PC Hardware

Joseph Chamberlain, DDS · Guest

Hello, all:

I have yet one more question for the group and it refers to the naming
protocol each of you use for naming your digital image files.

My Canon camera assigns a different name to each image file when set to
continuous numbering system to avoid two images having the same file name.
The name format is made of 8 total characters of which the first 4 are
alphanumeric characters that are camera specific assigned at the factory and
that can not be changed. The other 4 characters are numbers beginning with
0001 and ending with 9999. Since the first 4 alphanumeric characters don't
change, once the file number reaches 9999 and rolls over to 0001 again the
camera is producing a second image file with a name that has already been
assigned.

This is an example of how the camera does it: 5F9Z0001.jpg

This is nothing but a minor annoyance and something that could have been
slightly better planned. The new EOS1D Mk II N comes with a function built
in that allows the user to change the initial 4 characters so that this
doesn't happen.

I am mostly interested, however, in getting your ideas and personal
experiences on what type of naming protocol each of you has decided to adopt
for your images.

Bruce Fraser in his "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2" text
mentions that Photographer Seth Resnick uses a naming protocol for his image
files that he finds quite interesting.

According to Bruce, Seth uses something like the following naming sequence:

20050423STKSR3_0001.tif

Where:

20050423 defines the date when the image was shot (April 23, 2005)
STK indicates the photo was shot for stock
SR indicates it was shot by Seth Resnick
3 indicates it was shot for the third assignment or collection of images of
the day
0001 indicates the number of the image (the first image shot)

I found this to be very creative and interesting since the date starting
with the year would allow the files to be organized in sequence according to
date.

Do any of you have a naming strategy you would like to share ? I am curious
to know if anyone has a special naming protocol for their images that makes
the process of archiving and search them a little easier.

Another question refers to how you manage your library. Do you choose to
place all photos in one single large library and then search images by
either date or according to some kind of keyword criteria or do you keep a
hierarchical structure with a folder for the library and subfolders that
refer each to a specific day or project ?

Again, any suggestions and opinions will be appreciated.

Best regards,

Joseph

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Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

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