iphoto help - photo date

[john2006wright]

Hi guys,
I'm running leopard and iphoto '09 latest update. I have a few photos from a friends camera that she took before she set the date on her camera. They come up as taken in 2007. This screws my iphoto organisation as its all by date. The event also has photos taken after she set the date (last few months) but the event still sits at the bottom of the page.
I can alter the day/month/time through edit options but not the year. Any ideas how I can chagne the year on those photos?

Hope you can help,
Thanks,
John

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

I'm not in front of my Mac, so forgive the vague steps.

When you've selected the image(s) you should be able to select Image or Photo from the menu bar, and you should see options like Batch Change or Edit Date/Time (I would recommend Batch Change as the back-up since it's a little less intuitive). You can edit time and date with either.

If nobody else has replied by the time I get home and this didn't help, I'll reply again with more specific steps then.

 

[john2006wright]

thanks for the advice but I can still only alter the date/time. I need to change the year. When I click the i on the photo it tells me the full date/year but when I go to any edit option i can only see the date/time and not the year. I've tried manually adding the year into the date field but it won't let me do it.

Any more tips would be appreciated

thanks

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

If nobody else replies, gimme an hour or so to get home and I'll give you the exact steps. I change the year all the time in one event that I reserve for wallpapers; I make the metadata think the pics were taken in the year 3000 so that event is always at the end. I know it's possible.

 

[CallsignBaron]

Don't click the "i" on the photo, click the "i" at the bottom of the screen next to the search bar below where your library and albums are listed. That will slide the information drawer into view. There you can change the date including the year. Clicking multiple images while holding the command key will let you make the changes for multiple images. Hope this helps.

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

Don't click the "i" on the photo, click the "i" at the bottom of the screen next to the search bar below where your library and albums are listed. That will slide the information drawer into view. There you can change the date including the year. Clicking multiple images while holding the command key will let you make the changes for multiple images. Hope this helps.

This works, but it's a little clunky to try and change the time since it seems to edit the entire text instead of just the date fields, so you have to be very careful and precise. Or...you can select the photo and from the menu bar select Photos > Adjust Date and Time. Doing this with multiple files selected will change the date of the first file to that date and time, and all subsequent files will follow in that pattern, for instance.

Original Time...............Adjusted Time
---------------...............----------------
01/01/2008 1:10 PM......10/27/2009 3:30 PM
01/01/2008 1:13 PM......10/27/2009 3:33 PM
01/01/2008 2:00 PM......10/27/2009 4:20 PM
[Upon submitting this post, the formatting apparently doesn't carry over so I had to improvise, my apologies for it being so ugly.]

I hope this makes sense, though I know it's a bit confusing. It's really useful though. Otherwise just use the batch change feature, also under Photos in the menu bar and it will change every picture selected to the exact date and time you input.

(Sorry for the late reply - I came home and completely spaced. Picked up my pre-ordered copy of "Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack in Time" and have been playing it all night. )

 

[skybolt]

Select your photos. Click on "Photos" in the menubar, then "Adjust Date and Time". Simple as that!

 

[john2006wright]

Hi,
I think something is wrong with how the date/time/year has been uploaded or displayed in my iphoto. All the great replies from you guys suggest it should be simple but I just can't get the option to change the year. See screen pics below. I can change date and time but not the year. Where is the year option?

Thanks

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

Wow, there is definitely something bizarre about your settings. Again, I'm at work right now and can't check my own settings to see what might be different, but I imagine that maybe there's something about how the date is displayed. You may want to look through iPhoto's preferences for anything to do with the date display format.

 

[john2006wright]

FIXED!
I went into mac OSX system prefs/date and time. I realised that when I changed the format of date and time so it gave me the date in the menu bar (in leopard) I accidently left out the year from the short date format. I added the year back in and hey presto, the year appeared in my iphoto photos and I just used the adjust date/time option to correct the year.

So really it was my fault for messing the sytem prefs.

Thanks for you input people.

John

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

Glad you got it fixed. Just goes to show that Apple's program interface with the OS can sometimes be just as much a nuisance as a help.