I've recently scanned some old negatives from a camera which wound the film right out then as the shots were taken wound the film back into the canister.
So when scanned, the photos are in reverse time/date order.
I've searched high and wide and can't find a way to set the time and date of the roll of film and simultaneously reverse the time order for each photo in a batch adjustment.
In iPhoto you can simply add minus 1 minute etc to each photo on a batch time/date adjustment, but not so in Aperture.
Does anyone have any ideas, or a solution?
Thanks
Andrew,
Interesting, I had to go into iPhoto to see what you ware talking about. Do you mean this? [screenshot]
You’re right, there is nothing like that in Aperture. Curious indeed.
You can do the time shift but it shifts all simultaneously, not adding a minute like in iPhoto. You said you can do –1 minute in iPhoto even? Cool.
Anyway, you’ll need to do this outside of Aperture I’m afraid. Check the App Store for EXIF editors; there are several but you’ll want to find one that can do incremental shifts like you want.
Or, just import to iPhoto, make the change (and write to Master), then import back into Aperture. Or if you’re working referenced, and they’re already in Aperture, it’s even easier… just import the same photos into iPhoto (and be sure that “copy items to the iPhoto library” is OFF [screenshot]), make the time shift, ensure you write to masters, then in Aperture, refresh the metadata (menu: Metadata > Update from Masters).
That should do the trick.
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph,
The photos are largely retouched (correcting scan colours from negatives) so I’d rather not be moving them into and out of iPhoto in case the versions or the masters get lost. My scan library is not referenced at this point.
My plan then is to try an EXIF editor, then if that doesn’t work I’ll attempt to switch my library to a referenced library and use your iPhoto workflow suggestion.
Andrew,
Remember you can Relocate Master(s)… as much or as little of your Library to referenced as you like. Just move that one project to a folder on the same drive (that way the move will be really fast), import those to iPhoto, and proceed as above. Then you can Consolidate Masters to bring them back in as Managed if that’s how you prefer to work.
Try it with a few test images, just to see. But yes if you’ve already made adjustments, then this is definitely the way you’ll want to do it.
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph,
I tried the import to iPhoto trick. Unfortunately even with “modify original files” checked at the moment of batch change the original files don’t get modified! iPhoto remembers the change, I just don’t know where it stores it!!!
So far I’ve tried a couple of trial exif editors but none has a batch setting to achieve my result. One I haven’t tried yet is called EXIF Editor (Mac App Store) but I’m waiting on a response from them as to whether it will work before I buy it.
Andrew,
Really… that’s surprising. Did you try on other random files, maybe even imported to iPhoto by copying to the library? That sounds like an unfortunate bug.
@PhotoJoseph
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Here’s my solution. I’ve never tried Applescript, but there’s a first time for everything.
Works like a charm.
# Aperture time and date batch adjustment for Applescript
# This script is for batch adjusting the date and time of a selection of photos, with a fixed increment (positive or negative) between each photo
# It prompts the user for the date and time of the first photo and the increment
# It then applies the changes to versions or masters as selected
# Written by Andrew Slade, 2012. Pass it on freely. If you think this is cool, check out my Word Smasher app on iTunes.
# Get user input for date and time
display dialog “Enter date and time of first image in selection:” default answer “20/3/1999 2:00 PM”
set textDate to (text returned of result)
# Convert to Mac format date
set realDate to (date textDate)
# Get user input for increment in minutes
display dialog “Enter increment to apply (in number of minutes):” default answer “-1”
# Convert to Mac format date
set incrementMinutes to (text returned of result)
set userReturned to (display dialog “About to set the first photo date to ” & realDate & ” and increment every following photo by ” & incrementMinutes & ” minutes. Apply changes to…” buttons {“Cancel”, “Versions”, “Masters”} default button “Masters”)
set userButton to button returned of userReturned
set image_selection to {}
tell application “Aperture”
set image_selection to selection
set imageDate to realDate
# for every image in the selection, set the correct date
repeat with i from 1 to count of image_selection
if userButton is “Versions” then
adjust image date imageDate of images {item i of image_selection}
else if userButton is “Masters” then
adjust image date imageDate of images {item i of image_selection} with masters included
end if
set imageDate to imageDate + incrementMinutes * minutes
end repeat
end tell
Andrew,
Nice! Why don’t you write this up on the User Tips page. Be sure to explain what you did and why, and I’ll release it. Very cool!
@PhotoJoseph
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