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Aperture 2 – Changing Image Date & Time

October 26, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

UPDATED 2008-11-22:

So, you have a photo in Aperture 2, and you need the date (and/or time) adjusted. It’s actually pretty easy once you know where Aperture has hidden the option! See further below for info on changing multiple images.

From the Metadata Menu

Select the photo, choose Metadata>Adjust Date & Time from the menu.

from-the-metadata-menu.png

Adjust Time & Date

Type in a new date and/or time. Select the checkbox if you also want to update the master file as well.

adjust-time-amp-date.png

Date Adjusted in Metadata

Take a look at the Metadata panel, and the Image Date has been changed.

date-adjusted-in-metadata.png

Adjusting Date & Time for Multiple Photos

You can also adjust the date & time for multiple photos at once. But it doesn’t work exactly how you would think. It actually works better… once you understand the concept!

Select all the photos.

The date/time that appears in the change window, is for the primary selected photo. Make your adjustments, and Aperture 2 will adjust every selected file. The cool thing is it will adjust according to the original information.

So that means, if you have a series of three photos, each taken 1 minute apart from each other, Aperture 2 will adjust accordingly. Each of the photos will still retain the 1 minute difference. Cool, huh?!

Other Online Resources

Video tutorial on Apple’s web site

There are 11 comments

  1. Totally accurate help, many thanks!

    You might want to note that this feature was missing from earlier versions and was a HUGE improvement once added.

    Comment by Steve Ettlinger on March 18th, 2009

  2. Any ideas about how adjust the date/time metadata for JPEGs in aperture?

    Comment by J Hill on May 21st, 2009

  3. Works the same way, try it.
    🙂

    Comment by debbie T on May 21st, 2009

  4. The image dates in my projects are all correct (I changed them) but the date under the project name is still incorrect. Any ideas on how the change that?

    Comment by Marian Pollock on April 4th, 2011

  5. Marian, you can change what you see for each photo by clicking preferences>meta data
    then change the viewer or browser or tooltip view options, depending on what you want to see.

    Good luck!

    Comment by debbie T on April 10th, 2011

  6. I understand that you have to change the date on the “Change Metadata” window, however, even if I change that the “Project” relating to these photos still show the ‘old’ date under the ‘Project name” which means that the Project is categorised under the wrong year. Can someone please help me with this? Thank you
    Marian

    Comment by Marian Pollock on April 11th, 2011

  7. I have another question, if someone out there would know the answer:
    When I import photos and have “do not import duplicates” It will still import photos that I currently have in the same folder – same name etc. Could anyone help me with this please?

    Comment by Marian Pollock on April 11th, 2011

  8. I just learned on another site that to fix the projects, you can delete the project and then undo the deletion and it will fix the date of the project. Weird, but it seems to work.

    Comment by Angela Rosenman on June 18th, 2011

  9. Thank you Angela, I have tried it and it works. Much obliged, Marian Pollock

    Comment by Marian Pollock on June 19th, 2011

  10. Re: the final sentence, multiple photos “retain their time difference from one another”. Does this work for all photos in a batch, even from different days/years? So change one by minus 30 minutes will change all others by that same amount even if different days and albums?

    Comment by tim on July 25th, 2011

  11. Great question, Tim. I’m not 100% sure. If you test it out, be sure to let me know.

    If I did have date/time issues for such a vast difference array of photos, I would probably make changes to daily batches, as opposed to a huge batch with different days/years, etc.

    Good luck!

    Comment by debbie T on July 27th, 2011