How to Shift the Photo Creation Date

What software is available to allow me to shift the creation date of photos by a fixed amount of time?

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I want to merge two sets of photos from different cameras whose internal times were off by a couple

minutes or so. Then be able to sort them chronologically and rename.

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I need it on OSX

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Thanks

I just tried to change the "date created" on an image file of my own using Adobe Bridge,

using Mac OS X, (it comes bundled with Photoshop). It would not let me change this

metadata. But here's all I can think of to work around this, but might take a long time if

you have a lot of photos: Open each image and then re-save it using "Save As..." into a

new folder. The "date created" time-stamp of this new file will be the moment you saved

it. Do this to each image in the order that you took them. You might have one group

open in one window of Bridge, the second group with the "off" time-stamp in another

window of Bridge. This way you could keep track better of the correct sequence, openning

and doing the Save As... in the correct sequence. (If you put them all in the same folder,

then viewing them in a single window in Bridge, they would be more mixed up.) After

you've done this to each image, select them all whithin Bridge, then rename them using

"Batch Rename," in the Tools menu.

Here's another way that will work that I just thought of, and if there are not too many

images to sort through, and again using Bridge. Open one of the two sets of images in a

Bridge window (lets say the one that had the clock set ahead of the other), select all of

images of this set, then give them all a color label, such as red, so a red bar appears below

each image of the set. Then put the images of both sets into one folder and view them in

a window of Bridge.

Make sure that aftter you put the two sets together in the same folder, select the whole

group and then sort them by "Date Created" in the "View" menu, so it will no longer sort

them by "File Name."

Bridge allows you to to drag the thumbnails around and place them in any order that you

want, no mater the file names. You can set bridge to view all the images in the folder as

pretty small thumbnails, easily more than a hundred can be viewed at one time. Since you

put a red label on the one set, they will be easy to tell apart from the non-labled set. Now,

most vital hear is that Bridge can be set to display below each thumbnail not only the file

name but the "date created" time-stamp as well (do this in Preferences). To sort them

acurately, you will have to know exacly how much time the one set of images was different

from the correctly time-stamped set. So if the red-labeled set is ahead by two minutes of

the non-labeled set, you could drag each red-labled file next to the non-labled image that

has a time-stamp reading two minutes before, or at least the image most closest to it and

in the correct sequence.

When you have them all correctly sorted, do the same as above and rename all the files

using "Batch Rename." In "Batche Rename," choose "sequence numbers" and set it to 3 or

4 digits (depending on how many images you have). This way, when the files are sorted

by file name, they will also be in correct time sequence (even though the actual time-

stamps are wrong).

I hope this makes sense! Hopeflly, someone knows an easier way. But I have a feeling

you will have to sort these manually one way or another, unless you can find software out

there that will automatically subtract two minutes off the date created meta data. If I open

an image in Photoshop, then go to File>File Info, then to "Advanced," I can view in several

places the exact time the image was created. All this info is stored with each file as "meta

data." I'm not overly familiar with this stuff, but perhaps there's a way to manipulate this

data, let alone manipulate the data for a whole batch of image files...)

Good luck!

Ni,

There is a "program" which will do this. Unfortunately it's another "Open Source" program which I have been trying to install for some time now. (My requirement is exactly the same as yours - but Windows based)

The program is "ExifTool" by Phil Harvey

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

It will add or subtract years.......seconds to the existing data.

Should work perfectly for you but I can't get "perl" to install on my system.

All the best

It's definitely possible! Follow this tutorial here:

or download the instructions/template here:

http://linpernille.com/blog/batch-change-date-created/