Whether you keep all of your scanned master (original) image files in folders on a hard drive, or you allow an image manager like Picasa, iPhoto or Aperture to manage them inside a library file, you will still be required to give each photo a filename.
It could be as simple and non-descriptive as “photo-1.jpg” or maybe even simple yet somewhat descriptive like “mom at the beach 1984.tif “.
But, it’s actually a very important part of the process of scanning photos, that if done with a little bit of forethought, can save you a lot of time and headache later.
A Little Background
Here’s how a folder of scanned images might look using a basic filename and number. (Mac OS X)
As I began to wrap my head around the complexity of scanning my own massive 9,000+ photo collection, it occurred to me that I was going to expect my digital collection to become incredibly neat and organized.
For example, if my brother came to me and said, “Hey do you remember that photo of you and I as little kids standing on chairs in front of the kitchen sink at the old house?”, I wanted to be able to not only respond that I most certainly do remember it, but that I could find the digital “scanned” version of it on my computer within seconds.
As I got to learn the power of non-destructive image managers, how you can do searches inside of them for text within the photos’ filenames and keywords (descriptive words usually stored as metadata inside of the photo file), I realized this goal of mine actually wasn’t impossible at all. In fact, it was very doable, and it just required some additional time from me to enter in some additional data.
In the simplest terms, I could give this photo of my brother and I the filename:
boys stand chairs kitchen.tif
If I later went into a program like Picasa, or the folders on my hard drive where all of the scanned image files are stored, and did a search for just two words “stand chairs”, this particular photo would come up in the results because at one time a while back, I took the time identify this photo with both of these identifying descriptive words.
Doing a search for keywords in image managers like Google’s Picasa (free) can bring up photos with the words in the original filename.
Once I realized this, it became obvious to me I wanted to come up with my own file naming system that I could use across my entire photo collection.
But also, I didn’t want to stop at just describing what and who was in each photo. It was also extremely important to me that it helped me to chronologically order all of my photographs.
My Own File Naming System for Scanned Photos
After a fair amount of trial and error, I came up with my own file naming system.
Alright! Wahoo!!
It think it’s a really good system. In fact, I thought I had nailed it. I thought it was near perfect for my collection. So, I decided to put it in action.
Here’s an example of a 1978 photo I scanned and then named using this system.
And keep in mind, this is the actual filename that I typed in at the file level — in Microsoft Windows that would be in “Windows Explorer” for example or in a “Finder” window if you are using MAC OS X.
My brother and I loved making blanket forts!
1978-02-xx Blanket Tent Tunnel Winter Snow Day (ES-600-48b-UM-DRm).tif
By the way, If you want to check it out and see if you might like to use it, or even part of it, I typed it up for you as a 3-part series called “What Everybody Ought to Know When Naming Your Scanned Photos.”
Working with this numbering system was great. At least for a while. Then I started to notice there was a problem. And to me, it was a big one.
Let’s Play a little “Visual” Game
Let me try and explain it this way.
Scenario 1
One day you are going through your photo collection and you find a slide at the bottom of an old envelope. It’s a beautiful shot of a dolphin jumping at a marine park show.
You start to wonder if you have already scanned it, and if so, you would love to send a copy of it to your Aunt Betsy to remind her how much fun you both had together that day a long long time ago.
This image here is what this slide looks like in your hand. You can make out the dolphins jumping in the middle, but the details are pretty faint. But, you know it’s just lovely!
So you load up your image manager Picasa and start searching for any and all photos from this marine park. And guess what, because you are totally awesome you find 4 images that appear to be from the same show and on the same vacation!
Fantastic!
But, all the dolphin shots look about the same because they were all taken when the dolphins were in mid-air in just about the same place.
So you hold the slide up to the light, you do that squinting thing (you know I’m talking about), and you carefully inspect the film inside and compare it to the images on your screen.
You think you know exactly which one it must be, but you can’t be exactly sure.
Now you are wondering if this is even one of the four you found in Picasa. Maybe it really is possible this slide got loose a long time ago and it was just never scanned.
Scenario 2
Here’s another situation. These three photos are pretty common in someone’s photo collection. It’s an amateur photo shoot of a little boy in a backyard.
I chose three shots that actually look pretty different from each other. But imagine if your photoshoot was 20 or 30 shots. I bet several of them would look almost identical!
It’s really hard to get your son to not only sit up and smile, but to also get him to look at you and the camera all at the same time… forget about it!
You remember the day though, you really wanted that shot so you took 15 shots thinking that maybe when you brought the prints home from the developers down the street, 1 of them would be perfect!
So you’re in Picasa and you have found this perfect image amongst all of the others. It was easy to find because you marked it with a star. Good thinking!
Now imagine how hard it might be to try and find the original paper print of it again that’s now in that plastic tub you decided to store all your original prints in that’s in the back of your bedroom closet.
