I am continually finding that the date created on a digital image is not appearing in the metadata in Opus when it seems fine in Explorer and Photoshop's file info.
A added a datecreated column to a lister and sorted on it. The date created only showed up in about 20 per cent of the files.
I also found that when I queried these image files without a date created value via a small script, the script could extract nothing from the fields.
I then started taking random images without an Opus datecreated and examined them in Explorer and Photoshop. The date created was always present.
The enclosed image is one of the "troublesome pictures". The screenshot shows the discrepancy between Explorer and Opus, and there is a text file of the metadata output obtained with EXIFTool.
I do not know whether this helps, but when I take the date taken field from Explorer and set it into Opus the date taken appears OK in Opus and Photoshop CC. ( I guess it should really, but at least it shows that on my set-up it is working OK). But manually setting the date taken on hundreds of pictures is hardly practicable.
Why can I see it in Explorer? Is Explorer not using Exif? Surely, as an Explorer replacement, DOpus should allow me to see exactly what I can see in Explorer, or what is the point?
The date seems to be there in an XMP tag which is presumably where Explorer is getting it from (we don't have the source code to Explorer so I can't say for certain). Whatever tagged the file put some tags in Exif and some in XMP which is kind of strange.
In the course of my work I take in images from all over the place. The one thing all these images have in common is that they did not come off my digital camera. All images from that are, of course 100 per cent OK. Could the Exif data get stripped out of these images if somebody uses the Photoshop Save to Web, perhaps?
However seeing that these image come from diverse sources you will see that it is a real problem. Anything Opus can do to pick up this XMP data? Presumably that must be what Explorer is doing if there is no EXif in the file.
I don't know if it would work, but you could try a custom script column which used the ShellProp method of the item class. (If you know how to write a script.)
All metadata can get stripped out for many different reasons, file size reduction, privacy and so on.
Is suspect you want the value to show in the default column. However the exiftool can read and write XMP metadata.
Tbone created a script that can use that tool to create custom columns. Might be of interest to you.
Thanks andersonnnunes and wowbagger for your thoughts, but this looks more and more like a dead duck to me. When I carefully investigate some of the files that are giving me the problem it becomes increasingly obvious that the created dates shown in Explorer are not necessarily the true created dates.
For instance, I have found images where the description field indicates that the picture was taken in 2015, but the Explorer created date is shown as 2016.
I guess that unless the image is in your total control i.e. taken on your own digital camera you cannot vouch for the veracity of a created date. And if you cannot do that, to my mind there is no point in fussing about it.
It looks like Explorer is showing the Xmp.CreateDate field as the date taken, if the Xmp.DateTImeOriginal or Exif.DateTimeOriginal fields aren't present. We can add this easily enough, and I've done so for the next beta - but I'm not 100% sure the two fields are meant to be treated as equivalent.
If you were looking for a synonym for total confusion then you could hardly do better than metadata. From what I have been able to deduce by looking at lots of these problem pictures the XMp.Createdate is not necessarily the the same as the date taken. I can tell this from the fact it sometimes does match what is written in the user description (caption field)- always providing of course that this good information. Many thanks for your efforts and it will at least maintain consistency with Explorer.
When it comes to creation date the only thing you can trust is the EXIF off your own digital camera.
