What Next ,,, ?

[Greyfox]

...I cannot control that Windows File Explorer will not display a date in the Date Taken field unless there is a matching date in at least 2 Exif fields.

I really don't understand where you are getting that from.

If I take a JPG that has absolutely no Exif, or IPTC metadata and in ACDSee manually just add the Exif Date/time Original, then In addition to ExifIFD Date/time Original, ACDSee in fact automatically also adds XMP-exif Date/time Original and XPM-photoshop Date Created, and Windows 10 File Explorer then correctly displays the "Date Taken" in Properties

But to go further, if I take an image which has no Exif or XMp metadata at all and in Exiftool add just the single Exif Date\tiime Original, then Windows 10 File Explorer will show the correct "Date Taken" in properties.,

I've zipped up one such image for you to try.

Smiley Face.zip

The JPG file inside the zip file has the "ExifIF Date\Time Original" specifically set to "2010:10:10 10:10:10" so it won't be confused with the Windows File Dates. That is the only Exif date present, and there is no xmp metadata.

Extract/unzip it and you should find that Windows File Explorer will show the Date Taken as "10/10/2010 10:10".

Edit: Windows File Explorer (properties) will also show the correct "Date taken" if the file has ONLY an XMP-exif: Date\Time Original, but will NOT show any Date Taken if there is ONLY an XMP-photoshop Date Created

But all that said, if anyone is not comfortable with the way an application works, they should perhaps chose an alternative they are comfortable with. .

[MegMac]

I understand that Date Taken is not an Exif metadata field. It is an expression. A very useful expression. I also realize that the names/labels of fields do not always match the Exif field name. I work with millions of photos every year that I get from my clients, and many of those photos have 'incomplete' Exif date metadata - for many reasons such as sending/sharing photos in ways that strips some or all date metadata.
I believe in making sure my clients photos have enough Exif and other date metadata that the dates will be recognized and displayed in whatever software, cloud storage service, or cloud photo gallery service they might use - and since I deal with a lot of collections that the client wants me to organize because they want to share the photos with other family members and friends, there are many possible applications and services that might be used to view/enjoy the photos.
Although the definition of DateTimeOriginal is "The date and time when the original image data was generated", if a photo has that Exif date ALONE that's not good enough for many applications and cloud gallery services to recognize it as the date the shutter was pressed on a digital camera. I can't control that, so I have to work with that.
I cannot control that Windows File Explorer will not display a date in the Date Taken field unless there is a matching date in at least 2 Exif fields. I cannot control what other applications and cloud gallery services look at to determine what date the photo was taken.
So, because the only Exif column ACDSee displays is Exif DateTimeOriginal, there is not enough information (not enough date metadata fields) for me to be confident that the date displayed in the Exif DateTimeOriginal will be recognized in other applications and cloud photo gallery services.
As a result, I will not use ACDSee to examine photo dates. I wish I could, but I can't.

[Greyfox]

Sadly, ACDSee does not have a 'Date Taken' field.

Perhaps that is because neither the Exif Standard 2.2 (JEITA 3451) or the later 2.3 version (JEITA CP-3451C) use field names "Date Taken" or "Capture Date"

Both those EXIF standards give the field name for the Date and Time of original data generation (Tag ID 36867) as "DateTimeOriginal", and the field name for Date and time of digital data generation (Tag ID 36868) as "DateTimeDigitized

"DateTimeOriginal" is described as "The date and time when the original image data was generated. For a DSC the date and time the picture was taken"

"DateTimeDigitized" is described as "The date and time when the image was stored as digital data. If, for example, an image was captured by DSC at at the same time the file was recorded, then the DateTimeOriginal and DateTimeDigitized will have the same contents"

In regards to the above two tags, ACDSee seems to have stayed with the field names given in the standards, but that isn't the case for all other developers.

For instance Affinity Photo uses "Date Shot" in its Exif listing for DateTimeOriginal, but "Date Time Original" in its Detail listing.
As another example, ExifTool uses "CreateDate" in place of "DateTimeDigitized".

The above standards also give the field name for "File change date and time" (Tag ID 306) as "DateTime". ACDSee uses Exif date/time in its Batch Adjust Time Stamp function. ExifTool uses the field name "Modify Date" for Exif IFDO TAG ID 306.

[MegMac]

Sadly, ACDSee does not have a 'Date Taken' field. In Applications such as File Explorer, Lightroom Classic, Adobe Bridge, Photo Mechanic, Tag That Photo, and Duplicate Cleaner Pro, a photo must have the same date in a minimum of 2 Exif date metadata fields for that date to be recognized as a 'Date Taken' or Capture Date'.
I am big fan of Directory Opus, but if you used DOpus to add a 'Date Taken' to scanned photos that have no Exif date to begin with, it doesn't work! DOpus adds a date to the Exif DateTimeOriginal field only, and so if you open that photo in other applications, the 'Date Taken' or Capture Date' field will be either blank or wrong. Unfortunately, the DOpus developers don't believe me! They told me, "It's more complicated than you assume"!
Adobe Bridge is great for changing photo dates. It does not have a Date Taken' or Capture Date' fields, but if there are 2 matching Exif dates, the 'Date Created' column displays what is equal to Date Taken' or Capture Date'. If the file does not have Exif Date Metadata, the File Created date is Displayed. If you use Bridge, select photos, right-click, and choose 'Edit Capture Time' the date you enter will be added to 2 Exif date metadata fields.