Why would you need to find the original paper print if it’s already been scanned you’re wondering… right?
That’s a good question. I mean, that might be why you spent all that time scanning them in the first place — so you never have to touch your originals again.
Well consider this:
Maybe your Aunt Betsy loves your photography so much now, she is asking you for an 8″x10″ copy of this perfect shot of your son printed out so she can frame it and hang it on her wall between her bedroom and the bathroom. You think it would look nice there too and you likely have no say even if you didn’t!
The problem is, after trying to print the digital version out a few times on your fancy new inkjet printer, you realize there just isn’t enough detail (resolution) in your 200 dpi scan you made a long time ago and it just looks terrible when print it out this big. It’s way too blurry for Aunt Betsy and her new prescription glasses.
So, you decide the only way to make ol’ Betsy happy is to re-scan the original print at 600 or more dpi and then you will be able to print it out just fine.
Too bad you can’t figure out which print is which because too many of them look alike after all these years!
And maybe this problem is compounded by the fact that your family made a lot of duplicate prints through the years of this photo shoot because of all of those 2-fer and 3-fer-1 priced deals!
Does this photo collection look familiar to you?
Which one is it!?
I think you might be getting the idea now. But, just so I know without a doubt that I have hit you over the head with this, consider this last example.
Scenario 3
Here’s a shot of a beautiful beach during a rain storm. Or, is it 2 separate shots? You tell me.
Yes, you probably noticed the difference in the palm branch in the top left corner of each shot.
It’s 2 shots and you know you have scanned one one of them. But, you have these 2 slides in your hand and now you have to do that squinty “comparing” thing with your eyes again.
Which one did you scan last week? They just look so similar. Ugh!
There just has to be a way to solve these problems right!? Just make this all stop!
The Real Problem and the Missing Element that Solves Your Problem
With a collection that is as massive and as un-sorted as mine, I realized there was one missing “element” to my naming system that I needed to add and fast. In fact, I knew whatever this “element” turned out to be may actually be the most important part of the entire filename!
I couldn’t believe I didn’t come up with this from the very beginning!
If you use my 3-part naming system as I had originally created it, the problem is that you haven’t yet created any kind of a functional link between your original “physical” print or slide and the newly created digital version of it.
In many photo collections, it may be next to impossible for you to match up the original print to the digital image at a later time, for one of many reasons, because neither system lays the foundation for links between the two.
Unless you are one of a very small percentage of people who are considering giving away or trashing all of your original prints, negatives and slides after you scan them, being able to “match back” and find your original physical masters is very important. And how easily you are able to “match back” is almost as important because it can save you or your loved ones lots and lots of time and headache later.
Side note: Please don’t throw your originals away. Seriously. That just makes me very sad. If you’re really thinking about doing this — do they really take up that much room in your closet?
How to Easily Create a Link Between Each of Your Scanned Photos
Creating a link between your photos is actually a very simple process.
I certainly can’t take credit for this idea, because it’s that simple. For all I know, the earliest men and women probably used a variation of it for something! And I certainly know Melvil Dewey came up with a brilliant variation of it when he came up with his library classification system for books.
All you have to do is give each photo a unique number and then use the same number in the filename after scanning the photo.
That’s it!
Using my new Itoya Art Profolio Photo Marker to label my previously scanned photos.
On January 25th, 2012, for about half the day, I went through all of the digital masters I have stored in my image manager Aperture, and added a unique number on each and every one of their filenames.
Then I found all of the original paper prints and slides that I had scanned to make these images, and wrote the corresponding number on the back using a special ink pen meant for writing on photographs.
The basic idea for me was to start at the number 1 and work my way up until I was finished scanning and labeling my entire collection.
For me, I know I have close to, if not more than 10,000 photos, so the numbers would get pretty big.
You can create any kind of a numbering system that you want, as long as it makes sense to you, and it’s easy for you and others to follow it years down the line.
Numbering Systems
Here are a few examples of a numbering system you might come up with as well as example filenames written below using each system.
(Please note the filename examples aren’t necessarily how I would personally suggest you name your files, but are there to show how you could possibly implement each numbering system using various naming methods you choose to use.)
Numbers Alone
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 … 4726 … etc.
| Examples: | 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – 5.tif |
| 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – 6.tif | |
| 1975-11-23 Lukes Swim Meet Orlando Florida – 346.tif |
Numbers with Film Type Differentiation
s1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6 … s3687 … etc.
p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p6… p6124 … etc.
n1, n2, n3, n4, n5, n6 …. n4001 … etc.
| Examples: | 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – p5.tif |
| 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – p6.tif | |
| 1975-11-23 Lukes Swim Meet Orlando Florida – s346.tif |
This is how you could separate your prints, slides and negatives by adding a “p”, “s” or an “n” before the number.
Year Plus a Number
1972-1, 1972-2, 1964-3 …. 1972-4056 … etc.
