Lightroom allows you to export and publish photos and videos. However when Lightroom renders the file for exporting in accordance with your settings (e.g., filename, size, compression) it does not fill in the correct metadata for videos. A common issue is that videos exported by Lightroom do not contain the correct original/capture date, they only have the date the export was made on. To work around this Lightroom limitation, the Photo Upload plug-in is able to use the free ExifTool to update the date in Lightroom’s rendering of your video before the plug-in uploads it.
If you want to have the correct date for your uploaded videos then you need to install ExifTool and configure the Photo Upload plug-in to use it.
The plug-in will apply the original/capture date to videos (not photos), when ExifTool is configured, when your export format is not “Original” and when your export metadata settings permit (e.g., not set to “Copyright only”).
1. Install ExifTool
Follow the ExifTool installation instructions from the ExifTool website.
You will download ExifTool and install it to a folder on your system. Use the executable/package versions of ExifTool, you do not need to use the versions that include Perl.
Windows
Note that on Windows you need to follow the instructions for making ExifTool suitable for command-line use – which means ensuring the main .exe is named “exiftool.exe” and not “exiftool(-k).exe“.
2. Configure the plug-in to use the ExifTool
You next need to configure Photo Upload to use this installation of ExifTool.
Use the “Configuration” button to open the plug-in’s Configuration window.
In the “Folder with ExifTool” setting enter the path to where ExifTool is installed, e.g.,:
C:\Users\MyUser\Documents\exiftool-13.38_32
3. Test the version of ExifTool used by the plug-in
From within the Configuration window click on the “Test connection” button.
This will show the version of ExifTool being used and whether it appears to be functioning correctly.
In the above screenshot you can see the ExifTool version is 13.38.