[Greyfox]

... my photos digitized from my Epson scanner and from a few other sources do not add the Date Taken to the file. For those, I have to manually add the date.

Correct.
The scanner itself does not know anything about dates. When the output of the scan is saved as a file, the scanner driver in the PC adds the Date/Time Digitized into Exif.
The scanner driver has no idea as the origin date of the image that was scanned, so it does not add any information into Exif's Date/Time Original. That is left for the user to do manually if they have that information.

[hectorsm]

Hi Thanks for reply,,,
Yes, i use a program called Directory Opus12. i find it a very good file manager and have used it many years. I am in the habit of Always "Moving" Files rather than Copying. As ive experienced these date issues in the past with Windos explorer. Yes, Directory Opus does preserve MetaData.
I also find that "Date Taken" is the only one can rely on.
Yes, it may have happened when uploading to acdsee from OneDrive,,, onedrive does weird things with date data also.
the thing is i purchased acdsee to sort these issues ,,,
Yes i may have to manually get all my "Date Taken" in order. I dont know if acdsee can batch do this from the existing data ?
Then i was wanting to add the Date taken as the start of the Filename,
Then i will know my files have a reliable timeline.
Then,,, then i can think about Categories & Keywords! Am i on the wrong track? I have about 5000 images.

I'm also new to ACDSee but I see that ACDSee has batch function that will allow you to batch update all the file EXIF dates and other dates. Not sure which you should select to update the Date Taken. You can also adjust the file Creation Date and other dates.


There's also option in the import window to update the filename and the metadata.


I have not had a need to use any of these features yet, but they worth trying them out.

I use keywords extensively. I have over 100K of images accumulated over a 3 decades, so I live by keywords. With that many images, dates don't work well for me.
I came from using Lightroom for ~ 9 years, in my opinion ACDSee's catalog and organizer is as good or perhaps better than of Adobe Lightroom. Some people may disagree, but that's my opinion.

There are a lot of features in the ACDSee software, so it's going to take you a while to learn them. I know I did not answer all your questions or concerns, but maybe someone else will help prove you some additional answers or advice.

Good luck.

Hector

[hectorsm]

Hello SVStorm,

I agree with Regor250 about the file copy. My guess is that you specified that your images and videos be copied to a different location or volume during the import process. If so, it will be normal for the file "Created Date" to get automatically updated to actual date by the Windows OS when copy or moving a file (any file) to a different volume or partition. You can test that yourself using Windows explorer by copying an old file to a different drive or volume. The date will change. However, if you copy within the same volume, your Created Date should be preserved.

Regarding some of the blank Date Taken, I'm not sure why will that be the case. I don't know of any software that will modify or delete the Date Taken without you specifying to do so. Note: my photos digitized from my Epson scanner and from a few other sources do not add the Date Taken to the file. For those, I have to manually add the date.

Hector

[SVStorm]

Hi Thanks for reply,,,
Yes, i use a program called Directory Opus12. i find it a very good file manager and have used it many years. I am in the habit of Always "Moving" Files rather than Copying. As ive experienced these date issues in the past with Windos explorer. Yes, Directory Opus does preserve MetaData.
I also find that "Date Taken" is the only one can rely on.
Yes, it may have happened when uploading to acdsee from OneDrive,,, onedrive does weird things with date data also.
the thing is i purchased acdsee to sort these issues ,,,
Yes i may have to manually get all my "Date Taken" in order. I dont know if acdsee can batch do this from the existing data ?
Then i was wanting to add the Date taken as the start of the Filename,
Then i will know my files have a reliable timeline.
Then,,, then i can think about Categories & Keywords! Am i on the wrong track? I have about 5000 images.

[Regor250]

Can you provide a bit more info about what you did or did not do? I believe Date Created (which is the date a file is added to your system's File Allocation Table, aka FAT, which is used to keep track of files on your hard drive) is changed by Windows. In Windows, when you copy a file the file's created date becomes the modified date and the current date (when the file is copied, hence added to the FAT) becomes the created date. Did you move or copy your files by any chance? By the way Date Created and Date Modified can change anytime a file is copied, saved, edited etc., whereas Date Taken, written in the EXIF remains the only constant that can be relied upon to some degree. Some image editing tools however, don't preserve EXIF data (ACDSee does preserve it) and Videos don't have EXIF metadata at all; also you may have previously edited some of your files outside ACDSee and lost the EXIF data. You blame ACDSee, but I doubt it actually is. If you intend on relying on either Date Created or Date Modified to organise your image files, you will have one heck of a messed up file organisation if I may say. I suggest that you use Categories and Keywords rather. Date Taken is good too, but as you discovered can't entirely be relied upon unless you are very diligent in your image editing workflow.

[SVStorm]

I Purchased acdsee just a few days ago,,, I look this eve to see All my jpegs and videos have Todays Date as "Date Created" even though many have earlier "Date Modified" and to add to this many have Blank "Date Taken"
And,,, the very reason i purchased this product was to Organise my images,,, What a mess. ,,, What a mess.
90% of my images & videos were now Taken at 02:08am on 28/01/2022.