1964-1, 1964-2, 1964-3 … 1964-2389 … etc.
| Examples: | 1972-5 - Dads Birthday Party.tif |
| 1972-6 – Dads Birthday Party.tif | |
| 1975-346 – Lukes Swim Meet Orlando Florida.tif |
Notice in these three examples I show how you could put the number before the descriptive part of the filename if you wanted to. This would enable you to be able to sort your photos by the unique numbers in system folders and image managers because the numbers appear first in your filename. And in this example, they would be sorted by year.
My Numbering System of Choice
All three of the methods above would work and have their advantages and disadvantages. And I’m positive there are many other ways you could come up with that could be specifically tailored to benefit you and your own collection.
But, because I know some of you would want to know, I thought I would list for you the method I am currently using to number all of my photos.
I simply took the first method I listed above, the “Numbers Alone” variation, and added 0′s to the front of them so each number would be exactly 5-digits long.
5-Digit Numbers Alone
00001, 00002, 00003, 00004, 00005 … 01289… 03589 … etc.
| Examples: | 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – 00005.tif |
| 1972-03-14 Dads Birthday Party – 00006.tif | |
| 1975-11-23 Lukes Swim Meet Orlando Florida – 00346.tif |
Labeling a print “00270″ using my numbering system.
A few reasons I chose this numbering method:
- Correct Amount of Digits — I made my system 5-digits long because I knew my scanned collection would easily reach 10,000 photos for sure and the odds of it reaching 100,000 (6-digits) was next to impossible.
- Consistency — I like my numbers to be consistent. Call it being a little obsessive compulsive, or maybe just being thorough, but I like my columns of information (such as in file folders) to line up evenly. A “1″ and a “8923″ don’t line up as nicely as a “00001” and a “08923“.
- Calendar Year Confusion — I also made it 5-digits so that I was sure to have numbers that wouldn’t be confused with a calendar year in searches. For example, if I did an search for photos that took place in the year “1972″, I didn’t want the possibility that the photo numbered “1972″ would come up in the results. Instead, if you wanted to find this photo by number, you would just do an “exact match” search for “01972.”
Implementing My Naming System with My Numbering System
So, to bring this full circle, using the earlier example photo, here is how I have currently chosen to implement my numbering system into my file naming system.
My brother and I loved making blanket forts!
1978-02-xx Blanket Tent Tunnel Winter Snow Day (ES-600-48b-UM-DRm-#03589).tif
TIP: Don’t Strive for Organizational Perfection
Whichever numbering method you choose to use, I would like to suggest you implement this one important concept based on my own experience.
Please do not drive yourself insane by insisting the numbers represent any kind of an order to your photos.
What I mean by this is unless you have an absolute perfect collection, where you already have in your possession every single photo you will ever want to have in your collection, and you have already sorted and ordered them in a perfect order before you number them, the odds of you being able to assign a number to every photo in your collection in the exact order that you wish for them to end up being in is next to impossible!
So my suggestion to you is to think of this number to be just a way for you to identify the photograph and not a way to identify the order of the photograph.
And just to make sure I am perfectly clear on explaining this concept, let me describe it this way:
I am scanning my own photo collection with little concern for the chronological order of the shoot date — when the photos were actually taken. I have chosen to sort and chronologically ordering my photos inside of my image manager Aperture after I do the scans.
So, even though my goal at the end of this massive project is to have all of my photos chronologically ordered, its possible that a photo taken in 1984 will be given a number like “01489“. And then the next day, I will scan a photo from 11 years earlier in 1973 and give it the next number that I haven’t assigned to a photo which happens to be a much higher number — say the number “01502“.
The number is only a reference number — a way to identify the unique link between one original physical print or film to its corresponding scanned image file that you create.
It’s often not representative of order.
Do You Have To Number Your Photos?
Is this necessary and do you need to do it? The answer is probably no and maybe — it’s up to you.
You have to consider all the factors that will make your collection challenging.
If you have:
- a lot of photos
- a lot of duplicate photos
- a lot of similar looking photos
- slides or negatives that are hard to see without a magnifying glass etc.
- an unorganized collection
… you just might want to consider numbering them.
It definitely adds some time to the process. But to me, the benefits later… far outweigh this little bit of extra time.
Now that’s what I am talking about! Here is that dolphin slide again viewed from my collection in Apple’s Aperture. The “version name” holds the original filename and ID’ing number. Total bliss. 
I hope you enjoyed this post!
I’m sorry if you felt it was a little long. Maybe I went a little crazy with all the info-graphics and photos. I just thought it might make it a little bit more entertaining that way! :-)
If you wouldn’t mind helping me …
After reading this, can you think of any other reasons why you would want to number your photos like this that I left out?
I would love for you to let me know in the comments below.
