Renumbering sequence of filenames?

Ron Hunter wrote:
Jim wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:20:12 -0500, Ron Hunter
wrote:

Dave Cohen wrote:
Lobster wrote:
For reasons best known to itself, my Canon Powershot decided to
reset its filename sequence back to zero, so although my library of
photos had incremented up to the filename IMG_1432.JPG, I suddenly
find myself with a new set of photos starting back at IMG_0001.JPG
again. What a PITA.

Now, I've solved the original problem and stopped it restting, but
I want to renumber the new files starting from IMG_1433.JPG.
Life's too short to do it manually! Any ideas how to do it? (using
Windows XP Home).

I'm sure there must be a way using old MS-DOS commands in the XP
command window - but how?

Thanks
David
You seem to have found the way to fix the problem for future shots.
Basically you take a shot and rename with higher number. Although
the directory info will be all wrong, the camera seems not to care
and sorts things out.
When buying a new camera, if you want to continue the numbering
sequence just insert existing card.
As to why this happened, it will happen if you format (or have an
empty card) and do a reset to defaults. If you need to reset to
defaults, make sure the card contains images.
Dave Cohen
I believe that the rename function of Irfanview can handle this task.
Best yet, the program is free.

Yes that's what i use, its batch function works a treat, i've also
found it a great viewer and can also do most of the manipulating i
need with it. The net is cluttered by camera generic file names so i
rename all my
shots to my own coded filename.
Jim
www.inghamcam.info
I use Irfanview to insert the camera model into my file-names so that
the pictures from my wife's camera can be distinguished from those from
my camera, which Kodak stupidly named the same. BAD BAD KODAK!


Although I use Ifanview for other batch functions, I haven't used it for
renaming. I do use a freebie found by googling 'rename master'. This
provides a lot of options like number sequencing etc. Best to try a
trial download rather than attempting to explain.
Dave Cohen

Paul Furman wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Paul Furman wrote:

The only thing that *really* makes sense though is year-mo-day-number
like 2008-07-26_0001.jpg I wish cameras offered that as an option.
I've done that when using tethered remote control software but it's
not an option for regular shooting.

Even that doesn't solve the naming problem for those of us who have
multiple cameras, not all of which name the files to include the
camera model number so they can be kept separate, even when in the
same directory.

I guess you do need hours, minutes, seconds then, and 'camera#' if that
was important. I'm getting a second body and considering some sort of
approach like that. I wouldn't want to sort by camera though, just
chronologically.

That starts to get into a rather long filename. When on vacation, both
cameras (mine and my wife's) are often contributing to the
'documentation' of the vacation scenery. Hers has better resolution,
but less zoom, and is terrible in low light. Mine has better zoom, less
resolution, and better low light usability. We use whichever is more
appropriate to the conditions. Being able to distinguish which camera
is being used without reference to the EXIF information is useful, and
avoids the appearance of duplicate file names.

Dave Cohen wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Jim wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:20:12 -0500, Ron Hunter
wrote:

Dave Cohen wrote:
Lobster wrote:
For reasons best known to itself, my Canon Powershot decided to
reset its filename sequence back to zero, so although my library
of photos had incremented up to the filename IMG_1432.JPG, I
suddenly find myself with a new set of photos starting back at
IMG_0001.JPG again. What a PITA.

Now, I've solved the original problem and stopped it restting, but
I want to renumber the new files starting from IMG_1433.JPG.
Life's too short to do it manually! Any ideas how to do it?
(using Windows XP Home).

I'm sure there must be a way using old MS-DOS commands in the XP
command window - but how?

Thanks
David
You seem to have found the way to fix the problem for future shots.
Basically you take a shot and rename with higher number. Although
the directory info will be all wrong, the camera seems not to care
and sorts things out.
When buying a new camera, if you want to continue the numbering
sequence just insert existing card.
As to why this happened, it will happen if you format (or have an
empty card) and do a reset to defaults. If you need to reset to
defaults, make sure the card contains images.
Dave Cohen
I believe that the rename function of Irfanview can handle this
task. Best yet, the program is free.

Yes that's what i use, its batch function works a treat, i've also
found it a great viewer and can also do most of the manipulating i
need with it. The net is cluttered by camera generic file names so i
rename all my
shots to my own coded filename.
Jim
www.inghamcam.info
I use Irfanview to insert the camera model into my file-names so that
the pictures from my wife's camera can be distinguished from those
from my camera, which Kodak stupidly named the same. BAD BAD KODAK!


Although I use Ifanview for other batch functions, I haven't used it for
renaming. I do use a freebie found by googling 'rename master'. This
provides a lot of options like number sequencing etc. Best to try a
trial download rather than attempting to explain.
Dave Cohen

I believe there is a rename utility (Pfrank?) which is also supposed to
work well, but I haven't use it since Irfanview does what I need to do.

Paul Furman wrote:
John McWilliams wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:30:45 +0100, Lobster
wrote:

Curious as to why this makes a real difference to you?

When putting together a slide show from different times, you can copy to
a new folder without overwriting and they all sort chronologically.

This is only a problem, if you can only sort by filename.
But it's know, that many programs also support sorting by date, whis is
in many cases the better approach anyway.

With the right tools it's easy to correct date and time in the
exif-field of the images and set the filed date to the date in the
exif-header.
I can't see the problem with the numbering. For me, the file numbering
is only an estimate, how many pictures I've already done with this
camera... I just have to know how many times it already wrapped around
at 9999 to 0000 ;-)

bye
kruemi


--
Dimage A2, Agfa isolette
http://flickr.com/photos/kruemi
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/kruemi/images

Well, why don't you use the template like yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss to rename all
your photos? I found that very convenient. It's pretty easy to get this info
from the image itself. I started doing that several years ago and found that
pretty convenient. It's extremely useful when you want to reorder the whole
collection of photos by date/location/event, etc. I usually keep a separate
folder with a silimar name:
"YY-MM-DD ventName" and all photos inside are belonging to this event.

Just D.


Murphy's Law. He _will_ , at some point , overwrite an old image with a
new image.

Exactly! ;-)

Just D wrote:
Well, why don't you use the template like yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss to
rename all your photos? I found that very convenient. It's pretty
easy to get this info from the image itself. I started doing that
several years ago and found that pretty convenient. It's extremely
useful when you want to reorder the whole collection of photos by
date/location/event, etc. I usually keep a separate folder with a
silimar name: "YY-MM-DD ventName" and all photos inside are belonging
to this event.

Just D.

An excellent suggestion - one I use myself G

I use PIE to do this automatically:

http://www.picmeta.com/

Cheers,
David