Windows 7: Libraries are great but....

Hey,
I think that libraries are a neat function, but they have posed their own little problem.

I've pulled in all my photos, but for some reason they all have a date created the same. So when I start to set display by month options, all the photos appear.

Is there any way of quickly (and in bulk) changing the date created on these photos ? I've tried properties but it won't let me change.

Thanks

Hi there
do you have any camera capture program - this will probably work or try this Free program (Picasa from google).

Picasa 3: Free download from Google

Cheers
jimbo

You have to configure whatever software you are using to download your photos from your camera to save in the kind of folder structure (naming conventions) that you would like. How you do this depends on the kind of software you are using to transfer your photos. I think Picassa mentioned above goes by date by default. I use Adobe Lightroom (which is great but not free) so I'm not sure.

Try a search for Cam2PC this will enable you to rename your photos based on different criteria but the important option is to add date information from the
embedded metadata info, (if it exists of course) within the files.

The freeware version has everything you need I think

I've found it http://www.nabocorp.com/cam2pc/

Hi there
I use Adobe Photoshop / Bridge but these are quite expensive programs which can use the metadata (known as the EXIF data ) embedded within the photo itself to create categories / names etc etc.
.
If you have a Canon camera you can use the DPP program supplied with the camera. The "Get from camera" facility will generate user defined names for folders and pictures.

Otherwise I'd go to some camera Forums to look for batch photo renaming programs -- there must surely be something out there for photographers.

A great place for shooters of all types is
http://www.fredmiranda.com


Cheers
jimbo

Libraries didn't change the date on your files because you are not moving the file when you include them in Libraries. Your files stay in the same spot so the date would not change, if you moved the files to some other folder trying to add them to Libraries you didn't do it correctly.

There are free utilities that will read the date the photo was taken from the header of the photo file and then rename the file with the date and time.

One such tool is called Namexif and can be found here.

How did you import your photos, and are you talking about the exif data that tells you when the photo was taken?

If you just want to change the created date, change your system date/time to the date you need, then use this dos command:

copy filename.filetype,,+

Or to do all of the files in the directory:
copy *.jpg,,+

It will replace your original with an identical copy that has a new created date.

thanks for the advice.

I'll give some of those a try. The date created I refer to is the meta data on already uploaded photos - this is what I want to change.

Loading them in is not a problem, as they are getting created on the correct date.