Powershot A5 very nice. When downloading images from camera to PC, canon software brings thumbnail images (.bmp) to viewable screen, but when using Kodak PictureEasy SW or Photoimpact, saving images to hard disk, whether default .jpeg or bmp. using save as, the date time info seems to disappear, and the date time I am downloading is shown. How do I preserve original information? Please direct to site or reference to assist meager understanding. Thank you

-- C.R. Charest (ccharest@wwnet.net), November 14, 1999

Answers

This is a bug or feature (depending how you look at it) of the software you are using. When an image is saved to hard drive, the file's date/time stamp (as displayed in Windows Explorer, for example) is usually saved as the CURRENT date/time which obviously is not necessarily the date/time the photo was taken.

Software does have the ability, when writing a file to hard drive, to save it with ANY date/time but usually the programmer doesn't take the trouble to do anything different from current date/time, as it is not clear what other date/time should be recorded.

However, for a program specifically designed to transfer images from a camera to a hard drive, it IS clear what date/time should be recorded -- the date/time stamped on the file as stored inside the camera -- but again, lazy programmers usually ignore this obvious need.

The simple solution is to use a card reader to xfer images to hard drive -- they copy the file with the originaly-stamped date/time, which is the date/time the photo was taken.

Next best solution -- if your camera is "EXIF-compatible". EXIF image files, beside being stamped with date/time also have the date/time stored INSIDE THE FILE, where it can be read later even if the Windows system readable date/time has been changed to the date/time the photo was transferred. Such a program as "Thumber" available from http://members.tripod.com/~tawba/exifread.htm will allow you to read the date/time the photo was taken, and even to reset Windows system date/time to the date/time the photo was taken.

-bruce

-- bruce komusin (bkomusin@bigfoot.com), November 15, 1999.

Most photo software do not read the information stored in the jpg file. I would think any data you can see in your camera while you are reviewing your images must be stored on the camera disk. So it is possible a lot of information such as date, time, exposure, shutter speed,etc is saved to the original jpg impage. However any images made by software that ignore this information will not contain it. One program, PIA, reads this imformation and displays it. It also will rename all of the file to use the date and time as the name of the file. PIA is shareware and you can get the company link from my web page: "http://pages.prodigy.net/daveclark/dprlinks.htm"

If your favorite image processing program does not maintain this information, then a note to the customer service of that company requesting this feature be included in a future release would help in making feature available.

Software products are typically designed from specifications that come from customers or potential customers and really have little bearing on the industry of the programmer.

-- dave clark (daveclark@mail.com), November 15, 1999.