Important Notice: I am currently in the process of releasing full non-beta versions of all my scripts and as of today - 18 Feb 2006 - am withdrawing all outstanding beta versions. To stay in touch with the full-release rollouts, subscribe to the thread:
Andrew Hall - Script Development, Update List
bb/viewtopic.php?t=190&start=15. ... 0&start=15
The new versions will have much improved dialogs, better integration with Bridge and many new features.
Andrew Hall 18 Feb 2006]
AH Image Rename is an image renaming javascript for Photoshop CS / CS2. Because it's sole purpose is image renaming (and associated file handling), it does the job fast. Images are only opened when necessary (often not) and copying files is only done where a straight rename will not work.
You can select files for renaming within a system of subfolders using powerful (regular expressions based) selection criteria eg jpg files with a*h in the name excluding those which have c or d in the name.
The new name can be specified in any order. Each part of the name is separated from the next by a '+' e.g. 'crdater+_+crtimehm' and you can insert plain text wherever you wish. The following reserved words specify file name parts.
origname - original file name excluding extension.
crdater - reverse creation date (best for computer sort order): yymmdd.
crdate - creation date: ddmmyy.
crdateus - US style creation date: mmddyy.
crtime - creation time - hhmmss.
crtimehm - creation time - hhmm.
orignum3 - the rightmost 3 consecutive integers in the original file name e.g. 'Img2390' becomes '390'. Similarly orignum2 or orignum4 .
autonum100 - counts from 100, any startpoint can be specified eg autonum1.
xmeta:fieldID - inserts data from image metadata eg xmeta:exif:FNumber. For detail go here.
/re/replacetext - does search / replace within the original file name, go here for details (RegExp based).
Any text not exactly equal to a reserved word can be inserted anywhere separated by + signs.
For more details read the help file:
bb/files/ahrename-help.htm
The help file includes two javascript forms which allow you to experiment with the file selection and regular expression based image renaming.
Be very careful in deciding on your file naming system. Above all, you need names to be unique. Otherwise images are going to end up muddled and some will probably be lost. Image creation date and time serve as a good start-point but given the smallest unit is seconds they are not enough since modern cameras can shoot faster than 1 image per second. This is where the options of encorporating part of the (unique) in-camera file name or the auto-numbering system can help.
I no longer believe it is useful to include descriptive or metadata information in image names. These can all be better managed within the metadata itself, especially via keywords (hence my emphasis on making easy keyword editing a central part of my AH Raw Image Review script). The name-string I use (which sorts nicely on my PC in date order) is:
crdater+_+crtimehm+_+orignum3 which will render IMG1429.cr2 as 050128_1612_429.cr2
Nevertheless, AH Image Renamer can pull any data at all from your image metadata, including keywords. If you want descriptive filenames the script will do the job fast and easily for you.
You can launch and run this script straight from Bridge using my Bridge Script Launcher - I think you will find it a very effective approach to workflow.
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I am open to feature requests.
Andrew