Date and Time on Images

At least in the jurisdictions that I am familiar with (several states and the U.S. Federal Court System) you do not need the date and time on the photograph. Rather, someone needs to testify and it doesn't even have to be the photographer, that the photograph accurately depicts the scene, damage, action or whatever it is being offered to prove.

If this is for court, I would think that the RAW file would be much better than an edited print of the pic. If you have the actual RAW file it should contain all the relevant information regarding date and time and be a far better source of proof of ownership / legal right than anything else.

Without knowing why the court is requesting proof of date and time, I am speculating though.

The RAW file is no better or worse as proof that a JPEG. The date etc in a RAW files meta data can be altered in just the same way as for a TIFF/JPEG. In fact it could be worse as it is unlikely any court would have the necessary software to view RAW files.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17527271
The RAW file is no better or worse as proof that a JPEG. The date etc in a RAW files meta data can be altered in just the same way as for a TIFF/JPEG. In fact it could be worse as it is unlikely any court would have the necessary software to view RAW files.

Windows picture/photo viewer will display them.

My point was, if this is a copyright / IP case, it's far more likely that the person with the actual RAW file will be the owner of said image, than say someone who has a JPG version.

Having said that - if you only shoot JPG then that goes out the window I guess.