DON'S FREEWARE CORNER - OCT 2016
NAMING PHOTO FILES WITH FREEWARE PROGRAMS
©2016 Donald R. Snow -- This page was last updated 2016-11-13.
These Freeware Corner notes are published in TAGGology, our Utah
Valley Technology and Genealogy Group (UVTAGG) monthly newsletter.
They are also posted on my Freeware Corner Notes page on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where the links are active and there may be corrections, updates, and
additional information about the topic in other class notes.
DIGITAL CAMERA SETTINGS
Digital cameras have a clock built in that records the date and exact
time the photo was taken in the metadata of each photo. The metadata
in a photo includes, in addition to the date and time, the camera,
lens settings, and more, and sometimes even the GPS coordinates where
the photo was taken. This metadata stays with each photo file and can
be viewed with FILE EXPLORER (see below) or other programs. For
the date and time to be useful you need to be sure your camera's date
and clock are set correctly. For scanned photos and slides the
metadata just includes the date it was scanned, since the scanner only
knows the date you scanned it. If several people with digital
cameras are at the same event, e.g. a family reunion, if each camera's
date and time are set correctly, the same event will have the same
date and time for each photo of it. Then, using free programs
that will copy the date and time and put them in the name of the file,
all the photos of the same event will sort together, regardless of the
camera they came from. This can be very helpful and the steps in
this article will include how to do this.
DOWNLOADING DIGITAL PHOTOS
For downloading photos from my digital camera, I use a file management
program like Q-DIR (see past Freeware Corner notes), rather than the
programs that come with the camera. Those tend to put the photos
where they want and do things that I don't want done. I save the
photos in two folders, each labeled with the year taken. The
photos in one folder are for working on and renaming and those in the
other folder are kept as backups, on a different hard drive even.
RENAMING TO PUT DATE AND TIME IN FRONT
Let me emphasize that this photo naming system is what I have
developed over several years and it works for me, but you may have
your own system that works for you. I don't recommend that you
change, unless you see things here that will help. The most
important thing is being consistent in what you do and staying with
what works for you. Once your files are named uniformly in
whatever system works for you, you can easily modify the system later,
if you want. And new software is being developed all the time,
so I will undoubtedly change some of my procedures in the
future. What I describe here works for me now. For the
photos in my working Photos-Saved-By-Date folder I first run the
program NAMExif on them. This is a free and easy to use program
available from http://namexif.windows10compatible.com/download
. After installing the program, you run it and open the photo files in
it. It has options for copying the EXIF data from each photo's
metadata and putting it into the title of the file. EXIF
(EXchangeable Image Format) is the metadata that is saved in the photo
file that tells when the photo was taken, the camera used, the
settings, etc. If the camera has a GPS built in, the metadata
will include the GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken. I
set NAMExif so the date and time go in front of the name the camera
put on it and it have it write the date in International Data Format
(YYYY-MM-DD) followed by the time in this format, (HHh-MMm-SSs).
This makes my photo files have names like
2016-10-04-13h-10m-20s--Pxxxxxxx.jpg ,
and they all sort in chronological order down to the second that the
photo was taken. I keep the name that the camera put on the
file, e.g. Pxxxxxxx, so I can go back to the original in my backup
photo folder, if I ever need to. There are other programs that
will extract the EXIF data, but NAMExif is a simple and free one. To
see all the EXIF data in a photo file, go to FILE EXPLORER (Windows
10) or WINDOWS EXPLORER (Windows 7), right click on the file, and
click on Details (tab at top). You will see all the EXIF data
including the date and time, the camera used, the lens settings,
resolution, etc. If the date and time were not set correctly on
your camera, NAMExif has a way to add or subtract days or time before
it copies them in front, but it's lots easier to have it set correctly
on your digital camera first. For scanned photos and slides you
will have to guess at the date to put it in front, so they sort
chronologically. I sometimes just guess at the year for scanned
photos and slides write it as YYYY-00-00, so it at least sorts in the
year it belongs and I can tell at a glance that it is not exact.
BULK RENAME UTILITY
I next run the program BULK RENAME UTILITY, available for free
from http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php
and discussed in an earlier Freeware Corner article. I use this
to put PHT- at start of all photo names. Now the names look like
PHT-2016-10-04-13h-10m-20s--Pxxxxxxx.jpg .
They still sort chronologically, but now by using PHT- as a search
term in EVERYTHING, all photos on my entire computer are listed.
This includes jpg's, tif's, png's, pdf's, or any other photo
format. For files other than photos I use other codes at the
start, e.g. LTR- for letters, ORDER- for online orders, etc.
Including such codes allows EVERYTHING to show me all files of that
type and sorted chronologically. EVERYTHING is another free
program and is discussed below and in other Freeware Corner articles.
For slides I have considered using the code SLI- or SLD- in
front, but haven't decided whether to do it. I have 15,000
slides that I hired a granddaughter to scan for me and she has
finished the entire collection, but I haven't renamed the files yet.
ADDING KEYWORDS TO NAMES SO THE FILES ARE SEARCHABLE
The above renaming process only takes a few minutes. The
time-consuming part is what follows and I don't always get this part
done. I use FILE EXPLORER (in Windows 10) and turn on the
Preview Pane (button near top center and discussed in an earlier
Freeware Corner note). This allows me to see what the photo is
and rename it without having to open it. After the date and time
and before the camera name in the file title, I put keywords about the
event, location, people in the photo, etc. Now the photo name
looks like
PHT-2010-10-04-13h-10m-20s-DianeManwaring(Snow)(1934-2012)InBarbadosArchives--Pxxxxxxx.jpg
.
You have 255 characters available, including the characters in the
path, so you can add lots in the title, but not always everything you
would like. I usually include the event, location, and names of
the people, if there i space. With the keywords EVERYTHING can
find all photos that pertain to those keywords and they sort in
chronological order. Renaming all photos with key words is a
mammoth task and I have only done it on a small fraction of all my
photos. I do the procedure on photos when I need them for a
project or when I really get ambitious about cleaning up my photo
files. But, even without keywords in the title, I can still find
the photos I'm looking for, as described below. Keywords could
be entered in the EXIF metadata, but they are harder to search for
there.
SEARCHING USING EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING is the program that makes searching for files easy.
It is free, very fast, extremely helpful, and available from https://www.voidtools.com/
. With my naming system and using it to search for PHT-, it
finds all photos on my computer, regardless of file type (jpg, tif,
png, pdf, etc), or folder, or even hard drive, and it shows them in
chronological order. It is easy to search for all photos of a
certain date or time period. If I have added keywords in the
file titles, I can include those as search terms in EVERYTHING and see
just those in chronological order. But even without keywords in
the titles, my Appointment Books show me the date I was at a certain
location and I can easily find all files of that time period.
Adding keywords to the titles makes it much better and easier, but
takes lots of work.
CONCLUSIONS
Naming files so you can find them on your computer takes time now, but
saves time when you need them later. It is an enormous task and
few of us ever do it completely. If you have your own system
that works for you, continue to use it, and just add in things that
you find here that might help. If you don't have a system, you
could start with just the first part of my system by finding all your
photos with EVERYTHING (search for jpg, tif, png, etc.) and put them
in a folder. Then extract the EXIF date and time so they sort
chronologically. Of course, if the date and time on your digital
camera weren't set correctly, you will have to work around getting the
correct date and time in front of the title. This whole
procedure will help you to find all your photos so you can form
collections to post or to burn onto CDs to preserve and give to your
family members. In any event, I hope you got some ideas you can
use to help with your digital photo collection. Good luck.
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