clint f. Loc: Priest Lake Idaho, Spokane Wa

I have started to upload pics from SD cards onto my new Christmas Mac. I have all the SD cards I’ve used in the camera. Like 20 maybe. I’m running into a problem because of Canon’s numbering system. I have different photos with the same file name after the 9999 image. Lots of them. Is there a way to solve this problem without dealing with each shot individually? After doing a search of UHH archives I now know what I will do in the future. The old ones are the problem Canon 6D among others and iMac 27. Thanks in advance for answering with “wow are you dumb” lol

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I download my image files from the card to the computer through Downloader Pro. Setup is flexible and I have mine set up to rename my files with meaningful names. If I have more than one shoot on the card I can easily select the appropriate images for a given name and just download them. I can then select another batch and download them with a different name.

If you don't want to use useful file names and are OK depending on the camera's naming system you can just download to a different folder. Unless you take more than 10,000 images per day you can just use the date as the name of a folder.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

In Windows you can put the ones over 9999 in a directory and shotgun re-name the prefix "IMG_" to "IMG_1". (It will change IMG_0123... to IMG_10123.... etc. for the whole directory)
Is that capability available on a Mac?

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

First, the suggestion to rename the images to something decipherable is a very good one - personally I use a utility (for the Mac there is a program named "A Better Finder Renamer" - stupid name but it works very well and is easy to use). I rename images with the format YYYY-MM-DD-"some text" and the program appends sequential numbers after that, so if I go to the park the filenames become 2019-01-02-BosquedelApache-003, 004, etc. This makes it far simpler to find stuff without having to open up finder windows or other programs just to see what DSCS-0577 is. By putting the year first, the files self-sort by age when you sort by name as well. Lightroom has the ability to perform the same kind of renaming function during the import process; no doubt other programs do as well. As your library accumulates to zillions of images (I have about 50K myself) you will find this kind of intelligent naming convention to be rather useful.

That said, in the Mac OS if you try to copy a file into a folder where an identically named file exists already, the system will ask if you want to replace the original (which in your scenario you would not) or keep both, in which case it will simply add (1) to the filename.

I would strongly suggest you consider a renaming scheme of some sort, though, because no doubt you will be taking lots more photos and that can only lead to confusion down the road.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

I have the LR/PS package and it includes Bridge. That program will do batch rename in place so I would, in your situation, copy the files to a folder on the desktop and rename them in place. The name can be quite long if you want. Bridge will not reset the sequence number unless you tell it so you can keep related files together.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

I have the LR/PS package and it includes Bridge. That program will do batch rename in place so I would, in your situation, copy the files to a folder on the desktop and rename them in place. The name can be quite long if you want. Bridge will not reset the sequence number unless you tell it so you can keep related files together.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I'm really a proponent of the LR/PS Adobe photography package. It is very useful to me (although I don't use Bridge much).

However there are a lot of people out there that are turned off by the subscription model, although I don't see it as a real problem.

For those people out there, let me point out that Adobe offers Bridge for free.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

I know that Nikon allows custom file names. Normaly, the file would have the name such as DSC_1000. The camera could be set then to name files DSD_1000. Anay letters can be used.

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

What software are you using to import the images from the cards?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

I always rename my files when I import them.
Last two digits of year, month then a folder number (not day)

First folder for the month would be 190101 with a very brief description. Image files would be 190101_01, 190101_02, and so on. It’s pretty much a standard method in many areas.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Initially forget about the file names and sort all of your photos by the date they were taken and move the photos for each date into a file labeled with the date. Go date file by date file and pull the photos into Lightroom. In the Library view, rename/renumber the files.

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

This is the question to focus on first. Many programs have custom file naming options. I use Lightroom (LR). When I import my files from my card using LR, I keep the original file number and LR adds the year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. (Ok, including the second seems like overkill). But the point is that every single file will have a unique file name as soon as it is downloaded from my card to the computer...automatically. I suspect other software has similar capabilities.

rond-photography Loc: Connecticut

If you are using Lightroom to do the import, you can have it rename on import. There are multiple options. In the "File Renaming" section of the import dialog, you can select one of the "Templates". Some examples are to add a custom shoot name to the original file name, add a sequence number to the original, etc. When you hit the dupes, you can make a selection then.
Beware though - when you select "rename files" or any other changes to the import, LR will not ask on the next import if you want to change them again - it will just keep doing the same things until you realize you have imported new photos to somewhere you did not want to, or it will rename them even though you no longer have the need to rename!

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I down load in groups by date as today is 190107. Now you have the in number ordering by date (I believe the date is the important one tisane by).

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

That is correct. Year first, month and then day.