Date/ Time Stamp - LF Free Software

shmitty

Gawd
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
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876
Title says it all I deal with insurance companies and need a date/ time stamp on the photo's taken with my Sony camera I will buy something if necessary but, would prefer not to. I'm scared to use software that allows you to alter it in any way which might compromise the integrity(if it exists I don't know much about digital photo's) of my images.
 
Your camera probably has a way to put this in each image for you. What is the exact model? You'll have to check the manual and see how to do this - should be in one of the setup menu's on-camera.

The camera already adds a set of data called EXIF info that has the date and time and what camera-settings were used to take the image (it's in a text-file embeded in the image file your camera creates), but it is fairly easy to alter that exif data, so there's really no way that could be legally binding etc. (for that matter, it is also really easy to photoshop date/time text into an image after it is already taken). As far as I know there is really no way to add that info visually to an image in a way that is absolutely tamper-proof, but ones that are added by the camera to the image itself are probably the closest you can get.

I'd say, worst case scenario, if you check your camera manual and there's no way to have the camera add the date-time to the image for you, you might have to look into buying a different camera that has that function - be sure to check on this before you buy the camera. I'm pretty sure there are no programs you'd want to use to add this after the fact, as they would all be too easy to tamper with - pretty much any photo-editing software can add text over an image.
 
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Sony Cyber Shot DSC-H5 everything I can find says that Sony doesn't have a way to do this.
 
Something just occurred to me - a much more fool-proof, un-tamper-able, and more legally binding (I would think) way to put a date-time stamp in your photos would be to have a physical time device in the photo, instead of stamped on top. Like start holding up your cell-phone (something that should have a calibrated time) in the corner of the frame when you take the photo. This would be something that is extremely hard to fake from a photo-editing standpoint.
 
Does the time and date have to be put on the picture? If you just need it for some sort of verification all images have a part of the file dedicated to exif data which gives every little bit of information about the picture taken from iso to date and time. As long as the camera is setup for the right day and time it should all be valid
 
Why not go to a pawnshop and pick up a $5 point & shoot film camera that adds the date and time to the photo (most were capable of this). The date will be burned into the actual photo, and when you get it developed, they will also usually stamp a date on the back. If you want a digital backup they will also scan it for you and burn it onto a CD
 
actually he can just print out the exif files and include it in as part of evidence. They should be just as admissable as just a stamp on a picture that you could fake with photoshop
 
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