, select all the photos that you want to change the date of. Go to the "Metadata" menu > "Edit capture time" > "Adjust to a specified date and time" and select the required offset. Say original time was 27/02/2012 3:12:10PM. If you change corrected time to 26/02/2012 2:10:10PM, what will happen is that the original time for every photo selected will be offset back one day, and back one hour and two minutes.
02-27-2012, 06:54 AM   #14
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Thanks pop4. That is exactly what I need.
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