How to arrange photos chronlologically: I recently returned from a trip with several hundred photos taken via 4 different sources. One source was my D750 wherein I used 2 SD cards (I...

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

I recently returned from a trip with several hundred photos taken via 4 different sources. One source was my D750 wherein I used 2 SD cards (I consider this to be 2 sources), another source was a Sony RX100 II, and the other source was a android cell phone. The shots taken with the camera's were all in RAW. I want to arrange the keeper shots from these 4 sources in chronological order and put on a thumb drive for future viewing. I use LR6.14. I also have the following plugins: Luminar Neo, Topaz Photo AI, and ON1 Effects 2023. Would someone please enlighten me as to how to go about doing this? Thank you.

User ID

wannabe63 wrote:

I recently returned from a trip with several hundr... (show quote)

Just read the file dates. EZPZ.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

What User says sounds reasonable. In film days I would make a note of shirt I was wearing each day. Then when I got a pile of film back, I was able to look at my notes about my wardrobe and things fell into place. Also if you haven't ditched your SD cards, you could compare your photographs with the images on your cards when you replay them. I am like you, when I go anywhere and take photographs I like to arrange them in the order they occurred.

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

RodeoMan wrote:

What User says sounds reasonable. In film days I would make a note of shirt I was wearing each day. Then when I got a pile of film back, I was able to look at my notes about my wardrobe and things fell into place. Also if you haven't ditched your SD cards, you could compare your photographs with the images on your cards when you replay them. I am like you, when I go anywhere and take photographs I like to arrange them in the order they occurred.

Perhaps I should explain a little more of where I'm at. I tried to common sense my way through this process but as usual my intuitive nature does not align itself with the way technology does. What I did was to download my keepers and arranged them in chronological order in a folder in the Collections section. I then exported them from that folder in LR6.16 to my flash drive. But when I played it back some of the images were not in chronological order. I noticed that the file date didn't necessarily place the photo where it should appear. The photos that were in the wrong order had a different file name. So I'm assuming that what dictates where each photo appears is the file name not the file date as suggest by User. How do I change the file name for the keeper photos so they appear in the right order? I hope I don't have to review the photos to figure out where one is missing then find it and rename it with a new file name. There has to be an easier way of doing this even if it means going back to the first step of importing all the photos into LR6.14.

User ID

wannabe63 wrote:

Perhaps I should explain a little more of where I'... (show quote)

Use a viewer that works from a Play List.

Claude_46

wannabe63 wrote:

I recently returned from a trip with several hundr... (show quote)

Bonjour, en ce qui me concerne, j'utilise l'excellent logiciel "EXIF DATE CHANGER".
Chaque fois que je fais une sortie photographique, au retour, je commence par dater mes centaines de photos.
L'essayer, c'est l'adopter.
Cordialement

Bill_de Loc: US

wannabe63 wrote:

I recently returned from a trip with several hundr... (show quote)

Can you number that group of files by putting the number at the beginning of the file names?

---

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

In Bridge you can sort by creation date. Tip--make sure each camera body's clock is synchronized.

In your case, put them all on the thumb drive then use a file manager utility to sort chronologically. Try to use image created date, not thumb drive file creation date.

ronichas Loc: Long Island

I don't use lightroom. I have been using Photoshop and Bridge years before lightroom came out.
In Bridge, to put my images in the order I took them I go to
View>sort>by date created.

PattyW60 Loc: Northwest Illinois

Bill_de wrote:

Can you number that group of files by putting the number at the beginning of the file names?

---

I chose this method for putting together a bird presentation. It worked well for me.

jbk224 Loc: Long Island, NY

While I do not have LR, I figure CP1 will offer a similar routine.
You used 3 different source cameras and two different manufacturers. Your Nikon pics..are they .jpg or RAW? Your iPhone pics..format?
You need to rename all the photos at one time and save the output as the same type of file..i.e. .jpg.
Your file names can be done in a number of ways. The easiest may be something like this:
'Name of Trip'-'Image Date Created' (Image Date ( MMM dd yyyy )-add Image Time to this if you wish.
The Image Date can also be saved in other formats such as yyyy MMM dd.
Your output of all files will now be in the same format and ordered by image capture date (and time).
If you only had Nikon Raw files, you do not need to change the file type output; but do need to rename all files since your two cameras may have a different 'file name' protocol set up.

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

I hope I’m not missing something here but a simple way would be to import all images in LR. Sort by date created, then rename all files starting with a consistent prefix like AAA_0001. This way all your keepers will be in order whether they are sorted by date or file name.

jbk224 Loc: Long Island, NY

Tomfl101 wrote:

I hope I’m not missing something here but a simple way would be to import all images in LR. Sort by date created, then rename all files starting with a consistent prefix like AAA_0001. This way all your keepers will be in order whether they are sorted by date or file name.

Right, works all the time if the files types are the exact same. When different, they all need to be saved/exported to the same file type as well.

jcwall396 Loc: Roswell, GA

wannabe63 wrote:

I recently returned from a trip with several hundr... (show quote)

I have the same challenge whenever I travel. Two things: First, when you arrive at your destination, sync up all of your cameras to the same date/time. That's never "perfect" but it will certainly help. When after you import your photos into LR, you can sort by Capture Time. THEN....the second part. Using LR, if any photos are out of chronological order, manually re-arrange them. Then use the Lightroom Library -> Rename function and rename them in that order. Then you can sort your photos by file name either within LR or when they're exported. That will maintain your chronological order. It's a bit of a hassle, but it works. One other tip - I setup separate folders for each day I'm traveling. It makes it a bit easier when I'm re-arranging as I can work with 60-80 photos per day vs. 500-1000 for the entire trip.

ezslides

If you use a Mac, get shootShifter. It lets you arrange by time very easily.