Lightroom Tip - Fixing Missing Metadata Dates


Lightroom has a great Metadata browser which allows you to see your images sorted by date. It uses the EXIF "Date Time" field to do this.

The problem occurs when you add files to the Lightroom database which do not have data in this field. i.e if you have scanned a negative or imported a file which has not come from a digital camera. See below there are 245 files in my library with an unknown date.

lightroom_meta_data_date

To the rescue is a feature of lightroom called "Edit Capture Time" which can be used to set the EXIF "Date Time" field to the "File creation date".
The good news is that all you have to do is select all of the photos which have an unknown date - using the Metadata date browser - and then use the "Edit Capture time" command to reset the date on each file to the file creation date.


lightroom_edit_capture_time

Select the checkbox to change the file creation date, hit change all, and then all the files will appear in the correct date range in the metadata browser.


lightroom_change_capture_time

Works a treat!

Hope you find this useful.

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