HEIC Date EXIF won't update

[airtas]

I adjust the dates on the timestamp editor and there are no errors but changes don't stick?

[Greyfox]

I adjust the dates on the timestamp editor and there are no errors but changes don't stick?

Correct (If you are referring to changing the Exif time stamps)

[airtas]

Correct (If you are referring to changing the Exif time stamps)

HEIC limitation?

[Greyfox]

HEIC limitation?

I have HEIC Images from a Samsung S10 phone that have Exif information that shows in ACDSee, and that I can change the Date/Time Original in Exif Tools, but can't change it in ACDSee U2022, so no, I don't think it is a limitation of HEIC.

AFAIK ACDSee supports HEIC, in terms of read capability, but not write capability. (See https://www.acdsee.com/en/support/file-formats)
You should also note that It you "Embed" ACDSee metadata it is written to a sidecar xmp file, not to the HEIC image itself.

Whether the lack of write support has to do with licensing requirements I can't say. (HEVC encoding is said to be heavily encumbered with patents).
You would have to ask ACDSee via a support request through https://www.acdsee.com/en/support/

[MegMac]

Why not convert to JPEG? then the files will be compatible everywhere, and you'll be able to edit dates.

[Greyfox]

Why not convert to JPEG? then the files will be compatible everywhere, and you'll be able to edit dates.

That is certainly an option, as is changing the settings in the camera or phone to export JPG's rather than HEIC in the first place, but depending on the intended use of the images, it may not suit everyone.

As I see it, the primary advantage of the HEIC format is that for an equal quality image, the file size is only around half that of the same image as a JPG, so if you have a camera or phone that can export HEIC images, there is the potential to save a large amount of storage space. That will certainly be the case if the majority of the image files are for your own use, and will not sent to others, and also if the majority will not require editing.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when you "embed" your metadata (keywords, captions, notes etc) with an HEIC file, they are written to a sidecar xmp file rather than actually embedded in the image file as they would be for a JPG, but the size of the xmp file is quite small, so the savings in combined file size is still very significant. Note though that ACDSee does not support IPTC metadata with HEIC images.

If you need to edit HEIC files however, the file size saving is lost. If the edit is done in ACDSee's Develop Mode, and a "Done then Save" used, a copy of the image is saved in the [Developed] folder, and the changes in the xmp file, so the potential space saving is lost. Whilst you can do a "Restore to original", you can't do a "Commit Changes" with HEIC as you can with JPG's.

If you do the edit in Edit Mode, then you have to save or export the changes to a new image, so then you have two images, and again the potential space saving is lost.

Whilst you can't change the Exif timestamps in HEIC files directly in ACDSee, you can change them using ExifTool, or using ExifToolGUI which can be run as an External Editor from ACDSee, making the task reasonably convenient, but I would not expect the majority of users to be changing many Exif time stamps.

[MegMac]

Greyfox,
I didn't ask you why YOU wouldn't just convert to JPEG, I asked Airtas. I am familiar with most of the information you wrote, and I think its great info for people who don't know much about HEIC. Thank you for adding such valuable info to this forum. I learned something!
While I understand and agree that HEIC has many benefits, those benefits don't offer much real benefit to many people.
If there is enough benefit to Airas that he wants to keep the HEIC files, then he should keep the HEIC files.