I’ve got a couple more reason that I would like to share as well. So, I’m thinking of taking the best answers I receive from you all and I’ll make a collective post out of it. I’ll credit you of course, so make sure you spell your name correctly. 
Cheers!
Hi Curtis,
Thanks for another good post.
A few additional comments, especially about descriptive file names and the use/lack of leading zeroes in unique ‘accession numbers’, to borrow an archivist’s and librarian’s term. While it is often tempting to include a description as part of a file name, this can lead to problems. Most, if not all, computer operating systems will show only a finite number of characters (letters or numerals) for a specific file name. While this number may vary from Macs to Windows to any version of Linux, at some point a file name will be truncated, at least in list displays in Mac’s Finder or Windows’ Explorer so you might end up with something like: ‘two_boys_sta…’ for each of several similarly named files, even though there might be a discrete number at the end of each file name so the apparently identical file names don’t over-write one another. While I’ve used an underscore between words in this example, some operating systems may require a hyphen or an underscore wherever there’s normally a space and some systems will accept spaces between words within file names. To be on the safe side, always use one or other of these symbols instead of leaving spaces to avoid problems for someone trying to open a copy of your file.
Any computer will sort files by numeral first, then alphabetically whenever the file name field is chosen as the sort choice. Thus, if you don’t include leading zeroes, you’ll see file 1xxxxx.ext, 10xxxx.ext, 100xxx.ext, 1000xx.ext, then 2xxxxx.ext, 22xxx.ext, 222xx.ext, and so on instead of 001xxxxx.ext, 002xxxxx.ext, …009xxxxx.ext, 010xxxxx.ext, 011xxxxx.ext, and so on, where the extra ‘x’s substitute for other numerals/digits or letters and the .ext represents the three letter file extension operating systems like Windows require to identify the file type, for example .jpg for JPEG, .psd for Photoshop PSD, or .tif for TIF(F) files. This is related to your point about the file names ‘lining up consistently’ but it goes a little beyond by keeping lists in correct numeric order.
Because every operating system has an upper limit on how many letters and/or numerals it permits in a file name, although this limit varies from system to system, it’s safer to confine the file names to unique accession numbers, with or without date, and put any description(s) into a caption or description field or fields within the EXIF and IPTC data included in cataloging software databases.
As you’ve suggested, the unique accession number should not be considered as having any significance in terms of sorting files by topic or date. Like the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress system of call numbers for library books, it should be only a unique identifier for each file. If you’re scanning and naming an unsorted batch of prints, negatives, or slides, it doesn’t matter if your first scan is of a print from 197x, your second is a slide from 200x, and the third is a negative from 198x, they should be identified as 000001p.ext, 000002s.ext, and 000003n.ext, where the p, s, and n indicate the type of original image. These accession numbers should also be written carefully, with appropriate, archivally safe pen or marker, on the original, at the time the scan is made to tie the original to the digital ‘surrogate’. The date the original was taken, when known, as well as the date of the scan, should be included in the appropriate IPTC data fields. Please note that any date automatically applied here, will be the date the scan was made, NOT the date the original image was made.
If you’re scanning rolls or strips of negatives that have individual frame numbers along the edge of the film, a common practice among professionals is to assign a unique accession number to each roll of film, then add a hyphen and the frame number for each frame. If, as often happens with 35 mm negatives, two consecutive numbers appear beneath a specific frame,then it would be ‘accession number-xx-xy’ instead of ‘accession number-xx’ and ‘accession number-xy’ for the next frame. If the negatives are kept in archivally safe polypropylene or other pages, a unique page number for each page could also be included in the file name and should be written on the storage page to help tie the original and the digital file together.
“The DAM Book”, by Peter Krogh, has an excellent discussion about file naming strategies and is highly recommended as a permanent addition to any serious photo collector’s personal library. (No, I don’t have any financial interest in recommending this particular book. I’m just very impressed with Krogh’s book and bought the second edition several years ago when it first came out.)
Thanks Art! I’m glad you enjoyed another one of my posts.
All good comments you added. Let me first play devils advocate and defend the other side:
FILENAME LENGTH: The amount of characters is a filename being limited is a great point to bring up. I admit Mac OS X has spoiled me in that I don’t feel limited at all as to what characters I can use and how long I can make a filename. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been told a filename I’ve chosen was too long. But, you’re right, others on a different platform or possibly an older version of the operating system may be hindered by my “file naming system” I recommend.
That being said, I personally feel that as we look towards the future, there is less concern for issues like this as we pass our collections on to our family members. Personal Computer operating systems are getting less restrictive with issues like this with every release. Not too long ago, we worried about file size and compression because our hard drives were too small, and this is no longer an issue at all.
I almost think most people don’t need to worry about this as long as they are reasonable. I mean, people should just keep it easy yet still useful.
