[Leica] Naming photos, Adobe Lightroom

[abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)]

Inside the Library module you can rename your images.

First I want to clarify: by "named" do you mean "Titled" or do you mean 
assigning a different file name from the one thoughtfully created by your 
camera?

I'm assuming your intent is to give some sort of meaningful file name to 
your images. One thing that Lightroom does do is keep in its meta data the 
original file name. So if chose to do a batch-renaming of your image files 
then there will still be information that can help you connect to the 
original file in some deep backup.

You can rename your files using canonical forms in the Filename Template 
Editor. These are presets. I would love to work through this but I have LR 4 
and I'm not certain where the new features in 4 diverge from those in 3. I 
do remember that it's possible to construct file names based on the 
date/time of shooting and other meta-data information recorded in the image. 
This would let you name files so they look like:

2013_02_21_Leica_m_8.dmg

You can do this on import as well if you want.

My personal workflow is to copy the files directly from the camera into a 
folder on my computer. I copy all the files from the day's shoot into the 
single folder. The folder is named something like: "2013-01-30". If it's all 
shot in the same location add that information as well. After all the files 
are on my computer I copy them to an external drive. Then I bring up 
Lightroom and import them, only adding my personal meta-data, keeping them 
in place so LR isn't tempted to copy them around. Then I use the 
Library>Rename Photos... command along with a preset to name each file with 
date and a comment. This happens VERY fast. Then I keyword them if I'm 
feeling up to it. I have been doing a better job of that recently. I keep LR 
metadata in side-car files.

When I'm able to connect to my studio's computer I then copy the whole 
folder over to it and import those files into LR on that machine. All the 
meta data moves because it's stored as side-car files.

At that point ChronoSync takes care of backing up my files to a Drobo or 
other external device and another process moves them up to Glacier. I don't 
have to even think about moving them - It Just Happens.

Now if you wanted to do auto-captioning, or auto-titling - well, I don't 
have a clue about how to do something like that although there might be some 
automation tool that could extract meta-data and write it into the Title and 
Caption for you.

Adam

ps: It's my totally biased philosophy to use the operating system's tools to 
move files rather than hand that off to an application wherever possible. 
Clearly I don't do that for backup but I do have a verify happening after 
the transfer when I move to the Drobo. I just think that the guys who wrote 
the OS probably have a good grip on how to copy. I've never had a problem 
with that. I have had programs screw things up. (Not LR, but once burned, 
twice shy.)

AB


On 2013 Feb 24, at 8:47 PM, Peter Cheyne <geordiepete211 at yahoo.co.uk> 
wrote:

> I use Lightroom 3 and would like to name my photos on import. I have over 
> 11,000 photos, and none of them are named, as I never worked out how to do 
> it!
> Would some kind, patient soul please enlighten me?
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Peter Cheyne
> 
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