File Dates, Exif Data, And The Realities Of Daily Use, Need for the ability to preserve date of original image Options

[Mark_Henigan]

I know this was hashed out at length on the PMView_beta_discuss mailing list when such things still existed. However, I find no reference to it now. (BTW, I find the forum approach an annoying substitute for the mailing list.)

When I acquire an image from a camera memory or scan a new image, it is important for me to be able to retain the date the photograph was taken or the image scanned. Unfortunately, unless I retain an incredibly large uncompressed image, such as the 1.5MB 8.5 x 11 in 400dpi 1-bit TIFF bitmaps produced by SANE with my Canon LiDE scanners, I cannot keep the original image date. This is in conflict with my primary reason for choosing the TIFF format, lossless compression. When compressed with the CCITT Group 4 algorithm, even very detailed images of my smallest handwriting (a more primitive form of compression :->) may compress to an image of under 100KB files size. This image contains all of the information found in the original bitmap. The image is unaltered, although the file may be.

However, this does not completely satisfy my _irrational_ needs. I would also like to know how to retain the date of the original image if I've made alterations such as manual deskewing. I have no objection to the idea that the date the image file was last written to should be shown so that something has been done to the file. I just want some means of preserving the file creation date, very much as occurs with text documents. In WordPerfect, this is the default behavior. I have many documents that show the original file date as that of the "template" that I started with.

Is this already an option in PMView? If not, how do I go about requesting such a thing. Or, would I be wasting my time?

TIA,

- Mark

Mark Henigan
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[BSWAdmin1]

Hi Mark,

There is a 'Time Stamp' option available from the pop up menu when right-clicking on an image in the File Open dialog. By selecting "Time Stamp -> Set to time in EXIF information" the time stamp is set to the time in the EXIF information of the file.

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Thanks,
Brandon

[Mark_Henigan]

[quote name='BSWAdmin1' date='Apr 10 2007, 08:15 AM' post='1121']
Hi Mark,

There is a 'Time Stamp' option available from the pop up menu when right-clicking on an image in the File Open dialog. By selecting "Time Stamp -> Set to time in EXIF information" the time stamp is set to the time in the EXIF information of the file.

Hello Brandon:

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'll try this in the
next couple of weeks. Does the EXIF data survive copying, or
re-saving to compress the file, or cropping?

Even if it works for photographs, this doesn't solve the more
pressing problem for scans. Since scans don't contain EXIF
information there is nothing to work with via the EXIF option
for time stamping. And, my experience is that when I re-save
an uncompressed TIFF scan of approx 1.6MB in order to shrink
it to 25KB, for example, the creation date in the file system is
updated to the date and time of re-saving. I did not realize
how important this would be for me at the time it was being
discussed. For example, there are many times when it is vital
that I be able to sort a group of scanned images into the order
in which they were originally acquired. However, since even
the creation date of the file has been revised, there is no file
attribute that conserves this datum.

Thank you for your help. I will explore the use of the feature
you mentioned. I think I was afraid that it would be updated
in the same manner as the file system file attributes.

Best Regards,

- Mark

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