iPhoto shows right date - wrong date in Finder

Yes. The Finder doesn't understand Exif metadata.

There are two kinds of metadata involved when you consider jpeg or other image file.

One is the file data. This is what the Finder shows. This tells you nothing about the contents of the file, just the File itself.

The problem with File metadata is that it can easily change as the file is moved from place to place or exported, e-mailed, uploaded etc.

Photographs have also got both Exif and IPTC metadata. The date and time that your camera snapped the Photograph is recorded in the Exif metadata. Regardless if what the file date says, this is the actual time recorded by the camera.

Photo applications like iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Picasa, Photoshop etc get their date and time from the Exif metadata.

When you export from iPhoto to the Finder new file is created containing your Photo (and its Exif). The File date is - quite accurately - reported as the date of Export.

However, the Photo Date doesn't change.

The problem is that the Finder doesn't work with Exif.

So, your photo has the correct date, and so does the file, but they are different things. To sort on the Photo date you'll need to use a photo app.

I am having a similar problem. The correct date for the Photo is showing in finder, but after it is imported to apeture it shows the import date. How do I correct this?

This is the iPhoto for Mac forum - does htis question involve iPhoto for Mac in any way? If not it would be better to post it int he correct forum

LN

I am using iPhoto 9.5.1 on a Macbook Air running OS X 10.9.2. I imported pictures directly from the camera mmeory card by just plugging it directly into the laptop and letting iPhoto import. I had pictures from six different cameras that did not have their clocks synchronized, so after importing them I adjusted the times in iPhoto and ended up with 4,900 photos from all photographers all sorted beautifully. When adjusting the times, I consistently clicked the box that said to adjust the original. I exported the album to a folder, copied that to a portable drive, plugged it into my iMac and imported. The adjusted dates did not stick.

So now I have two questions. First, is there a way to move or copy the album of time-adjusted photos to iPhoto on my iMac? Without the export/copy/import, is there a way to somehow share my Macbook iPhoto album and let the iMac iPhoto pull it in directly from the Macbook iPhoto file?

Second, I had planned on giving the time-adjusted photo album to the other photographers on a DVD. The time adjustments did not go with the export.

If I am unable to do either of these, what is the purpose/significance of checking the box on the time adjustement that says to modify the original file?

Thanks.

Correction - Maybe I now see what went wrong. I actually had eight cameras taking pictures, but four were smartphones that had automatically adjusted to the local time, so I did not adjust any of their times and instead adjusted the other four to match the smartphone times. In looking again at the imported album on the iMac, all of the dates that I adjusted DID hold. The problem is only with the smartphone pictures. When I look at the exported files for those, the only Exif data is color space and dimension. The original file stored by iPhoto on my Macbook has all kinds of Exif data for these pictures, but the modified file includes only color space and dimension, and that is what exported. When I adjust the time of a photo, e.g., by one second, additional Exif data shows up in the modified file. Not all of it, but it does include the digitized date so that is what I need.

So I guess I have a solution. Don't understand why the original Exif daa does not show up in the "modfied" file in iPhoto, but the solution is OK.

Sorry to bother before fully investigating. .

Thanks.

How did you export? What settings did you use?

Exported maximum resolution, full size, used filenames, title and keywords and location information.

A couple of interesting further points.

First, I now see that the problem was much more limited. It happened on 50 of 250 pictures taken on one iPhone. And it happened on all of the videos. All were assigned dates as of the date of export. Other iphones and other smartphones (Samsung) had no problem.

Second, the Exif information was lost BEFORE the export. There is a long list of Exif data for each photo, including the 200 photos from the suspect iPhone that transferred OK. But for some reason, the "modified" file in iPhoto for these 50 or so photos was missing most of the Exif data, including only color space and pixel dimension. Now that I have modified the time by one second, the Exif data for these 50 photos also includes the digitized date.

I also notice that even after modifying the time by one second for all photos, the pictures from the smartphones, including the 200 "good" pictures from the one problem smartphone, do not have "modified" files in iPhoto, only "original" files. For some reason, only the 50 problem photos have modified files, and with less than all of the Exif data that is included with the "original" files.

