Date shift in organizer

[jaxnd]

A few weeks ago I migrated from PSE 6 to 7. Everything was going swimmingly until tonight. I looked in my organizer and about half of my catalog ( about 7000 files) had today's date as the file date. Do you know what caused this?
I have been partially successful with change date to file date, but not 100%. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
jackson

[johnrellis]

By "file date", I assume you mean the date that appears under each thumbnail in the Organizer? That is the "date taken" date, normally set by the camera ("file dates" are the dates the file was created and modfied, set by Windows, having nothing to do with photos, and usually not visible in PSE).

Troubleshooting questions:

1. Were these dates set by a digital camera when the pic was taken, or did you set the dates using Edit > Adjust Date And Time?

2. Start PSE 6 and verify that your PSE 6 catalog had the correct dates.

3. Did you give the Edit > Update Thumbnail or File > Reconnect commands recently?

4. What types are the problem photos? JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, something else?

5. Select one of the problem photos. Do Windows > Properties. In the Properties window, select the Metadata pane, click the Complete radio button at the bottom, and look at the Date Time Original field in the Camera Data (Exif) section. That is the "date taken" recorded in the file's metadata -- is it correct? Click the screenshot below to see at full size:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/128nHIil5uh6cfTf9d2j4oyTqMhLKm0_thumb.png (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=128nHIil5uh6cfTf9d2j4oyTqMhLKm0)

[jaxnd]

Thank you for the response. This has just started recently, ( yesterday). My catalog used to display the "shot on" date. Now it displays the date I opened the file, even though there was nothing done to it.
I am working in PSE 7.
1. Dates were set by camera. And previously shown correctly.
2. Yes, some files still show the correct "shot on / created on" date.
3. I did do some reconnects, but that was last week, and those commands did not change the "shot on" date shown in the organizer, but linked them correctly to the shot on date, not a "modified" date.
4. JPEG
5. Some files show the correct shot on date. Some files now show the modified date in the meta data. I am not sure how this was changed in the file. For example a photo taken Sept 2008, now shows a August 30, 2009 meta date.

I would like to default the program to the shot on date, for sorting purposes. How do I do this? The good news is that this has affected only about 400 of my 14,000 images. I am now concerned that everytime I open an image it will show the current date and not the created on date, like it did last week.

I did hook up a scanner to my computer, perhaps there is something in this.
Should I save my catalog and reinstall pse 7?


Thank you
Jackson

[johnrellis]

Your issue doesn't match previous problems I've investigated. While all versions of PSE have problems with metadata and dates/times in particular, this is pretty extreme behavior.

In certain circumstances, the Update Thumbnail or Reconnect commands can change the date-taken in the catalog to the file-last-modified date or the date-taken in the file's metadata, but they wouldn't rewrite the date in the file's metadata, as appears to be happening with you. If some other program changed the date-taken recorded in the files' metadata, then you would need to give PSE an explicit command (Update Thumbnail) to reread that date -- it won't reread the date otherwise.

It's extremely unlikely that your scanner software caused this. It's also extremely unlikely tha reinstalling PSE would have any effect.

Some more troubleshooting to narrow down what's going on:

1. Upload one of the photos that have an incorrect date to www.pixentral.com (http://www.pixentral.com) (free) and post the URL here. I can then examine it's metadata in detail using other tools. When you post its URL here, also include the date that is shown in the Organizer for the photo (under the thumbnail) and what the correct date-taken should be.

2. I'm not sure you understood the previous step 2 I suggested. Start PSE 6 (not PSE 7), which will open your old PSE 6 catalog (when you converted to PSE 7, it converted your PSE 6 catalog to a fresh PSE 7 catalog, leaving the original untouched). Are all of the dates in the PSE 6 catalog correct? If so, then you'll be able to recover the correct dates for all the photos that are in your PSE 6 catalog. But let's not actually do that recovery until we get a better idea of what's happening with PSE 7.

[jaxnd]

This is an image that I took Nov 19 2005.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ZIn2G4p6EtRIdNlDKr83bOj4wauKe

I see that the meta data states September 14 2008 and the file states Aug 29, 2009.
Regarding PSE6 I removed it from my PC. I still have the disc, but I am not sure to see where the original catalog is located.
I appreciate all your help on this. I am really a fan of PSE and hope this issue can be solved.
Jackson

[johnrellis]

Just to verify my understanding: You took the pic "Nov 19 2005". But which date shows under the thumbnail in the Organizer? And which date shows for Date Time Original in the Camera Data (Exif) section of the Properties window?