METADATA FOR DESCRIPTIONS: I am still advising that most people consider putting some description in their filenames if they can because EXIF and IPTC metadata fields are still not universally used (and used well) by all software and understood well enough by the average user. This stuff is still more complicated for users than it should be!
What I mean is, for example, I still get a lot of questions about why when they drag a photo out of a program like iPhoto, their “titles” and “captions” are not included in this new file that was created to their desktop. And it’s not just iPhoto. As you probably know, a lot of software just keeps this metadata in a database and doesn’t actually write it to the master images as you make changes.
It seems like a lot of software is still written in a manner to KEEP you using it and not easily allowing you to take your photo collection and all of your “captioning” work with you. It’s like they write them like hotels in Vegas are made — you can get in easily but it’s hard to find your way out!
And secondly, for the average user, if they are looking at a folder of images on their hard drive that are just labeled: “1972-xx-xx-600dpi-12345″ (I just made that up), it won’t be very useful for them. It will look like a foreign language unless they are in a thumbnail view and can actually SEE the photos. Even if it’s just the year and then the location like “Disney World”, that’s still something to go on in the filename.
However, if you stick with one piece of software that does everything you need to, and/OR you feel you have a handle on metadata and how it works — when and how it writes this new data to your master images — then I say people should have at it and do like you are suggesting Art. But then again, at this point, you are a fairly advanced user.
So now let me take your side if you don’t mind.
If you noticed in that last image of this post, my version name for the dolphin photo in that info-graphic doesn’t include a date or a description at all. This is the data that I am currently using in my filenames before I import my scans into Aperture. Because, like you suggested, I am going to do keywording and captioning to fill in this data.
I will for sure, at the least, go back and add the dates to the head of the filename. But probably not until I get all of my photos in and they are organized so I am sure I have the dates right. That way I can add this information in as a “batch rewrite.”
Man Art, you and I write too much! We just might be boring people.
Thanks for playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’.
Regardless of how much software and operating systems change now and in the future, one thing we can and probably should do, is include a text file explaining any terms, abbreviations, keywords, etc. that we have used. We should also explain how any database/folder/file naming system was designed to be used so other generations can understand what we were trying to do when we went to the effort to preserve our original images and other documents digitally. A print-out of this introduction should also be kept somewhere where it will be easily found by anyone inheriting our analog and/or digital collections. If we also include information about what hardware (digital camera, scanner) and software operating system version and applications versions we used, it will likely be easier for them to understand and access our digital data. This part of the intro should be kept current when we migrate storage media, such as 3.5″ floppy disks to CDs to DVDs to Blu-ray, or whatever, since media common today are unlikely to exist in the future. Likewise, we should also include information about whatever file formats and versions we use. For example,the current Windows versions of Microsoft Word and other Office applications use file formats that are not compatible/useable with older versions of MS Office applications. Quite possibly, future versions of MS Office will not be able to open today’s file formats. The same potential problem exists for less-commonly used graphics file formats, although .jpg, .png, .psd, and .tif are likely to remain compatible in the future. Even camera RAW formats are not entirely reliable in this regard. Current versions of Canon and Nikon RAW processing software are not necessarily compatible with or able to open earlier versions of their respective RAW files. That’s part of the reason for Adobe’s push to encourage the use of the non-proprietary, open-source, .dng format for RAW files. Unless a future user happens to have the same brand of camera we use, be it Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Pentax, Panasonic, Sony, etc., AND the appropriate software, good luck to him/her trying to open or work with our RAW files.
You have some valid arguments to support your views. I agree, the permissible length of file names has increased greatly for many recent and current operating systems, although perhaps not as much in any of the various sub-sets of Linux as with Mac OS and Windows. However, how many characters does the Mac Finder show before it shows ellipses (the three dots…) when you sort a list by file name? I believe the maximum number of characters Windows allows is about 256 but Windows Explorer doesn’t show any more than about 60 characters, at most, before all the file names appear to be the same for the first ‘x’ number of characters followed by the ellipsis so you end up seeing a list of apparently identical file names that happen to all contain the identical first group of characters, be it letters, numbers, or some combination of those. SOME programs let you expand the column width to show more characters in a list but not all dialog boxes, such as that for File Save/Save As or File Open, give this option so you’re stuck with viewing whatever number of characters the particular program you’re using shows. Not all software shows the three character file extension (e.g. jpg, psd, tif, nef (Nikon’s version of camera RAW), arw (Sony’s RAW), htm/html) so a digital camera’s RAW file with a .nef or .arw extension will appear with the identical name as the .jpg version created simultaneously when the camera is set to record RAW+JPG. By default, Windows does not show file extensions, although it does require an extension for every file so it knows what type of file it is and can assign a default program to work with it. My understanding of the Mac OS is that it doesn’t show file extensions (although it may be possible to change this default mode) but it does require a file extension or file type, again so it knows what program to use with a particular file.
