Dates are locale specific, so the format of the days, months, years (the correct order, btw
) is cloudy.
The time though... now that's something else...
If there's an EXIF time stamp in the file, MC will use it.
If there's an no EXIF, but there's an XMP time stamp, MC will use that.
If there's no EXIF, and no XMP, but there's an IPTC, MC will use that.
If there's none of the above, MC will use "Date Modified" as the date, along with the time.
If any of the date tags above that MC uses do not have a 'time' element, MC will just use the date without a time.
I make sure all of mine have a date and time, even if it's approximate, I like them to have something.
Then, especially for me, as my locale uses dd/MM/yyyy hh:mm:ss, I set up some calculated library fields specifically for sorting purposes, they're never on display in a view, just used for sorting. For example:
One of my favourite sorts for photos:
[Date (No Time)] expression:
=formatdate([date,0],yyyyMMdd)&datatype=[number][Time] expression:
=formatdate([date,0],HHmmss)&datatype=[number]Now, if you set a thumbnailed list of images to sort by [Date (No Time)] descending, followed by [Time] ascending, you get the list shown with the most recent at the top of the list, but within each day, they are sorted "oldest first", so you see them in the order you took them in on the day.
Also, as [date (no time)] is a number, you can use that to sort on its own too.
I don't know why MC doesn't sort properly on dates sometimes, and naturally, I can't make it 'not sort properly' at the moment. Sometimes, it would sort purely by the leading day number, so all photos taken on the 1st of anything would group together, followed by all the 2nd of anythings and so on. If I recall correctly, I thinks it does this whenever "date" is arrived at by way of an expression. I've asked before for a "&datatype=[date]" with no joy. Maybe it's not possible. I resorted to 'formatdate' workarounds many years ago now, and never looked back.
As for why your timestamps are not being preserved, I have no idea. Photoshop is guilty, I'm sure, of removing MC's <MJMD> tag blocks, but I was also sure it preserved any existing EXIF data. Maybe there's a photoshop setting for that? Again, I'm not sure.
Not the most helpful post in the world I'm sure, but maybe someting to get you started. A free tool such as
XnView MP gives a decent overview of what's in the tags before you pass them to MC. It might be some help in your detective work...
-marko
Author
Topic: Images: [Date] field populates differently for some photos (Read 1366 times)