How to fix incorrectly set EXIF datestamps

Mar 30, '04 10:03:00AM

Contributed by: MartySells

I recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong and neglected to set the clock on my digital camera to local time there. When going through hundreds of photos at home and trying to figure out places and dates the EXIF information is a huge help, but not if it's showing EST for pictures taken in Hong Kong! Having also had this date skew problem with system logs, I knew there had to be a quick way to fix them all. jhead to the rescue!

jhead, which is free and in the public domain, will let you do this and many more great things to/from EXIF information. See this hint which also uses jhead and covers installation.

The relevant option to fix timestamps is the -ta option:

  -ta(+|-)h[:mm] -->  Adjust time by h:mm backwards of forwards.  Useful
        when having taken pictures with the wrong time set on the camera,
        such as when travelling across time zones or DST changes.
Another handy thing you can do with jhead:
  -ft   -->  Set file modification time to Exif time.
[robg adds: I haven't had a reason to use jhead yet, but it's on my hard drive just in case!]

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