What date would this be? 2010 February 12th or 2010 2nd of December? Fiji color Crystal Archive

When dates are in the form using a trailing year such as 02/12/2010 there is an ambiguity between U.S. usage of month/day/year (Feb 12) and most of the rest of the world which uses day/month/year (Dec 2) in ascending order.

With a leading year such as 20100212, I have never seen an interpretation other than Year Month Day. So I would say Feb 12.

The usual (and ISO standard) is that it would be yyyymmdd.

However I've been burned enough times, that it's worth going through the images and look for numbers greater than 12 in the last 2 pairs. This will confirm it for that particular processor. If you are faced with a single image from a shoebox, lean toward mm being the 5th and 6th characters.

Date strings on cameras where they are on the image are more problematic. I've seen

• 'yy mm d
• 'yy dd mm
• dd/mm/yy
• mm/dd/yy
• dd hh:mm

Again, look at a bunch, and try to deduce it. Don't forget that the pouch that the images came back from the processor may have date information on it it.

This is one of the dangers of 'scanning originals and chucking the paper copies.'

You have to develop the mindset of a packrat.