Author Topic: I can't sort by date photo originally taken  (Read 4582 times)

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JustinChase

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« on: 2016-12-28 21:56:32 »
This has been an issue for me for countless versions of ThumbsPlus.

All I want is to sort photos in a folder by the date they were originally taken.  Not by any of the other 4 or 5 date options (created, modified, etc).

Sadly, the date taken field seems to be empty for the majority of my photos.  I can see the date in one of the other date fields, but they are not fields I can choose to sort by.  I've tried the "Modify File Info..." option to try to populate this field from the exif information, but this doesn't populate the date taken field.  I've tried to look at the XML settings, but the 'fill' field doesn't seem to offer date taken as a field that can be populated from another field.

But, since most of my photos don't have a date in that field, they are all "equal" so I would expect the secondary sort to work, so I picked the only other date field offered in this dropdown, (date modified), but that doesn't sort right either.  I can see one file with a date of 12/9/15, the next with 12/26/15 then the next goes back to 12/9/15. How can this just not sort right?

I imagine that many/most people would want to see their photos in date order, at least occasionally, so I just can't see how this doesn't just work; right out of the box.

I've literally spent hours trying to do something so terribly simple, I feel I must be doing it wrong, but alas; I'm giving up.

Unless someone can show me a way to sort by the date my photo was originally taken, without fail, I have to move to another program.  I really like most everything about TP, but this is so painfully annoying, I can no longer deal with it.

Daan van Rooijen

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #1 on: 2016-12-29 01:28:25 »
> Sadly, the date taken field seems to be empty for the majority of my photos.

> Unless someone can show me a way to sort by the date my photo was originally taken, without fail,[..]

Well, you can't sort on something that isn't there and it looks like those images just don't have the required Original Date/Time in their EXIF data. What you could do is use Phil Harvey's Exiftool to store the current Windows date/time stamp of each file in its EXIF data (assuming that those dates will more or less correspond to when the photos were taken).

Then, when you (re)thumbnail the images in ThumbsPlus, the 'Original Date/Time' database field will be automatically populated from the EXIF data, and it can be displayed (and sorted on) in the thumbnail listing.

The procedure would be to run these commands:

 "C:\Program Files\exiftool\exiftool.exe" "-FileModifyDate>DateTimeOriginal" *.jpg
 "C:\Program Files\exiftool\exiftool.exe" "-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate" *.jpg

The first command copies the Windows 'last modified' date/time stamp of the file to its 'Original Date/Time' EXIF field, which is what we want. However, this action changes the file's timestamp in Windows, so the second command is needed to revert that.

I haven't tested this, so if the idea seems useful, please first try this on a few suitable, backed-up files in a temporary folder.
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JustinChase

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #2 on: 2016-12-29 08:50:14 »
> Well, you can't sort on something that isn't there and it looks like those images just don't have the required Original Date/Time in their EXIF data.

That's the thing, I think the data is there, it's just not populating the "Date Taken" field in TP.  I don't know what causes that field to populate, but rebuilding the thumbs doesn't seem to do it.  I don't know why some photos have the field populated, and other photos don't.

I've taken a screenshot of one of the files with missing Date Taken, but it shows data in all other date fields I can find.



With all that said, if 20 files have no Date Taken info, and I have Date Modified as the second sort value, why isn't it sorting by this field, which does have data?  As I stated originally, photos are displayed in an order that does not honor the Date Modified of the files.

The following shows how I have set the sorting (Date Modified and Date Modified), and the 4 photos shown have the following "Modification Date" values...

2015-02-09T14:02:57.258298
2015-02-26T08:22:20.049808
2015-02-10T17:22:32.218788
2015-02-26T12:51:07.489452



So, it just feels broken to me.  I have to assume it's just me, since I can't imagine that others wouldn't be complaining about wrong sorting; it's just such a basic part of any database or informational structure.

Daan van Rooijen

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #3 on: 2017-01-07 15:57:45 »
Hi and sorry for the delay!

> That's the thing, I think the data is there, it's just not populating the "Date Taken" field in TP.

I see! Yes, it certainly seems to be there.

Do these 20 images have something in common, for instance were they produced by the same camera or edited using the same software (whereas the other images that work correctly were not)?

This is a very long shot, but have you tried if these two settings affect the population of 'date taken' when a thumbnail is made:
- Options | Preferences | Metadata: Automatically Populate User Fields..
- Options | Preferences | Metadata: Convert Dates to Windows format
 
(They shouldn't be relevant, but they may tie in with the same code that populates Date Taken)

> With all that said, if 20 files have no Date Taken info, and I have Date Modified as the second sort value, why isn't it sorting by this field, which does have data?

Yes, that's puzzling. Maybe they still have 'some' data but it's invalid?  

> So, it just feels broken to me.  I have to assume it's just me, since I can't imagine that others wouldn't be complaining about wrong sorting; it's just such a basic part of any database or informational structure.

