Editing metadata in PS CS

In article
wrote:

I’m confused about editing metadata.

I have a number of old negative and slides that I am scanning to capture digitally. The created date is, of course, the date it is scanned.
I would like to change the created date to the date I actually took the picture (like the 1950s or 1960s) for purposes of sorting/filing.
[…]

That is an interesting inquiry, so please clarify what you mean by Metadata. Are you speaking of the data held in Photoshop’s File -> file info menu? And how do you access the Metadata you speak of, through a proprietary (Adobe?) image filing system?

If you are refering to the date shown in a directory, well that’s all up to the OS and exists largely for the sake of the OS (OS-X in your case, AKA BSD). You can change the names, no problem, although very long file names are problematic. You can change the dates of creation or modification using ‘touch’, but the dates will likely change again and possibly mess things up one day, possibly in backup, or even simply by moving (copying) them, for example.

So, let’s clarify to the terms of Metadata and I’ll bet we can point to some very good solutions for filing, sorting, and so-forth.

"pheski" wrote in
news::

I’m confused about editing metadata.

I have a number of old negative and slides that I am scanning to capture digitally. The created date is, of course, the date it is scanned.

I would like to change the created date to the date I actually took the picture (like the 1950s or 1960s) for purposes of sorting/filing.
Alternatively, I think I could use the modification date if that is easier to edit.

I have not been able to make this work in Photoshop CS (Mac with OSX) – any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

(Or is there another program I should be using for this?)
Thanks.

Peter

The browser included with PScs lets you edit all embedded image information, and even create new fields. You can also select multiple images and edit all their data at the same time.

—
– Doug Nelson

==============================
http://www.retouchpro.com — the #1 online community for retouchers and restorers

"pheski" …

I’m confused about editing metadata.

I have a number of old negative and slides that I am scanning to capture digitally. The created date is, of course, the date it is scanned.
I would like to change the created date to the date I actually took the picture (like the 1950s or 1960s) for purposes of sorting/filing.
Alternatively, I think I could use the modification date if that is easier to edit.

I have not been able to make this work in Photoshop CS (Mac with OSX) – any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If you mean the filesystem timestamps, these can be changed using ResEdit[1], or the SetFile command-line utility in Apple’s OS X Developer tools, or, under "classic" MacOS, the SetFile command-line tool which is part of Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop[2].

As jjs points out in his post, these timestamps are a rather fragile way of maintaining the information; but the dealbreaker for you is likely to be that under OS X you can’t set dates before 1/1/1970 – the UNIX epoch[3]. (The "classic" MacOS epoch is 1/1/1904.)

T

[1] see http://developer.apple.com/tools/legacy.html
[2] http://developer.apple.com/tools/mpw-tools/
[3] see http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/Fi le_Manager/file_manager/data_type_18.html

(Or is there another program I should be using for this?)
Thanks.

Peter

OK, I’ll explain the problem so as not to constrain the kinds of solutions…

I’ve started using iViewMedia 1.3 (not Pro) to catalogue my photographs. Initially, I could easily sort by ‘Created’ and my pictures were in chronologic order. It clearly sorted on the date embedded by the camera for those take digitally in the last year, and by the date embedded by the processor for those photographs between 1999 and 2003 that I took using film but had a CD made at the same time. In this case it was the CD creation date rather than the photo creation date, but that is plenty close enough for my purposes. At most there are two or three rolls on a CD.

I am now interested in adding photographs taken long before I had a digital camera. I am scanning the negatives.

The creation and modification dates are the date I scan and save. The archive date is the date I add it into iView Media.

So, when I try to sort by date, my oldest work appearws newest.

I *thought* that the solution would be to edit the metatdata, specifically Date Created or Date Modified. My understanding (I am new to this and my understanding is limited) was that this is data originally specified by IPTC and shows up in PhotoshopCS as File Info.

I have been unable to change this to 1965 dates (the year I chose to start with) using PhotoshopCS or GraphicConverter 4.8.

One not very palatable option would be to start again, work from the oldest photos first, and sort with archived date. As I have 2500+ photos already catalogued, I am hoping this will not be necessary.

Another option is to create a new category (eg using Keywords) and batch enter the dates into that category using Photoshop, and then attempt to sort on that. (I think this can be done, though I haven’t tried.) The problem here is that I don’t believe iView Media will sort on Keywords.

It will sort on pathname, so I think I can do it by revising my folder structure to be entirely folders with datenames. (That would be either 19690101 or 1969.01.01 for a Jan 1 1969 folder of pictures in January 1969.) I suspect this will be my ultimate solution, because the more I read and pick at this, the less it seems that I will be able to modify Creation Date.

Thoughts?

Peter

In article ,
(jjs) wrote:

In article
wrote:

I’m confused about editing metadata.

I have a number of old negative and slides that I am scanning to capture digitally. The created date is, of course, the date it is scanned.
I would like to change the created date to the date I actually took the picture (like the 1950s or 1960s) for purposes of sorting/filing.
[…]

That is an interesting inquiry, so please clarify what you mean by Metadata. Are you speaking of the data held in Photoshop’s File -> file info menu? And how do you access the Metadata you speak of, through a proprietary (Adobe?) image filing system?

If you are refering to the date shown in a directory, well that’s all up to the OS and exists largely for the sake of the OS (OS-X in your case, AKA BSD). You can change the names, no problem, although very long file names are problematic. You can change the dates of creation or modification using ‘touch’, but the dates will likely change again and possibly mess things up one day, possibly in backup, or even simply by moving (copying) them, for example.

So, let’s clarify to the terms of Metadata and I’ll bet we can point to some very good solutions for filing, sorting, and so-forth.