Photo Sorting Help

Hi Tom,

Yes there is but it will not be easy. iPhones and iPads display pictures in the order of "date created" which is not necessarily the same as "date taken". I posted a way to display pictures in the order wanted in another forum and I have cut and pasted my post below. Hope this helps but with 600+ pictures it will take some time. Other than manipulating the date created I am not aware of any other way.

My previous post:

I also have Windows 7 and iTunes on a Dell PC. I have an iPad Air running the latest iOS which still causes the same problem with picture order. Here is a fix that should work for your parameters. It does not require a Mac (although I have one) and it does not require any outside Apps. It does require a bit of time but you should be able to display all your pictures in any order you want and all you will need is access to the File Manager in Windows 7. The material below is cut and pasted from a Word document I created to summarize the process. iPads and iPhones unfortunately display pictures by "date created" which is not necessarily the same as "date taken". I wish that they would display the pictures by "Name" instead but the "smart" jocks at Apple have chosen otherwise. Basically you have to manipulate the "date created" in Windows in order to get the pictures in the right order and this is easy to do, albeit time consuming.

From my Word document: The process is the same for iPads and iPhones so they are used interchangeably here. Basically all pictures start with a creation date based on the date the picture was taken however if the picture is edited and/or saved under a different name this will tag a new creation date on the photo. If the picture is just edited but saved to the same name it will not change the creation date it started with. Also if the picture is copied in My Computer, either using the same name into a different folder or a different name in same folder, this gives the copy a new creation date. If a new picture is added to the existing iPad pictures all will be shown according to their creation dates. I can edit most of the picture metadata with Windows 7 but “date created” is not one of the editable tags. Surprisingly I can edit “date taken” but this does not help in sorting for the iPad. To resort the pictures for the iPad in the order I want to see them I have to reestablish a new creation date for each picture in the order I want them to be shown. Here is one way…

1) In My Computer (i.e, the Windows 7 File Manager) copy or move all the desired photos destined for the iPad into a junk or working folder. All can be moved at once.
2) Delete the "iPod Photo Cache" in Windows File Manager (that is correct, iPod, not iPad, as regardless of what device one has, iTunes names it iPod). It will regenerate on the next sync.
3) If there are pictures in the iPad use iTunes to delete them by syncing with no folders selected and then close iTunes.
4) Delete the iPod Photo Cache again after step 3.
5) Add the new pictures (if any) to the working Junk folder.
6) Name them by number in the desired order so they display as you want.
7) If editing is needed (crop, exposure, etc) do so at this point. If no editing is needed skip this step.
8) This is the most important step. Copy each picture one by one into a new folder in My Computer in the order you want them shown on the iPad. Do this by selecting each picture in the right order and then copying them one at a time. This will place a new creation date every time the picture is copied and if copied in the desired order they will display as such in the iPad. One can attempt to copy several at a time by selecting each first in the right order. This will save time but it will not guarantee the right order. The best approach is to copy each one by one.
9) Open iTunes and sync the folder and then close iTunes.
10) Delete the iPod Photo Cache that was now created from My Computer so it is ready for next time.