Batch add xx:xx time to photo EXIF data?

July 8, 2010 5:08 PM

I just got back from a 2 week roadtrip and unbeknownst to me, one of the cameras I was using had the time set wrong. Now I have close to 1000 pictures that are set 13 hours 09 minutes in the past.

Is there a way to automagically set each pictures time stamp forward so it will match up with my gps waypoints?

I'm on a fully up-to-date Mac, but can boot into Windows 7 if necessary. fwiw, the camera is a Nikon Coolpix.

posted by a_green_man to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

This happens to me too sometimes, and I use iPhoto's built-in feature for changing EXIF timestamps — you select the photos that you want to change, go to the Photos menu, and pick "Adjust Date and Time". I check the box for "Modify original files", so if I upload them to Flickr or something, the dates will be displayed correctly there too. I use a slightly old copy of iPhoto, but I imagine newer versions are probably similar.
posted by dreamyshade at 5:13 PM on July 8, 2010

Yes, either exiftool or jhead will do this. Both command line tools. Exiftool will even add geo information if you feed it a GPS track log.
posted by scruss at 5:14 PM on July 8, 2010

ShootShifter?
posted by sharkfu at 5:15 PM on July 8, 2010

The EXIF timestamp, or like a timestamp right on the image?
posted by gjc at 5:17 PM on July 8, 2010

Sweet. My googling caught too much chaff. Sounds like it should be pretty easy to start with iPhoto(or Aperture maybe??), or try Exiftool for the gps stuff, though I dislike the command line.

Thanks hive!
posted by a_green_man at 5:21 PM on July 8, 2010

Picasa will do this as well (for one or multiple photos).

Tools -> Adjust Date and Time
posted by blue_beetle at 5:59 PM on July 8, 2010

Lightroom works too. I've done this more times than I care to remember.
posted by kellygrape at 6:11 PM on July 8, 2010

Geotag is what I use for geotagging, and it does time adjustments as well. It's a Java Web Start app, so it's platform independent.
posted by natabat at 8:16 PM on July 8, 2010

I forgot about Prune, which does the time correction against a GPS trail rather differently from other programs, but rather elegantly if you know you took a particular picture in a particular place. It's also very mature.
posted by scruss at 9:12 AM on July 9, 2010