The file you posted has the following date/times in its metadata:

[File] FileModifyDate: 2009:08:30 13:20:59-07:00
[EXIF] ModifyDate: 2009:08:29 20:30:45
[EXIF] DateTimeOriginal: 2009:08:22 11:10:50
[EXIF] CreateDate: 2009:08:22 11:10:50
[XMP] ModifyDate: 2009:08:29 20:30:45-04:00
[XMP] DateTimeOriginal: 2009:08:22 11:10:50-04:00
[XMP] DateTimeDigitized: 2009:08:22 11:10:50-04:00

My PSE 7 does a proper job of reading these when I import the photo. I notice that Date Time Original (the "date taken") is Saturday, 8/22/2009,
and you said you did a Reconnect "last week", which is suspicous. Is it possible that you did a Reconect that day?

Did you also give a File > Write Keyword Tags command to these files at some point?

I still can't fully explain your symptoms in terms of the known Reconnect bug, but I'm forming a guess .

[johnrellis]

Regarding PSE6 I removed it from my PC. I still have the disc, but I am not sure to see where the original catalog is located.

For our purposes, though PSE 6 and 7 will coexist quite nicely, it's not necessary to reinstall PSE 6 (yet).

In PSE 7, do File > Catalog > Convert. Check the box Show Previously Converted Catalogs. Select your PSE 6 catalog and click Convert. It will likely ask you to type in a new name -- pick a perspicuous name like "Original PSE 6 converted".

This will make a new PSE 7 catalog from your PSE 6 catalog. In this catalog, check out the date of the photo you posted at www.pixentral.com (http://www.pixentral.com). What date appears under the photo's thumbnail?

Are other photos showing incorrect dates?

[Juergen D]

I may be off base, but I remember Elements having problems with incomplete, missing or invalid camera dates. If there is a backup of the photo available that was made before the PSE 6 to 7 conversion, it might be interesting to look at its EXIF data.

Juergen

[jaxnd]

Date Taken 11/19/2005
Date shown as taken 9/14/2007
Date showing in the organizer thumbnail Aug 29, 2009
I converted my master file on Aug 16, 2009 everything was working well with correct "shot on" dates showing in the thumbnails. Over the past two weeks I have been putting items in albums and trying to catch up on keywords. For some reason about 360 files have been redated.
Now when I open a file and try and force a new date it gives todays date, even though I may pick a date in June 2009 for example. I've stopped opening files for the time being.

Regarding your second post
I found my PSE 6 organizer. It did not ask me to pick a new name, it just said that I had already converted this organizer.

I tried something else, I deleted this image from the organizer and then reimported it. I got another date! August 22, 2009!

I just did a test with a .doc file and it shows the correct creation date
I also just did tests with my NIKON and my SONY and both the correct creation date.
I just opened a scanned file that I did yesterday. It shows a date created of today 8/30. I think something is whacky with PSE 7.

[jaxnd]

I am sorry to say that there is no back up file.

[jaxnd]

I looked at another file of a photograph I took June 13. I looked at the exif data and it shows the photo as being created Aug 29. Could pse be rewriting my exif data?

[jaxnd]

It looks like somehow I have rewritten my exif data on about 300 files. I am not quite sure how I did this. Any thoughts on how to change this exif data? I have found a few freeware programs, but thought you may have other ideas.

[johnrellis]

I'm not sure what's happening with your PSE 7 catalog -- I haven't heard of this collection of symptoms before.

I think the best option is to back up and see if the correct dates are in the PSE 6 catalog. If the catalog has the correct dates, then we should be able to get them written back to the photos (provided you don't give any Reconnect or Update Thumbnail commands or invoke the Full Editor while viewing the PSE 6 catalog). After that, you've got a couple of options of how to proceed.

So as a first step, let's find out why you can't reconvert the PSE 6 catalog. Click on the screen shot below to see at full resolution while proceeding through the steps. If at some step you don't see what appears in my screen shot, describe what you do see (a screen shot would be even better):

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/15oorcpX1vknrtiO3L6NS96EAQIO0_thumb.png (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=15oorcpX1vknrtiO3L6NS96EAQIO0)

1. Do File > Catalog > Convert.

2. Check the box Show Previously Converted Catalogs.

3. In the list of catalogs, select your PSE 6 catalog.

4. Click Convert.

5. If there's already a PSE 7 catalog with the same name as the selected PSE 6 catalog, it will ask you to type in a new name for the newly converted catalog. PSE lets you reconvert a catalog as many times as you want.

