0.39 Win: Exif:DateTaken not formatted if date is uncertain

[KlausT]

In 2010, XnViewMP v0.31 fixed a problem with "uncertain" Exif-DateTimeOriginal (cf. http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=20968) and accepts now Exif-DateTimeOriginal containing "00" for month and/or day if the month or day is not known for sure, for example for scanned pictures from the analog epoch.

Unfortunately, an "uncertain" date like 1963-11-00 is not shown by the tag {EXIF:Date Taken [Y-m-d a]}, it is simply ignored. XnView 1.98.5 shows this date correct and ignores only the "day of the week" item (of course).

My suggestion is to implement the same formatting feature for "EXIF:Date Taken" in XnViewMP as in XnView.

[xnview]

could you send me a sample?

[KlausT]

Sure. Please find attached a scanned picture which has the Exif-DateTimeOriginal set to 1998:00:00 00:00:00 using exiftool:

Exif-DateTimeOriginal set to 1998:00:00

Exif-DateTimeOriginal_1998-00-00.jpg (27.28 KiB) Viewed 5603 times

The Exif-Spec (http://www.exif.org/Exif2-2.pdf, pdf-page 36) states that unknown date and time values should be filled with blank. Exiftool does not accept blank as part of the date, so I inserted '00', in conformity with the IPTC-Spec. According to this, a DateTimeOriginal '0000:00:00 00:00:00' should also be accepted to indicate an undated picture.

XnView formats this uncertain/unknown date correct with tag <Date Taken [Y-m-d]>,
whereas XnViewMP shows no information with tag {EXIF:Date Taken [Y-m-d]}, for example for thumbnail labels.

[xnview]

Please check XnViewMP 0.48

[KlausT]

Thanks for fixing this issue, but unfortunately, this fix introduced another problem:

If Exif-DateTimeOriginal is not set but Exif-ModifyDate is set,
then "EXIF:Date Taken [Y-m-d]" shows "1901-01-00",
which is obviously not correct; in this case, "EXIF:Date Taken" should show an empty string.

Please find attached a picture which has no Exif-DateTimeOriginal but Exif-ModifyDate set to a valid date.

Exif-DateTimeOriginal not set, but ModifyDate set to a valid date

Exif-DateTimeOriginal_not_set_and_ModifyDate_set.jpg (27.24 KiB) Viewed 5429 times

If both Exif-DateTimeOriginal and Exif-ModifyDate are not set,
then "EXIF:Date Taken" shows an empty string (correct).

[KlausT]

The "fix" in v0.50 now breaks the whole "EXIF:Date Taken" feature: even a complete Exif-DateTimeOriginal is not shown at all...
What happened?

[Jaff]

Indeed the date is incorrect, but if If Exif-DateTimeOriginal is not set It should not be written.

[KlausT]

Please note: it is the combination of Exif-DateTimeOriginal and Exif-ModifyDate which caused the reported problem in v0.48:

Code: Select all

Exif-DateTimeOriginal        Exif-ModifyDate       "EXIF:Date Taken [Y-m-d]"
set                          set                   date string  (correct in v0.48)
not set                      not set               empty string (correct in v0.48)
not set                      set                   1901-01-00   (not correct in v0.48)

The last combination is common for scanned pictures: the scanner software supports the Exif-ModifyDate but not the Exif-DateTimeOriginal (for obvious reasons because the scanner does not know the date when the original content was taken).