Timeature
Timeature is not compatible with Aperture 2.0. Fear not, Aperture 2.0 now has the ability to adjust the timestamp of an imported image. Look for the Adjust Date and Time… menu item under the Metadata menu.
Adjust the Image Date field of images imported in Aperture! The correct Image Date ensures that your photos are sorted properly within Aperture. This field is sadly not currently user-editable, hence the need for Timeature.
The Image Date field is automatically generated at import time from the EXIF shooting date of the image. If the imported file does not contain this EXIF information, Aperture will use the file creation date as the value for the Image Date field. This information is stored for quick retrieval in Aperture’s database. It is this field that Timeature modifies. Timeature makes no modifications to the original master file.
Download
Download Timeature Here! Fully functional! The unregistered version will occasionally remind you to register. You can remove the alert with the full version after purchasing a license.
Timeature requires MacOS X 10.4.8 or later and Aperture 1.5.2.
The current version is 1.0.4. Timeature is not compatible with Aperture 2.0 or higher.
Pricing
Timeature is Shareware. If you find Timeature to be an indispensable tool for adjusting the creation date of your images in Aperture, consider purchasing a license. Doing so will remove the alert that appears each time you use the application. Payment is quick and easy using PayPal or Kagi.
Instructions
When you first launch Timeature, you will be greeted by the screen to the right. Timeature will automatically populate the table with the names and image dates of all selected images in Aperture. Click the refresh button in the bottom-left of the window to refresh Aperture’s selection at any time.
In the main screen, you can choose one of three ways to adjust the date:
- By Date: Sets the image dates of the selected images to the specified date.
- By Increment: Increments or decrements days, hours, minutes, or seconds from the images.
By EXIF: Resets the image date to the EXIF shooting date of the image.
Note: Since Timeature modifies the EXIF information in the Aperture database, the EXIF Option is no longer available.
Click Adjust Dates to have Timeature update the dates of the selected images, including those contained in stacks.
When this task has been completed, Timeature automatically switch to the Library in order to commit its changes. Timeature will alert you when it is finished, and you can return to the previous album or project.
Since Aperture uses the Image Date field for sorting, your images may have been rearranged in the browser.
The screenshots below demonstrate the three step process to using Timeature:
Step One: Adjust Dates
Step Two: Return to your Album or Project
Step Three: You’re Done! There’s No Step Three!
Troubleshooting & Frequently Asked Questions
- I use Timeature, but the dates still aren’t being set!
- Try changing your System data preferences to U.S. and running Timeature again:
- Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu
- Choose International
- Choose United States in the Region menu
- Run Timeature again
- I’m getting an AppleScript error when running Timeature on the selected images.
- Most likely, the Aperture database is currently locked for editing. Try running Timeature again or quit and restart Aperture. The next version of Timeature will explicitly notify you when this error is encountered.
- Why does Timeature switch to the Library while processing my images?
- This is done in order to fully commit the changes made by Timeature.
- Can you add the Image Date to the IPTC Date Created field?
- There are two issues with this. First, if the IPTC Date Created field has not been set before, programatically changing it after you have run Timeature will cause Aperture to save the edited cache copy. As mentioned in the previous question, this will overwrite Timeature’s date change. Secondly, Aperture does not properly format the IPTC Date Created field when using the Export Version command. More details on this issue are coming.
- Timeature won’t let me set a date before 1902 or after 2037!
- This is a current limitation of the date calculation routines in Timeature. We are looking into resolving this in a future release.
- Haven’t I seen the icon for Timeature before?
- Long-time Newton owners will recognize the clock graphic used in Timeature once belonged to AlarmClock, a popular application for the Newton OS developed here. Just as the Newton never dies by getting new batteries or emulated, the iconic spirit of AlarmClock lives on in Timeature.
- Is Timeature compatible with Aperture 2.0?
- Timeature is no longer necessary with Aperture 2.0. The latest version of Aperture has built-in functionality to adjust image timestamps after import.
Version History
- December 27, 2007: Version 1.0.4. Timeature now modifies EXIF information in the Aperture database and plist files.
- October 25, 2006: Version 1.0.2 Released. Fix for localization bug.
- October 24, 2006: Version 1.0.1 Released. Fix for SQL statement bug when specifying image dates.
- October 18, 2006: Version 1.0.1 Release Candidate 1 Released. Image Dates persist after Aperture Library Rebuild. Added EXIF date adjustment. Date Picker valid range is now beween 1902 and 2037. Timeature switches to the Library during image processing to ensure that the changes are saved properly.
- October 16, 2006: Version 1.0 Released
Aperture 3′s “Adjust Date and Time” command ONLY allows relative date/time adjustments. It will not do absolute Date/Time changes except to one image at a time. I recently had 700 images scanned by a professional service. while they numbered the image files sequentially, they didn’t scan them in the same order. Now it is a major pain to assign incremental sequences of time to pre-scanned images.
Any chance you’ll do an update for Timeature to be compatible with Aperture 3? There are many people asking how to do this on the web, but no answers.
Best,
Jim