[jaxnd]

OK, PSE6 catalog shows correct dates. I opened an image up in the editor and it rewrote the May 2009 date to today's date/time 8/31/09 9:23 EDT. The files change when I open them in the editor, and it changes the exif data.
I believe that this file shift problem started when I experimented with trying to scan a file through PSE instead of my scanning software, saving it, then opening it in pse. I believe my software is corrupted.
By the way I don't know how to do a screenshot. Also the thumbnail I am seeing of your screenshot is very small, is there a way to enlarge it?

OK I just blew my own theory, as I opened a file noted the meta data, saved it and the exif date did not change. I thought I had it figured out.
What about deleting a catalog and starting all over again???

[johnrellis]

Before doing anything else, if you want the dates/times of the 300 photos to be corrected, here's what I recommend:

1. Reinstall PSE 6. PSE 6 and 7 coexist quite peacefully on the same machine (but only run one at a time).

2. In PSE 6, select all of your photos and do File > Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info. This will write the date/times appearing under the thumbnails in the PSE 6 catalog to the files' EXIF metadata, overwriting the incorrect times.

[johnrellis]

Also the thumbnail I am seeing of your screenshot is very small, is there a way to enlarge it?
Click on it.

By the way I don't know how to do a screenshot.
You can hit the Print Screen key on your keyboard (often abbreviated, e.g. PrtScn), which puts a copy of the screen in the clipboard. You can paste that into Windows Paint (Start menu > All Programs > Accessories) or in the PSE Editor, do File > New > Image From Clipboard. On Vista, you can also use the handy Snipping Tool (also in Accessories).

[johnrellis]

I believe that this file shift problem started when I experimented with trying to scan a file through PSE instead of my scanning software, saving it, then opening it in pse.
I'm very skeptical that this would cause the date problems with your camera JPEGs. PSE sometimes has problems writing the EXIF metadata of files produced by scanner utilities. (That problem wouldn't occur if you scan from within PSE.) The evidence is pointing to some scenario involving the Reconnect command you invoked last week.


I believe my software is corrupted. ... What about deleting a catalog and starting all over again???

I think it's more likely that the catalog is corrupted. But you can rule out a bad installation by reinstalling in what Adobe calls "simplified mode", with anti-virus and other services disabled, as described in one of the steps in these tech notes:

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb406651 (Vista)
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb404992 (XP)

After you've reinstalled PSE 7, you can reconvert your PSE 6 catalog (give it a new name) and see if that freshly converted catalog, with a fresh installation, gives you any problems.

[jaxnd]

Am I unintentionally rewriting the exif data?????????????!!!!!!!!!
I thought that data was permanent and could not be changed?!
I have been using the "adjust date/time">change to match file's date and time, thinking that this was going to adjust the date on the organizer file to match the file and time the image was created. Has all of this been operator error?????

[jaxnd]

I did do quite a bit of work recently trying to reconnect files and creating catalogs.

[johnrellis]

Am I unintentionally rewriting the exif data? I thought that data was permanent and could not be changed? I have been using the "adjust date/time">change to match file's date and time, thinking that this was going to adjust the date on the organizer file to match the file and time the image was created. Has all of this been operator error?
The EXIF metadata in a photo file gets changed by PSE and most other photo programs when you set tags, captions, notes, star ratings, etc.

The Edit > Adjust Date And Time > Change To Match File's Date And Time changes the "date taken" of photo to the "modified date" of the file. The modified date is when the file was last changed by Windows or any other program and has nothing to do with the "date taken". If you did indeed give this command, that would account for why you are seeing the "date taken" to be a very recent date.

The command is documented here:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopElements/7.0_Win/WSae2ea3b149d0c3591ae939f103860b3d59-7f7a.html

See this FAQ for a complete, in-depth description of what all the different dates/times are:

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_All_the_different

Assuming that you did invoke "Change To Match File's Date And Time" on those 300-odd files, then your PSE 7 catalog is not corrupted, and here's a recipe for moving forward:

1. In a previous message, I walked you through how to reconvert the PSE 6 catalog to a new PSE 7 catalog.

2. Open that new PSE 7 catalog, which has the correct dates, select all photos, and do File > Write Keyword Tag And Properties Info. This will get the correct dates into the files.

3. Open your original PSE 7 catalog, select all the photos, and do Edit > Update Thumbnail. This can take a very long time (about 5,000 to 10,000 thumbnails per hour). It will regenerate the thumbnails and reread the photos' metadata into the catalog (dates/times, captions, notes, and star ratings, but not keyword tags), overwriting what you previously had in the catalog. This will get the correct dates/times into your current PSE 7 catalog.

[jaxnd]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!
Thank you very much. I really appreciate your assistance. I will give that a try and let you know.