Fixing photo time and timezone in Aperture

I have been perplexed by time zone problems in Aperture for years now. My wife & take photos with our iPhones and other cameras, and occasionally I try to integrate photos that friends have also taken. The main problem I have encountered has been one of time stamps - to get the photos to appear properly in chronological orders the time zones and times must be aligned.

After our recent Portugal trip I seem to have finally figured it out - and it was surprisingly straighforward. My approach is to fix the times and the time zones independently so that the interaction between the two doesn't confuse the heck out of things. As far as I can tell this should work for all situations. Here is this solution.

The first thing you should know is that EXIF does not store time-zone data. Hence when you import into Aperture it can only assign the time-zone of your Mac to the photo. On import there is an option to adjust the time zone. My strategy is not to do this, as it gets very confusing. Just import as is and we will fix everything later.

Once the photos are safely in Aperture, group the photos together (using albums or projects as you prefer) by time zone. If necessary subdivide by camera. Now you have groups of photos which can be correctly timestamped with at most two batch changes each.

For each group, figure out if you need to adjust the time. In this step we ignore time zones, and just focus on the time data. Select the photos and use "Adjust Date and Time..." to change all the times of the photos in the batch to the correct time in the timezone of the photo. That is, if the photo was taken at 3pm in the place where it was taken, change the time so that it becomes 3pm. Ignore the time zone. Occasionally taking a photo with a smartphone at the same time as with a camera is something I do so that I can synchronize location data as well as timestamps. I also turn on "Also adjust original files" but since I only work within Aperture I'm not sure if this is strictly necessary. The same adjustment should apply to the entire group so close your eyes and hit "Adjust".

Next, for each group figure out if you need to adjust the time zone. Select the photos, use "Batch Change..." and turn on "Adjust Time Zone". Now here is the clever part. Set both the "Camera's Time Zone" and "Actual Time Zone" to the actual time zone where the photo was taken. If you don't do this Aperture is too smart for its own good and ajdusts the time as well.Since you have already set the time correctly in the last step, you do not want this. Hit "OK".

That's it! Your photos in this group have the correct time and time zone. No mess, no bother.

Message was edited by: strikemannt