PSE6 Date Problem

I have a problem with Photoshop Elements 6 Editor changing the Date Picture
Taken on some of my photos by minus 1 hour.

Example:
Canon Raw (CR2) photo taken with Canon 40d @ 10:46
Exiftool at this point shows 10:46
After editing with ACR and PSE6 editor
Date and time in Organiser still shows 10:46
Date Time Original in 'Show Properties' shows 10:46
Date Time Digitised in 'Show Properties' shows 10:46
Exiftool at this point Date Time Original shows 09:46
Exiftool at this point Date Time Digitised shows 10:46 with +01:00
Windows Explorer Date Picture Taken shows 09:46

It is only doing this on some photos - the last batch loaded changed the time on
14 out of 117. The only thing I can see common to the 14 that it changed times
on is the +01:00 at the end of the time in Exiftool.

All the photos that are OK show
Date Time Original shows HH:MM with +01:00
Date Time Digitised shows HH:MM with +01:00

All the photos that wrong show
Date Time Original shows HH:MM
Date Time Digitised shows HH:MM with +01:00

I do not know what the +1 means but it must be something the PSE adds as it is
not there when Exiftool is pointed at the CR2's.

I need this to be right as I edit photos for other people in PSE6 that do not
have PSE6 themselves and use the Date Photo taken in Windows.

Sorry to be long winded with this but does anyone have any idea what is
happening here and why it only happens to some photos.

Brian,

I can provide some partial insight into what’s happening that may help you find
a work-around. In general, the industry standards around “time” are confusing
and evolving and PSE’s implementation of file metadata is fairly buggy, so I’m
not at all surprised you’ve encountered this problem.

First, EXIF metadata can actually store multiple, overlapping groups of fields
controlled by different standards. I recommend always using -G switch for
“exiftool”, which will output the group names. In particular, there’s the older
EXIF/IPTC standard and the new XMP standard, both of which can have fields with
the same name.

To further confuse things, the EXIF standard says that EXIF: date fields should
be of the form:

      2008:05:13 19:04:49




Such date/times are to be interpreted as “local” time, which is of course
ambiguous when photos are flying across the world via the Internet. PSE
interprets those times using the time zone of the computer on which it is
running (BST in your case).

But the XMP standard records date fields with a time zone:

      2008:05:13 19:04:49+01:00




The +1:00 indicates the date/time is 1 hour ahead of UTC (GMT), which is BST.

When PSE writes metadata to a file, it deletes most (but not all) of the EXIF:
fields and replaces them with the XMP: fields. Thus, you would see

      EXIF:DateTimeOriginal: 2008:05:14 10:46:35




get (correctly) replaced by:

      XMP:DateTimeOriginal: 2008:05:14 10:46:35+01:00




I suspect some of the DateTimeOriginal fields you’re observing are EXIF: and
some are XMP:.

I encountered and reported a bug a while ago in which, for JPEGs produced by my
Olympus C50Z, PSE 6 would update the EXIF:CreateDate field as a UTC time, rather
than as a local time as the standard requires. Then Windows Explorer would use
EXIF:CreateDate in preference to XMP:DateTimeOriginal when showing Date Picture
Taken. But this didn’t happen with JPEGs produced by other cameras. What a
mess.

From what you’re reported so far, something similar may be happening to you. You
have some times recorded as 10:46:35+01:00 (most likely XMP: fields) and some
recorded as 9:46:35 (most likely EXIF: fields). Perhaps PSE is incorrectly
recording those EXIF: fields as UTC rather (9:46) rather than as local time
(10:46).

Also, you don’t say, but it sounds like when you edit the .cr2 files, you’re
saving them as .jpg? Otherwise, PSE would be saving the metadata in the .xmp
sidecar files, which has its own sets of issues.

So a couple of thoughts:

1. Double-check your computer clock is correctly set to BST (+1:00).

2. Rerun the exiftool before and after on a “good” file and a “bad” file using
this command line:

      exiftool -G -CreateDate -DateTimeOriginal -DateTimeDigitized p.jpg

Thanks a lot for your help John

My PC is set up for BST I Think, it shows the correct time and it's Time Zone is
GMT Daylight Zone.

Yes, all the files are saved as jpg.

This is the Exiftool data for IMG_2889.CR2 which is OK
[EXIF] Create Date : 2008:05:11 10:46:38
[EXIF] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 10:46:38
This is the Exiftool data for IMG_2889.jpg which is OK
[XMP] Create Date : 2008:05:14 10:15:31+01:00
[XMP] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 10:46:38.00+01:00
[XMP] Date/Time Digitized : 2008:05:11 10:46:38.00+01:00

---------------------------------------------------------------

This is the Exiftool data for IMG_2890.CR2 which is wrong
[EXIF] Create Date : 2008:05:11 10:46:42
[EXIF] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 10:46:42
This is the Exiftool data for IMG_2890.jpg which is wrong
[XMP] Create Date : 2008:05:14 18:07:18+01:00
[XMP] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 09:46:42Z
[XMP] Date/Time Digitized : 2008:05:11 10:46:42.01+01:00

It seems as though the PSE editor has not added the 1 hour to the UTC time and
therefore taken 1 hour away from the BST time - but why would it do that and why
to only a few of the 117 edited in this batch.

I guess that this is happening to other people but because the time is correct
in Organiser it is not noticed.

 
This is the Exiftool data for IMG_2890.jpg which is wrong:

[XMP] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 09:46:42Z  
[XMP] Date/Time Digitized : 2008:05:11 10:46:42.01+01:00  


Interesting, I see what the issue is: For some reason, PSE has decided to use a
different, but valid, format in DateTimeOriginal. The “Z” means the time is UTC
(GMT) – 9:46 UTC is the exact same time as 10:46+01:00. Both formats are allowed
by the Adobe XMP specification, though it gently discourages uses of the “Z”
format. Who knows why PSE decided to use that Z format on a small fraction of
your photos.

So it seems that it is Windows Explorer that is not following the specification
– it’s ignoring the “Z”. Which version of Windows – Vista or XP?

A couple of thoughts about how you might work around this:

1. Use the Edit > Adjust Date and Time to shift the time of a batch of photos
forward by 1 minute. That might cause PSE 6 to write +01:00 format instead of
the Z format.

2. Use “exiftool” to add 1 second to the time of each photo in a batch. See this
example in the exiftool help file for how to do that:

      exiftool -DateTimeOriginal-='0:0:0 1:30:0' dir

Thanks John
I am using XP SP2.
This is what I found –

1) Change a batch to new starting time in PSE adding 1 min - this added 1 min OK
but still showed 1 hour behind in Windows Explorer so not an option.

2) Change to specified Date and Time individually worked OK - you don't even
have to change the time, just hit OK. Exiftool shows -

[XMP] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 10:46:42+01:00

Windows Explorer now shows the correct time, the only drawback is that you have
to do them individually.

3) Add 1 sec to Batch using Exiftool -This added 1 sec to them all OK but still
retained to Z as below so is not an option.
[XMP] Date/Time Original : 2008:05:11 09:46:43Z

I guess that option 2 is the best way out of it for me, it will not be so bad if
it is only a few. The other thing I have found out is that this is random
because when I re-editted a copy of some of the 117 for these tests it was
different ones that had the problem.