Importing new photos into Photos with the JPG's actual metadata adjusted "Date Time Original" in EXIF and also In IPTC Core "Date Created"

Thanks LarryHN

I just wanted to be certain that Photos didn't pick up Finder's created date and I believe you have answered it to my satisfaction. To be sure that I understand this, if the metadata wasn't present, it would be picked up with the Finder's created date.

As an aside, I believe that you can have a different EXIF "Date Time Original" and an IPTC core "Date Created". I may be wrong with that belief, but if not, which date will Photos pick as the created date first by default?

Thanks

Thanks Again Larry

I asked that second question because after renaming and changing 30m pix and metadata dates, I likely missed ensuring both of those fields were identical or perhaps even input. I am only human and it was a monumental effort to ensure a Master library that would be useful forever with whatever digital asset manager I would use in the future and not be captive to ones that use catalogues to manage metadata. I wanted the information inside the file.

Hopefully, the way I now understand this, if the file doesn't have an IPTC date, it might? try for an EXIF date and, failing that, it would use the finder date? Or, does it just use the IPTC date only then default to Finder's?

You've been a great resource.

Thanks

Only2cents

Hi Old Toad

Thanks for you help.

Question. I opened Photos. Went to preferences. What is "Use as System Library"? If chosen, does that just mean when Photos is opened that it is the Library that opens all of the time? I have been used to holding option key held down while opening to be able to choose a Library and am wondering if this is something else? Meaning, if chosen, does it always opens regardless of which Library I had opened last?

I will try a test soon but it may take some time as I am planning on ensuring different metadata fields are populated or not to see how this all plays out.

Thanks for the advice.

Hi Again

I should have mentioned that my concern was whether the word system meant it would try to work within my current iPhoto which I would not want it to do. I want to try a completely independent test without these "New" originals somehow making their way into a current iPhoto library system.

Thanks

Thanks.

So to make sure I understand that fully, if I create a test library that isn't a system Library, then it won't be able to use those features unless enabled later?

You mentioned 3rd party apps. I have Affinity Photo. Would it work on the test Library, (the one I will not designate system)? I was specifically wondering if a library wasn't a system library, whether it wouldn't allow Affinity edits to be saved in Photos?

Thanks for your responses.

Hi Old Toad

I do realize iPhoto is a dead end as the support will be gone someday in future OS releases and that is why I am now retrieving all of my "original" photo files, completing the relevant metadata fields that weren't populated or that I deem necessary for my needs. I am sure this will play nice in Photos for the present and be somewhat future-proofed as a result of this effort. That is until I am faced with its obsolescence or a better DAM comes around that will work with my editing software. I am sure going to give Photos a try, but I am planning on approaching it with referenced files, despite what most would think.

Thanks again

Good Morning

Thanks again Old Toad.

It's good information to know if I wanted to use metadata from my iPhoto Library.

Others that may be reviewing this thread, because of its reference to metadata, may find their solution in your add-on note.

In my case, I extracted all the originals which had negligible amounts of metadata entered manually by me in iPhoto. Bringing what was entered into iPhoto as metadata was not a big deal for my circumstance. It's what I did outside to the metadata to those extracted files, using Bridge, and how I could reimport them into a new Photos library that concerned me the most. In particular, how Photos would default the acceptance of date created from those altered files. I was uncertain how dates created (inside the changed EXIF and IPTC) compared to being viewed in the folders via Finder's "date created" would catalogue the date for Photo's purpose. That question has basically been answered, IPTC first?. Still testing.

BTW, I am importing all those nicely referenced original folders that were extracted in a manner that was created by year (ie 1955 etc) that, in my case had subfolders within the year, which just so happened to be the Event Names. I stumbled upon a very nice Script Editor that works great with my OSX El Capitan, and apparently others have found it works in more recent OS. I can't vouch for it working in the newer operating systems. Basically, it allows for dragging the entire Folder, with the subfolders named as the events, where my metadata changed files were residing, into Photos. You can see the workflow in action. It imports one folder at a time and then selects that last import. Those files are selected and it creates an Album, which it places under the year( ie 1955) with the Event name, as the album name. I am aware that this resembles the initial import of an iPhoto library where you wanted to keep events as Albums, but i didn't go that route for my personal reasons, which were to rename and re-date outside of iPhoto. I was only importing what Photos would think was a new directory with a bunch of subfolders.

I know this is off topic, but if someone took the time to read this far, it may be useful. Just search ImportPhotoFolders if you want more information.

Thanks

Only2Cents