Yes, it is nice to be able to include and SEE some descriptive information in file names but it’s not always as feasible as it might seem to be, going only by the number of characters any OS might permit in a file name.
Good point about much software writing EXIF and IPTC data to its own data base and not including it in the actual file. This is partly because of the manufacturer’s proprietary design and partly because not all file formats can include this extra data. Currently, JPG/JPEG, Photoshop’s PSD, and TIF/TIFF are the main formats that do provide space for these types of data. Unfortunately, BMP, an uncompressed format common in Windows; GIF, common on the WWW; and PNG, becoming common on the web, also an uncompressed format that can include transparency and as an alpha channel but not layers; do NOT include this option. Individual camera brands of RAW include EXIF data, as do digital cameras and cell phone cameras generally, but one of the main advantages of any RAW format is that the user can’t write any changes to it. When a camera RAW format is saved, it must be ‘Saved As’, using a different file format, such as TIF, JPG, PNG, etc. Depending on the chosen format, any EXIF and IPTC data added during processing, may or may not be included in the exported file.
Folder names, while still subject to some character number limitations, can be more descriptive, such as 2010 Vacation St Joe Island; 2012 Mary’s Birthday Party; 2012 CSRM Visit; etc. Each folder would contain ONLY files relative to that topic so when someone wants to see all the files from a visit to the California State Railroad Museum (CSRM) in 2012, he/she would just navigate to that folder. Likewise for photos from Mary’s birthday in 2012 or the vacation trip to St. Joseph’s Island in 2010. For anyone planning to archive folders to CD/DVD, character number limits are much more restrictive, especially for disks intended for sharing with people using other computer operating systems and general compatibility. See http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO-8.html for information about ISO 9660, Joliet, and HFS file system naming conventions for recording to CD/DVD and retaining cross-platform compatibility for Mac/Unix/Linux/Windows systems. The use of spaces in file or folder names is also frequently not permitted when burning data to CD/DVD. This is a characteristic of the burning application so may vary from program to program, but is something to be aware of when setting up an initial naming system for files or folders.
You’re right, we do writer a lot! If we pooled our writing talents, we should be able to create something that would make “War and Peace” pale in comparison, at least for length. On the bright side, we do manage to give dedicated readers lots of food for thought and sometimes also manage to steer them to additional sources of information. Maybe more folks will be inclined to join our discussions, if only to seek clarification on one or more points we raise. I’m glad to have the chance to discuss some of these points and exchange information and experiences.
Art
Besides printed instructions, you could use photo shop or another program to leave instructions for your descendants about your collection and save it as tiff or jpeg. Then the file would be an image in the same format as the rest of the collection.
You are right about file names being too long. I have had problems several times when restoring files from a back-up to the same computer. I get error messages about a file name that is too long to be copied. Then I have to screen capture that message, skip the file and then after everything else has copied, I have to go back and hunt down those files and shorten the names so they can be moved. I find it annoying that my computer let me use names that were too long and then not allow them to be copied back later.
One more note: don’t be so sure your collection will never exceed 99,999 scans. You never know how many more images may turn up from relatives who know of your collection and want to add to it from their discoveries. While it might seem to be unlikely to ever have 1,000,000 or more scans, it is possible. If you go initially with at least a 7-digit number, you can more easily incorporate your digital camera originals into your single file system. I’ve taken over 300 images with my new D-SLR in the past week alone, although some of these were obvious discards taken while I was learning the camera’s controls and functions and had no intention of ever keeping. An enthusiastic photographer can easily take several hundred shots in one day, especially if photographing a wedding or other special event. My previous digital camera recorded up to 99,999 shots, uniquely numbered, then started over at 00,001 again. I was on the third cycle, somewhere in about the 8x,000s, when I got the D-SLR last week. I had used the old camera for a little over six years and took a combination of stills and video clips with it. Since all the images in your computer are digital, whether they were ‘born digital’ in a digital camera, or were digitized by scanning, it makes sense to include them in one comprehensive folder or collection so you can see how limiting a 5-digit identifier may become in relatively little time, especially if you have a lot of images to scan and continue to take lots of digital photos.
Please school me on this one Art.
I thought about this for awhile when I settled on 5 digits for my ID number. But, I couldn’t think of 1 reason at all why my digital photos — the ones I take on my cell phone or DSLR for example — would need to have a unique ID number.
As thorough as I like to be, believe me, I tried to think of a reason to stay consistent and number them all. But, the number for me is just so I can “match back” to my originals.
Are there good reasons why someone would want to keep a unique number on their “current” digital images?
Assuming your current camera originals (both cell phone and D-SLR) are to be treated as your Digital Master files and archived as such, each should have its own unique number to differentiate which camera made it. If you have only one camera, that’s not a problem but if you have the D-SLR set to record at the same size as the cell phone, or as some photographers do, use two or more D-SLR bodies, which may or may not be the same make and model, without viewing the EXIF data, how will you be able to tell which camera produced a particular image, especially if a consistent technical fault shows up in a group of images? For example, if a batch of images has obvious dust spots or a hair in the same place on each, if you know which camera made those images, you know which one needs cleaning.
