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Changing Time Zones
One of the more valuable bits of metadata that comes along with digital images is the date and time at which they were taken. When I'm traveling, however, I never remember to change the time on my camera when I change time zones. That's ok. Aperture makes it easy to do a bit of time shifting on import. Simply set the time adjustment section of the import panel appropriately.
Here's what the time-zone adjustment section of the import panel looks like:
But what if you don't remember to adjust the time-zone on import? No problem. You can do it after the fact in the Metadata Batch Change panel. Simply select all of the photographs that you want to change the time-zone data for, then select Metadata > Batch Change, or use the Shift-Command-B keyboard shortcut. Then, at the top of the Batch Change panel, adjust the time zone appropriately.
Once you have your timezones adjusted, the metdata for your photographs will be that much cleaner.
Comments (5)
I have been evaluating the 30-day version of Aperture for about 3 weeks now, and am anxiously following your comparison of both apps, so that I may make some kind of decision myself. So, props.
Anyway, to cut to the point at hand: While I too have been overjoyed to discover and use this batch date change function, it seems of somewhat limited use because when exporting a version, the original time stamp persists. Have I overlooked something?
(example: I have a bunch of photos, some of which were shot in Ottawa and others in Vancouver. The camera was set to EST the whole time, so for the Vancouver shots, I adjust the TZ in batch. I wish to present all photos with a local time; therefore, when exporting, I would like to reflect the modified times. However, they seem to all retain EST.)
This is great. I finally gave in a keep my camera's on UTC (it was hard to keep track of when I changed the camera time zone and daylight savings time, etc.), but there doesn't seem to be a way to have that set as a default. Either there should be a default setting for both time zones, or remember the last setting used on import.
benK, I believe the EXIF data remains unchanged, but Aperture's data is modified by the batch command. I could be wrong here, though - I've not yet had to use the time-change feature in batch mode.
Well, this remindes me of:
Do The Time Warp
's very cool, but de date change was pinched straight from iView Media Pro and the Loup came straight outta Capture One on the PC. Pity they didn't copy PShops levels too thou...De current one dont work