How to date photo and print them with EXIF

How to date photo

How to print contact sheets with EXIF data

There are several ways how to date photo i.e. to print them out with the date they have been taken.

You may have photos with the date "painted" into the photo.

You may have photos with EXIF data.

You may have scanned photos or slides without EXIF data and would like to put EXIF data into that files.

In either case, please read the details below.

1. The time is blended in the photo

Some digital cameras let you chose a setting that will blend the date and/or the time into the photo, often as red or green 7 segment numbers. With this way how to date photo, the date is "painted" into the photo and whenever you print it out, the date is (mostly) in the right corner at the bottom of the photo.

This doesn't require any special action at print out time. It needs only that you set up your camera to get blended in date and time before taking the photos. I mention it just for completeness, because many people won't like it to have the date painted into their photos.

2. The time taken is present in the EXIF data of the photo

This is the case for most digital photos. With this way how to date photo, you will need to print out some text above or below the photo. Hence you need a software that is able to print out the EXIF field time/date taken and/or any other EXIF fields above or below your photos.

With Zoner Photo Studio,

you can print out contact sheets. The contact sheets of Zoner Photo Studio are pages with one or several photos and as few or as many EXIF values as you like.

Here is example where we did print out:
- the file name and image size in pixels
- the date and time taken
- the shutter speed, the aperture and the focal length
below each photo.

example of a contact sheet

3. Putting EXIF data into scanned photos

To put EXIF data into an image file that does not yet have EXIF data, using Zoner Photo Studio

,
- select an image in the image browser pane
- click on the menu manage/image information
- in the combo-box of the dialog, select General Information
- double click on the pen at the right end of a line
- enter the date and time

3 date and time lines are available (created, digitized and modified). 2 of them can be edited (created time/date and digitized time/date). The EXIF field created time/date is often called taken time/date by other softwares.

With digital photos, the taken time/date and digitized time/date is normally the same. With scanned photos, you may digitize (scan) the photos years after having taken them.

You should remember of course when the photos have been taken! If you scan old slides, the film processing date that is often printed on the slide frame may be a good advice. Personally, I mostly type the 15th of the month before processing in such cases. At least it is a somehow realistic approximation.

4. About file dates and EXIF dates

Don't confuse file dates and EXIF dates!

4.1. File time/date stamps

Every file on a computer has one or several file dates. Be it an image file, a text file or whatever file. These date and time stamps are given by the operating system (Windows, Linux, Apple OS, etc...) With Windows, files have normally a date created, a date modified and a date accessed.

ATTENTION: Older Windows especially Win 98 do not manage these dates well. The date created is mostly the same as the date modified, whereas it should not be. I did even see cases where the date created was newer than the date modified!

The date modified is what you see in the detail view of the Windows Explorer or any File Manager software.

If you have digital photos without EXIF data and you did never edit them, then you can take the date of the operating system and put it into the EXIF data. There it will be safely kept for the future.

4.2. EXIF time/date stamps

Photos may have EXIF date and time stamps, but by far not all of them have'm. These are different from the operating system date and time. The 3 EXIF date and time stamps are called:
- created time/date or taken time/date
- digitized time/date
- modified time/date

ATTENTION: With many photo editors, especially older ones, you will definitely lose the EXIF data as soon as you edit or modify your photos in any way.

ADVICE: I recommend you to always keep your untouched original digital photos at some place. Thus you may always be able to recover the EXIF data from the originals if they went lost by a photo editor. You may also be able to enhance your photos again from start later with a different or better software.