So I don't think it is the export that is a problem, the photos were exported using the Exif data exactly as it appeared in the 'modified" iPhoto file. Just don't know why there 50 pictures had a problem, and don't know why the 75 vido clips did not transfer their dates.

But this is now a small pain in the rear that I can deal with. Does not look like there was any large-scale failure of iPhoto. And all I have to do now is manually adjust the times of the video files.

Thanks.

1. Videos don't have Exif. They have very little metadata. There is no reliable way to date on video, essentially. Without Exif apps just use the file date, and that changes with copying/moving/sharing.

2. There is no modified version in iPhoto 11. There are previews used for the sharing function, and this has limited metadata - designed for places where it's not so important.

3. What phone created this particular 50 images?

1. See that now.

2. When I ask iPhoto to show me the file in Finder, it gives"modified" and "original" options, so it does still use modified files at least in some instances. For almost all of the photos, the "modified" option is greyed out, so it is not using this. But for the 50 problem photos, they all have modified files.

3. The several iPhones taking pictures were all iPhone 5 models. I cannot tell you what iOS version the problem phone was running, but can find out if needed. But hard to believe it is the OS since 250 of the 250 pictures turned out fine.

I also notice that the quality of the image displayed in iPhoto is degraded.

I am attaching the files here. Don't know whether you will see just the images or can see the file information as well.

1. See what when?

2. That's a terminological glitch. it should say preview. The difference? In older versions the modified file was quite independent of the original, in iPhoto 11 the preview is closely linked to the original.

3. Those images look like they had an exif filter applied on the Phones.

1. See that there is no Exif data with the video files.

2. Understood. Thanks.

3. I would not know how to do that, and I am sure the operator does not, so don't know how it got applied to only 20% of the images. But I suppose it is theoretically possible since the bad photos happened to two batches of consecutive photos. Not random. But note that the good image above is the "original" file from iPhoto. So the photo as imported into iPhoto looked fine. The bad photo above is the "modified" file from iPhoto. so it seems that the problem was not a filter on the phone, it is something that iPhoto did after import. Don't know what triggered it.

Thanks.

One last thing. The problem is repeatable. If I take the original file out of iPhoto and look at it in Preview, it looks fine. If I import it into iPhoto, iPhoto creates a modified file with no Exif data except color space and pixel dimension.

If you'd like, I could send you an original file so you could see what it is. But I can live without these fifty photos, so this is not a big crisis for me now. More puzzling than annoying. But thanks for your time. I am learning.

Terence,

You had it right. You guessed the problem without even knowing the facts. Which is why I am asking the questions and you are giving the advice.

Talked to the person who took the questionable pictures and she said that a couple of times she accidentally hit the color filter button to the right of the shutter button in the camera app. So she actually applied a color filter, chrome or fade or something like that, when taking the picture. I did not know it was even there, and was certain (for good reason) that she did not know how to use it. But it is there . . .

So now that it is clear that everything is working correctly, I guess I would like to understand better what is being stored. If she applied a filter when taking the picture, does the iPhone store corrected and uncorrected versions? Or more likely stores the original uncorrected image and an overlay file? Because when it imported into iPhoto, iPhoto apparently stored both an "original" and a "modified" version, with the modified version being the filtered photo but the "original" file appearing to be the photo without the filter applied.

Does this mean that when taking a photo with a filter applied, I can somehow recover the unfiltered photo if I want it? Do you now how to do that? I am assuming a third party app. I can pull the uncorrected version out of the "original" file in iPhoto, but when I import that again into iPhoto, it applies the filter in what it displays

And very interesting that the "modified" version did not just modify the Exif data but for some reason leaves out the digitized date/time.

I have not experimented, but does this mean that any time I apply any "effects" or "corrections" to a photo on my iPhone, the same thing will happen, i.e., when importing into iPhoto there will be a modified version that is used by iPhoto as the working copy? Becasue what is happening here is that I import the photos into iPhoto while travelling, then when I return I export from my laptop and import into iPhoto on my iMac, and now the modified version is the "original" on my iMac, and the Exif data for these pictures will be permanently lost. Modifying the time for all pictures by one second gets the proper time stamp to export, but the rest of the Exif data is lost.

Interesting. And good to know.

Thanks.

File -> Export and set the Kind to Original and you'll get whatever iPhoto imported as an original file.