If you process any of your images, correcting exposure, color balance, white balance, composition, etc., if you ‘Save’ the file you’ve been working on, it will over-write your original unless you use the ‘Save As’ command instead of ‘Save’ so any changes you made become permanent in your Master file. If you later want to make other changes, or un-do your original changes, you no longer have the Master file to work with. This is particularly important if your Master was a jpg. If you open your Master file for editing, then immediately use ‘Save As’ and save it with a new name, you can always delete the copy if you really mess it up. If the name of the edited version is similar to that of the Master but with an added suffix to indicate what changes you made and why you made them, for example, resizing and resampling (changing the resolution)an image to include in an e-mail, you can always go back to your original Master file if you want to make another version optimized for inkjet printing or commercial printing press work, at a particular size. By adding an appropriate suffix to the same base name as your Master file, your derivative files should line up in sequence when you sort your folder or catalog by file name so if you want to attach a particular image to an email at another time, you don’t need to spend time resizing and resampling it, you just find the version you worked on previously and attach it. If somebody sees your print and wants a copy, you just pull up the version you did for printing and print another copy. In other words, the similar part of the derivative’s file name plus the appropriate suffix, will tie the derivative back to the original, just as your accession (unique ID) number on your scanned file ties the digital image to the original analog image.
Art
I think I just might have this already covered then!
Here’s what I am currently doing:
I use Aperture to help me import my digital camera photos. I have an Importing Preset for every camera I own. So, for example, my iPhone 4s’ format is: “(Image Date) – (custom name) (iP4s) -” where the custom name is a short description for the “event” that I type in before importing. Then it automatically adds a counter at the end using the format “xx of [the total amount of photos of the event].”
I import one event off the camera at a time. So for a trip to Disneyland, the filename might look like:
2012-06-25 – Disnyeland Trip (iP4s) – 26 of 176.jpg
Hi Curtis,
I’m glad to see your choice of date format. This format should ensure that all your images line up chronologically when sorted by filename (with the date at the front of the name) and when sorted by date, if the same date format is used in the date field.
Presumably, when you’re adding the date for scans, you substitute ‘xx’ or some other symbol when you don’t know the specific year, month, or day the original photo was taken. (E.g. 19xx-xx-xx for a shot you know was taken sometime in the 1900s but you’re not sure of the exact year and don’t know the month or day.)
Adding the number of the photo of a particular shoot is helpful. With this information, if you’re ever checking a backup/archive copy and see fewer photos in a group, you’ll know which files are missing, just by looking for the absent numbers from the sequence. Definitely a positive feature to include.
“Agreed!” on all your points!
In my earlier comment, I neglected to mention a very important reason for assigning unique ID numbers to original digital camera originals, probably because I have always set the digital cameras I’ve used to avoid the problem and didn’t think of it.
Many cameras can be set to number images sequentially, with each new image being assigned the next available number — 1,2,3,….997,998,999. If one memory card is filled, it’s removed from the camera, and an empty card is inserted so you can continue shooting, the first image on the second card will receive the next number after the last image on the first card. With this camera setting, you can safely transfer all the images from two or more cards to the same folder on your hard disk without fear of overwriting any files because of duplicate numbers. HOWEVER, WATCH OUT…
WARNING: If, as is sometimes the default setting, your camera is set to start numbering at 1 each time a memory card is inserted, given the same scenario where you fill one card and replace it with a second to continue to shoot, you’ll have duplicate file names and numbers! When you go to transfer the contents of these two cards to hard disk, UNLESS you transfer the files from the first card into one folder and those from the second card into a different folder, the files from the second card will REPLACE the files from the first card that have the same file name/number. Even if you initially transfer all the files to separate folders, since some of them will have identical names/numbers assigned by the camera(s) and identical dates, and, if you happened to use two cameras at virtually the same time, one with a wide angle lens and one with a telephoto lens, your images will possibly have identical times as well. <> With duplicate file names/numbers in different folders but on the same hard disk, it’s all too easy to accidently overwrite one of them if you eventually try to consolidate all the files from a particular shoot into one folder. Once a file is overwritten, the original is gone for ever. If you must use this system, because your camera doesn’t permit you to set it to use sequential names/numbers, BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to go through each folder on your hard disk and assign unique ID numbers to all images, BEFORE you do anything else with your new images.
Check your camera’s manual to find out if you can set it to number sequentially and how to set it accordingly. Instructions for this will likely be in one of the basic camera Setup menus.
