Mac How-To’s
How To Correct Scanned Photos’ Creation Dates and Locations
Easily edit image metadata to make scanned pictures searchable
Photos taken with a digital camera or a phone include a lot of information such as Date/Time Taken, Location, camera parameters etc. This hidden but easily viewable info is called metadata. However, when you scan photos with a scanner, phone or digital camera, the metadata will show when and where the photo was scanned, not when and where it was actually taken.
You really must fix this — read on, you’ll see why. Luckily, fixing it is easy.
Why Bother to Fix Metadata?
Let’s say you scanned old family albums from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. You can easily check the scanned photos’ metadata with Mac’s Preview app: Open a scan in Preview, then click Tools > Show Inspector:
You know right away that the Date/Time Original (10 March 2024) and GPS coordinates (Denver) here are both wrong — the photo is of your baptism in London in July 1962. Why it matters is because when you save this scan in any photo management program — like Apple Photos, Microsoft or Google Photos, or Flickr — it’ll appear alongside photos taken in 2023 😖. Since the creation dates on all the scans are wrong, they’ll be out of sequence, not in the correct chronological order. So you have to, at the very minimum, fix the dates in all scanned photos.
You might also consider correcting the locations, modifying the default file names like IMG_123.jpg to informative titles like Jim’s baptism.jpg, and adding descriptions like Mom, Dad and aunt Julia at my baptism in London — the digital equivalent of writing behind printed photos. You could also add keywords, but no need to duplicate what is already in titles, descriptions, locations etc. — most photo management programs nowadays will anyway use that information for search.
A Bit More on Metadata
Embedded invisibly in every digital photo is a raft of data. If you’ve never seen it, surprise yourself by uploading a photo from your Photos library to this free online metadata viewer.
Much of this data is automatically stamped by your camera. This is called EXIF metadata and it includes details about the camera; aperture, focal length, ISO number and other settings; date and time of capture, GPS coordinates, image format etc.
Then there is descriptive data e.g. scene or event description, keywords, photographer’s name, copyright information, names of people featured etc. This is called IPTC metadata and it may be added either manually or with photo editing or management programs. IPTC metadata also includes date created, date scanned, date modified etc.
In all, there are some 90 Date & Time-related metadata tags (See a sampler below). Most of these will never be used by most normal people 🤣. The one you must update is EXIF DateTimeOriginal.
Most photo management programs follow the EXIF and IPTC conventions correctly, but there are deviations. This sometimes causes problems when moving photos from one program to another. If the program you are using doesn’t show the correct date even though the EXIF date is correct, check the program’s documentation — you may need to update another field, too.
Correcting Creation Date and Other Metadata
Many apps—both free and paid — can help you do this. When choosing the app, see if it allows you to change the fields you want to change, and whether they support batch editing of multiple photos at a time — the latter can be a big time and effort saver.
With Apple Photos or Window File Explorer
If you have a handful of scanned photos, you can manually edit the dates. Apple Photos users can use the command Image > Adjust Date and Time. Windows users can right-click a photo in File Explorer, then select Properties, Details, and edit the Date Taken.
When you use Mac Photos’ Adjust Date and Time command to modify the creation dates of multiple photos at a time, it will change the dates on all the photos by a fixed amount. So if the original dates were 21 June 2023, 23 June 2023 etc., and you adjust by 50 years 1 month, they’ll become 21 May 1973, 22 May 1973, etc.
With ExifTool
A far more sophisticated tool, if you are tech-savvy and know command line editing, is Phil Harvey’s ExifTool. This is a Perl library plus a command-line application tool. It is free and multi-platform.
Try the AllDates shortcut, which updates the three most commonly used time stamps: DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate, and ModifyDate. Or dive deeper for other possibilities.
With SnipTag for Mac
SnipTag is two tools in one: Snip (for auto-cropping scanned photos) and Tag (for editing image metadata). The app updates all critical date stamps for one or more photos at a time. If you don’t know the exact date or year, you can input e.g. c1973 (circa).
You can also edit file names, descriptions, locations, keywords and other tags. Photos can be exported without or with the caption imprinted below the photos (See below). Not free, but you can subscribe for a week ($0.99) or 3 months ($2.99), get your job done, and cancel the subscription.
Edit Free Online
There are a few websites that let you upload photos, edit metadata and export, but tread carefully — most of them embed, in addition to dates and whatever you add, their own branding or other guff into your images.
In summary, it is very important to edit the Creation Date in scanned photos. It is also worthwhile adding descriptions and locations. Doing it is easy once you have the right tools.
