Time-shift photo dates with ExifTool

My camera includes an option to put the time and date into the image, as part of the JPG. If that's turned on, it becomes kind of difficult to hide that "I'm an impatient dork..."

I have had to pay to get it removed but it is possible. The lady that did that for me used PhotoShop so I am sure that GIMP can do it. Maybe look at ImageMagick, a real nifty command line thing. Remember to tell us "how" after you learn!

Gus, my first digital camera had that function, and I turned it on the moment I found it never to regret it. However, of the four digital cameras which I've used since, none of them had this feature. I still have the 9 year old Kodak because of that feature, even though it's abominably slow by today's standards.

The "removal" of the stamp in the image is easy enough, just paste a nearby pattern over the top of it.

My 2-year-old Kodak, and my mom's brand-new Kodak, both request time/date setting when the internal clock loses track.

I have used the touch-up tool in The GIMP to take care of scans of damaged photos, but using it to cover up my own screw-ups, or to "enhance" the perception of the image (google Adnan Hajj to see what I mean), seems counter to that honest streak in me.

Nice to see tools that edit the EXIF data in JPEGs. What I continue to need (and can't find) is a full-service photo-editing program that not only doesn't erase but preserves and allows editing of the IPTC data in JPEGs. That's where Photoshop puts its embedded caption and credit information.

The only thing I've seen on Linux that even comes close is digiKam, and that program has several strikes against it, the biggest of which is that I don't need a camera interface, but an image editor. Krita does not offer similar functionality. I thought the most recent version of the GIMP would do it, but it does not.

It wouldn't be so egregious if just about every FOSS image editor not only didn't read the IPTC information but also didn't erase it with every save. But they do erase it. It took me about six months of painstakingly retyping captions to even figure this out.

Whether or not this data originated with Photoshop or not is immaterial because just about every professional photographer uses Photoshop to embed critical data in their images, and FOSS tools -- especially the GIMP and Krita -- need to start incorporating this into their code.

I've made a big deal out of using IrfanView in Windows (free but not FOSS, and with full EXIF and IPTC editing capability), and I'd like to just do it in Linux and with FOSS.

Steve, have you tried a recent Digikam release? I'm using it almost exclusively to manage and edit my photos. I'll fire up the Gimp once in awhile for surgical fixes, but Digikam handles most of my needs. It supports more RAW formats than most spendy commercial ware, supports all manner of profiling and color management, and comes with a raft of editing functions, including batch functions. It manages EXIF, IPTC, imports GPS coordinates, and lets you view or edit all of the image's metadata. I'm using version 9.2.

Don't know about anyone else but I am going to start using Digikam. Sounds Great!

I might give digiKam another try. The database aspect of it had me a bit confused -- much like iPhoto. All the photos get numbers instead of names, and they get put into date-specific folders. That might not be so bad if I can figure out how to search for images.

But I will try again -- maybe I can figure it out this time.

I second the thumbs up for Digikam. It has grown into a really nice application. In my view, it and k3b are poster children for what great free apps can be.

I personally prefer to pull my photos into a "normal" directory and work with them as just another set of graphics files, but my daughter's camera only works through Digikam, so I'll raise my hand in favor of the application.

Nothing else recognized her silly little camera that takes lousy pictures. I really need to get her a decent small camera. Off to Ebay I guess.

Digikam stores photos in whatever folder you tell it to, and uses the the filenames assigned by the camera. It comes with a gazillion tools for organizing and finding things, like tags and star ratings. Assigning these goes fast as you get the hang of it. Then your directory structure doesn't matter at all. It also has some nice built-in sorting functions, such as sort by date. I second what dino said- it has become a great application, and in my limited experience with elite snooty commercialware like Aperture and iPhoto, it beats the pants off them.

I just installed digiKam on one of my Debian boxes. With my limited use of digiKam and Krita, I find myself wishing that Krita did what I needed it to do. I have a good feeling that it will get there (and write the embedded data I need), but it's curious that digiKam can do this now while Krita cannot. And the GIMP should REALLY be able to do it. Such a sophisticated program shouldn't take existing data in an image file and wipe it out when that file is saved.