Hmmm... Welcome to image management... MC style.
you are talking about the EXIF tag <date/time digitised> or <date/time original>
The [date created] we've been working around so far refers to the date they were created on your hard drive.
recovering the situation depends a lot on how you got to where are today, so, I'll prattle on for a bit, trying to stay on topic, with the idea that, if you gain some understanding with regards to what MC is doing, you'll know, 1) how to avoid some pitfalls in the future, and 2) if you have any possibility to get your dates back.
When you import a photo for the first time, MC reads the EXIF data and uses the info it finds there to populate some of its own proprietry fields.
It will take the <date/time original> info and place it in the [date] field. It uses the date and time, without the seconds, like so; 24/04/2006 17:57.
Now, MC also automatically places images into albums by date, so, while I took several photos on the 24th April, their [date] fields are all different because of the included <time> parameter, but their [album] fields are all the same, namely, "24/04/2006". The date the photo was taken is potentially available in two places within MC's own database, while the time the photo was taken is available in just the date field.
That is the situation immediately after importing the photos into MC. I'm sure you can see that if you plan to do any post-editing, it's an extremely fragile situation....
If you place your photos into albums with names a bit more descriptive than the date (and why wouldn't you?) that's one of your original date reference points gone.
If you make any edits that destroy the EXIF data (such as, but not limited to, resizing the photo using MC) that's another one gone.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you resize using MC, use the resize option that's available when you right click the file, 'Image>resize image'. You will still lose the EXIF data (MC will warn you about this) but you won't lose the file info held in MC's database, so [date] will remain intact, but you must be aware that this is now your only record of when the photo was actually taken. If you use the image editor provided with MC to do the resize job, any job in fact, you will lose every tag, both exif and MC, in the file when you save it. The editor removes the original, and saves its work in place of it. If you do this, it is of paramount importance that you immediately right click the file, library tools, update tags from library. It's important because if anything causes MC to do an automatic "update library from tags" you will lose the precious little data you have left relating to that file. This is the reason I personally choose not to use the proprietry MC image editor.
Hopefully, that wasn't too alarmist for you.
So, if you're original post is anything to go by, the [date] field in MC's database no longer contains the <date/time original> info for the majority, if not all, of your photos.
This leaves two other places, the [album] field, or the original EXIF data. MC's [album] field is easily checked, the EXIF data, perhaps not so easily...
If you open the 'file type info' window in the action window (file properties > file type info) and then select an image, then what you see there (in the file type info window) are the tags that are actually saved in the file. The MJMD tags are MC's own and no other software can read them. If there is any info, other than the dimensions, above the MJMD stuff, such as the camera model, or the focal length, then your EXIF data is still intact.
If you have EXIF data, I'd remove the files from MC's database and re-import them.
If you do not have the original date info in any of those three places, then the info is lost forever. Curse for a while, learn the lesson for future reference and move on.
Of course, if you have back ups of the original files, you're laughing, because you can just wipe the slate clean and start over. The problem for me is that while MC makes provision for aquiring photos from the camera, it makes no provision for protecting those original files, along with all the valuable information saved within them.
With all of this in mind, I developed a workflow that primarily involves another program. I use that to get the photos from the camera. It then protects the original file, writes the EXIF data to any edited versions of the original file, and also keeps the original file and all its edited versions linked, though only displays the most current edited version when generally browsing and searching.
When I'm happy with the state of the photo, I then export it to a folder that is exclusively for MC's use. This way, I generally don't need to do any editing work on photos that are in MC's library, and I don't need to worry too much about MC trashing any information that may be crucial to the sorting and filing within MC's library.
It's a lot of extra work though. If I write a caption for a photo in the initial software, it's saved in the EXIF data, but MC ignores it.
Image tagging with MC is a doddle. Slideshow creation (for playback on monitor or TV) is just as simple, and custom caption masks are fun to play with, but for actually getting creative with your photos and doing stuff for family/friends with a bit of "WOW" factor (think HTML albums or slide show DVD's) that's as good as gets. You can select photos organised in MC and drag and drop to other programs that
can do these things, but then those programs cannot read the <MJMD> tags so you're lumbered with a lot of typing work that you've already done once.
I'll stop now
Hopefully, things are a little clearer for you now. MC is OK for images, you just need to be aware of the potential pitfalls laying around. Here's a thread I started over the weekend in a similar vein:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33675.0
C'mon j.river, put me out of my misery, tell me v12 will be the one that takes image handling into the fast-lane
over and out...
-marko.
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Topic: Calendar preset view - can it show by "Date Created"? (Read 2305 times)