File renaming

[Jubilee32]

I am a bit of a packrat and don't get rid of many files. I have started renaming them after I transfer from camera to computer using Bridge but am a bit unsure of what the best(?) naming convention would be.

I have tried:
YYYYMMDD_TopicName_###.ext

YYYMMDD is date of creation
TpoicName is somthing about the series i. e. "France trip"
### is the number sequence earliest to latest

Do you have other ideas? Does your method include other info?

[Dchemist]

I do exactly as you do... that way, if I know about when I did something I can go back and find it.

[ssim]

When I get a new body I start my renaming at image 0001. Using that context my convention is

nnnnn_topic_body ie. 12589_jones wedding_1ds.

Before delivery of the image to the customer I drop the camera type but everything else stays. This does require that I manually keep track of the last used number after each upload so I know where to start but so far I have not had any trouble and I'm using 4 bodies. This does alleviate the chance of every having a file duplicate.

I don't worry so much about being able to find a file by date as I spend alot of time doing keywording and can always find them through that. I am now in the long arduous process of importing and checking all of that in Lightroom.

[Jubilee32]

Thanks to both of you. I am finally getting to the keywording and really am SORRY I did not do that sooner

[StewartR]

I just number everything sequentially. I don't feel I need the date in each filename because (a) I store them in separate folders for each month and (b) the date/time is in the EXIF. I don't feel I need a topic name because that's all handled by tagging and keywords. But I'm not a pro so I don't generate a vast quantity of images (just a couple of thousand per year).

[Jubilee32]

Thanks StewartR. Don't you just love it! Not a pro and still a couple of thousand shots a year. I am very much the same way.

I just bought a digital picture frame for the Mother-In-Law for this weekend and put about 250 shots on it covering the past 5 or 6 years. That goes back to the 1 MP camera through the Sony Mavica and three Canons. Interesting to see how good the older shots work on the 8" screen - just fine. Saving files comes in handy.

[In2Photos]

I think renaming depends a lot on several factors, number of cameras, folder structure, type of photography, etc. Since I have a folder structure that is keyword related (meaning that many of the folders might resemble actual keywords that I have) I rename my images by date and original filename. Currently it looks like this 2007_05_11__MG_2214.DNG (I convert to DNG and rename on Import to Lightroom).

I too did not do any keywording before I got Lightroom. I also did not use any metadata, but now use some like copyright. I wish I did all of this from the get go but oh well. My shots, as well as my DAM are improving as I learn.:)

[Jubilee32]

In2

Thanks - the learning after the fact part is the hardest