Time change: Using Lightroom to correct the time on your photos

Daylight savings time started last night for most of us in the U.S. -- did you remember to change the clock on your digital camera? I went to change the time on my point & shoot, and realized that I never changed it the last time. So all of my photos from last fall until yesterday are an hour ahead. Whether the time is off on your photos due to changing time zones when traveling, or just having the camera settings wrong, there is an easy fix in Lightroom:

1. In the Library Module, click on Metadata. Use the drop-down menus to pull up the Date and Camera options. The last time change was on November 1, 2009 -- I selected November through present in the Date column, and then selected the camera that wasn't set right. This gives me a set of images shot with a specific camera over a specific time range based on the EXIF data in the Lightroom database.

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 1
Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 1

2. Select all of the photos, go to the Metadata menu at the very top of the screen, and choose Edit Capture Time:

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 2
Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 2

3. The Edit Capture Time dialogue box appears. Choose Shift by set number of hours, and then -1 (minus one, because I forgot to "fall behind" last November). Lightroom shows you the Corrected Time before you commit the settings by clicking Change All.

Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 3
Lightroom Metadata Camera Timestamp Fix 3

That's it -- all of my point  & shoot files now have the correct time. I hope you find this Lightroom tip useful!

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