[Box Backup] I have the fear....

Martin Ebourne boxbackup@fluffy.co.uk
Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:05:28 +0000


Ben Bennett <fiji@ayup.limey.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 04:52:51PM +0100, Wolfgang Trexler wrote:
>> For all my Image files (JPG files from Digicam) I run the utility "jhead
>> -ft" (Sets the file's system time stamp to what is stored in the Exif
>> header.) after I changed an image (for example for red-eye reduction) to
>> make sure that the timestamp of the file is still the date/time of the
>> creation of the picture.
>>
>> I suppose that this is a common scenario for image files,
>
> It seems like a sane thing to do.

I happen to disagree, IMHO it constitutes abuse of the modification =20
time. However, it does appear to be a common thing people do :(

The best way of getting time ordering for photos is to put the time in =20
the filename using something like:

jhead -n%Y%m%d-%H%M%S *.jpg

(I actually miss the year and seconds off on mine because otherwise =20
the names can get a bit ugly. I always keep pictures from different =20
years in different directories.)

Anyhow, I've gone a bit off topic now. :)

Fiddling with the modification time is liable to break all sorts of =20
things, including most incremental backup solutions. Checking the size =20
would help here though, since jpg is lossy it's bound to be a =20
different size afterwards. Not necessarily so if the exif information =20
itself was modified though.

Cheers,

Martin.