Not that many people use this forum - and with some exceptions, Cerious' staff doesn't monitor it either. But it certainly looks like something that should be looked into before v11 goes into beta! So, if you can spare a few minutes, my recommendation is that you report this problem by e-mail to support@cerious.com. Use the word 'ThumbsPlus' in the subject line, explain it briefly, attach one of the image files that doesn't get its creation date copied, and point to this thread.
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Johannes Leckebusch

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #4 on: 2017-01-15 11:59:08 »
Hi, I also tried this some days before!

> Hi and sorry for the delay!
>
> > That's the thing, I think the data is there, it's just not populating the "Date Taken" field in TP.
>
> I see! Yes, it certainly seems to be there.
>
> Do these 20 images have something in common, for instance were they produced by the same camera or edited using the same software (whereas the other images that work correctly were not)?
>
> This is a very long shot, but have you tried if these two settings affect the population of 'date taken' when a thumbnail is made:
> - Options | Preferences | Metadata: Automatically Populate User Fields..
> - Options | Preferences | Metadata: Convert Dates to Windows format

Can you tell me where and how I exactly find these entries in the German version of TP 7?

There is an "Optionen" Menü, then "Grundeinstellungen", but there I cannot find something like "Metadata" ...

>  
> (They shouldn't be relevant, but they may tie in with the same code that populates Date Taken)
>
> > With all that said, if 20 files have no Date Taken info, and I have Date Modified as the second sort value, why isn't it sorting by this field, which does have data?
>
> Yes, that's puzzling. Maybe they still have 'some' data but it's invalid?  
>
> > So, it just feels broken to me.  I have to assume it's just me, since I can't imagine that others wouldn't be complaining about wrong sorting; it's just such a basic part of any database or informational structure.
>
> Not that many people use this forum - and with some exceptions, Cerious' staff doesn't monitor it either. But it certainly looks like something that should be looked into before v11 goes into beta! So, if you can spare a few minutes, my recommendation is that you report this problem by e-mail to support@cerious.com. Use the word 'ThumbsPlus' in the subject line, explain it briefly, attach one of the image files that doesn't get its creation date copied, and point to this thread.

-Johannes

Daan van Rooijen

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #5 on: 2017-01-15 15:28:22 »
> Can you tell me where and how I exactly find these entries in the German version of TP 7?

No, but it works differently in TP7 anyway.

In TP7, you would go to File | Database | User Fields, and create a new user field with these properties:

Label: Original Date/Time
Type: Text
Length: 23

From then on, when you make thumbnails, ThumbsPlus will store the creation date of images in this user field (if the images have the creation date in their EXIF info). For images that already have a thumbnail, you will have to re-make the thumbnail.

To make the user field visible in thumbnail listings, go to Options | Show for Files | User Fields | Original Date/Time. When it's visible, you can also sort the thumbnail listing on this field.

>There is an "Optionen" Menü, then "Grundeinstellungen", but there I cannot find something like "Metadata" ...

The last US version 7 was TP7 Service pack 2. If I recall correctly, the German version was based on an older v7 release (somewhere between 7.0 and 7.0 sp1), so it might be a little different.
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Johannes Leckebusch

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #6 on: 2017-01-15 18:22:38 »
> > Can you tell me where and how I exactly find these entries in the German version of TP 7?
>
> No, but it works differently in TP7 anyway.
>
> In TP7, you would go to File | Database | User Fields, and create a new user field with these properties:
>
> Label: Original Date/Time
> Type: Text
> Length: 23
>
> From then on, when you make thumbnails, ThumbsPlus will store the creation date of images in this user field (if the images have the creation date in their EXIF info). For images that already have a thumbnail, you will have to re-make the thumbnail.
>
> To make the user field visible in thumbnail listings, go to Options | Show for Files | User Fields | Original Date/Time. When it's visible, you can also sort the thumbnail listing on this field.

Yes, I've got it whorking now ...

Thank you for the hints.

-Johannes

tommyb709

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #7 on: 2017-05-25 19:52:31 »
i got this to work, but it's painfully slow, especially in a folder with 20,000 files.
it needs to rebuild the file list each time that it goes to a folder.  am i missing something that would speed it up?

specs:
i7 6700
32 gb RAM
Win 7 fully patched
Thumbs 10 service pack 1

Daan van Rooijen

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I can't sort by date photo originally taken
« Reply #8 on: 2017-05-25 22:36:19 »
> i got this to work, but it's painfully slow, especially in a folder with 20,000 files.
> it needs to rebuild the file list each time that it goes to a folder.  am i missing something that would speed it up?

This would be the first place to look: http://www.cerious.com/performance.shtml

Some additional suggestions off the top of my head (don't expect any miracles):

    [*]Organize files in smaller folders :)
    [*]Use 3d party tool to set timestamp of files to their creation date, so that the 'date taken' no longer has to be shown and sorted on in ThumbsPlus.
    [*]Do not let other programs access large or many folders whilst working with TP.
    [*]It helps if the database and the images are on fast local drives
    [*]Options | Preferences | Disks & Folders: Turn Off "Indicate expandable folders" and "Display ZIP files as folders"
    [*]Options | Preferences | Advanced: Set maximum thumbnail cache size
    [*]Options | Preferences | Thumbnail View: Do NOT enable color management.
    [/list]
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