There is no doubt some maximum number that the camera will eventually reach with its numbering and once it reaches that number, it will reset itself and start over at 1. However, since the maximum number is probably at least 9,999, the chances of you reaching this reset point in any short period of time are rather remote and you’ll likely have assigned new numbers/names to your first set of images and archived them to CD/DVD before you start with duplicate numbers. It took me at least a year of shooting before my camera reached its reset value and I had long-since renamed my first set of images from it.
Art
Hi Curtis,
I think you’ve told us only half the story about the unique ID numbers on your original analog images so far. You should also describe how you use that number to physically find a specific original, once you’ve decided that you want to re-scan image 12345n, for example. How do you find where that specific negative is kept? A review of your system would be helpful as a ‘Part 2′ to this post.
If the ‘n’ for ‘negative’, ‘p’ for ‘print’, and ‘s’ for ‘slide’ were used as prefixes instead of suffixes to your numbers, a computer sort by file name would automatically sort the formats for you.
Using the prefix system would also permit the use of similar suffixes to identify ‘derivative’ files. For example, if you’ve used VueScan to save .DNG files at the highest available resolution and color depth, you could later resize and possibly reduce the resolution of an image for printing, retaining the same base number to tie this derivative file to the original, but add a ‘p’ suffix to indicate it has been adjusted for specific printing purposes. If another copy was resized and resampled for use on the web, a ‘w’ suffix would immediately show the image had a reduced size and resolution, as would an ‘e’ for emailed images.
Anyone who scans images should be keeping the original high resolution, high color depth file intact and using derivative copies for any particular applications. To save all the time and work put into resizing, resampling, or otherwise manipulating images, they should be saved with unique file names but these names should also relate to the original name. Yes, it’s possible to keep web-sized images in a specific, appropriately named folder, but if the original file name is retained for the derivative as well as the original, it’s all too easy for the derivative image to be saved instead of the original, especially if it gets moved out of its proper folder at any time. There should be some practical system used to tie derivatives to their original source files but using unique file names. The inclusion of derivative files in the catalog will also increase the total number of images in the group and, depending on the naming system used, might require a significant number of digits in the file name. This aspect (dealing with derivatives) might warrant a ‘Part 3′ to this post.
Art
Yup Art — I assure you there will be some follow-up posts!
I crossed 3000 words on this post and knew I had to cut her off. It was just getting too long.
And really, I started out just wanting to make a single point and that is — “Consider ID’ing your originals or you could be really sorry”
I figured it was mainly concern about length/word count that limited the material you covered in this post.
I’m looking forward to the next post.
Art
Curtis,
Enjoyed reading your blog. You might consider Namechanger, an app that makes it relatively easy to change the names of many files at the same time. You can also number a series of related photos with a click.
Ken
Thanks for reading the blog Ken! I appreciate it.
I just downloaded “Namechanger” to try out. The demo video looked pretty nice. If it works out for me, I might make a review post about it. I’m sure others would like to find out about it as well.
Thanks for the comment.
Is “Namechanger” a Mac-only program or is it also available for Windows?
Art
It appears that NameChanger is a Mac only piece of software. But, because of it’s simplicity, it can’t be unique. I am sure there is a Windows substitute out there.
Art, I bet you probably even know of one that does the same if not very similar functions. If you aren’t aware of one, I am going to look for one to add to the review post so I don’t leave Windows users out.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into your articles. I volunteered to catalog my parent’s photo collection after my father died. We cleaned out the house and everything has been sitting on the floor of my workroom for a year and a half because I didn’t know where to start! Now that I have some direction, it’s time to get busy.
E, you’re so welcome. I’m happy to share them with you! It’s so great to hear they have helped give you a place to begin.
It may seem daunting, possibly even scary at times, but know its not impossible. You just have to start.
I’m sorry to hear about your Father’s passing. I bet your project will make both your parents proud.
so, not only did our parents have the same green photo album.
they had the same kitchen cabinets!
Nancy, really!? Too funny. Are they the cabinets in the photo of my brother and I standing on chairs from this particular post?
In exactly which field in Aperture do you add your filename? If in the Version Name field, do you write over what was there? Do you first copy that information to another field?
Many thanks!
Hi Karin. If you’ve already imported a photo or photos into Aperture, my opinion is that you want to update the name of the file (image) in the “Version Name” field. If you haven’t imported them, you can go into your Finder window and change the filenames as much as you want there. Then after you import them, this information will come through as both the “filename” AND the “Version Name.” Any additional changes you want to make, you then make to the “Version Name.”
The Version name and the “File Name” are the two most important fields for information like this because when you go to export out a photo from your collection, you will be asked which one of these two names you would like to use to “build” your new file from.
I like to keep both the Version Name and Filename (Original Name) the same. So, whatever I add to the Version Name, I later tell Aperture to update and “apply” it to my Original Name. But, if you would like to keep your version name and original file names unique for whatever reason, then avoid the step where you update the original filename with your new Version Name information. This will keep them different.