When you place thumbnails in a particular order, you can play a slide show
and they will be displayed in the order you placed them. However, close the
folder and open it again and you will find that the thumbnails are no longer
in the order you placed them. This is because any software will list files
in numerical/alphabetical order. So, when you copy them to a CD, they will
be listed by such an order, not the order you places the thumbnails in.
However, there is a way to get exactly what you want. After you place the
thumbnails in the order you want them, you batch rename and number.
If you need to batch rename and number, you can do this easily with XP.
Make a new folder.
Copy the photos you want to the new folder.
Open the new folder. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter A. This
will select (highlight in blue) all the files in the folder.
Right click on the first file (important to right click on the first file
because renaming will start from there).
Click on Rename on the opening menu.
Type in the name you want, to replace the current name. Any system will
work, such as year, month, event. For example type in:
2003_09_Virginia Beach Vacation (1).jpg
and press Enter.
XP will automatically rename all the files (1), (2), (3), etc. and they will
open in the order (1), (2), (3), etc. If you copy them to a CD, this order
will be maintained.
Two important things when renaming using the above method.
1. Look at the name of the above file, you must include a space between the
last character of the file name and (1)
2. When you rename, don't forget to add .jpg after (1). If you forget, XP
will warn you, so enter .jpg after this warning. If you don't, you will not
be able to open the file. If you still do not enter .jpg after the warning,
don't worry. Rename again and enter .jpg
You can rename any time and as many times as you want. You are not dependent
on the camera wizard to rename.
You can rename portions of files in a folder, just select the group you want
and right click on the first one and rename from there.
You can do even better than this. Suppose you want a slide show and you want
the last three pictures taken to be the first three or in between some other
photos. Easy to do. Open the folder in thumbnail view, use your mouse to
place them in the order you want. Select all the photos and rename. The (1),
(2), (3), etc will be added in the order you placed the thumbnails. They
will stay in this order if you copy to a CD.
Convenient if you want to make a slide show of pictures from different
folders. Just make a new folder, copy the photos you want in the new folder,
place the thumbnails in the order you want and rename.
You are not restricted to only one name and you can control the order in
which each group will open, by placing a number up front of the file name
for each group. You may have photos of Christmas, Easter, New Year etc. and
of different years. Once you have the thumbnails in the order you want,
select the first group, right click on the first thumbnail in the group and
rename:
1_2002 Easter (1).jpg
Then select the second group and rename
2_2002 Christmas (1).jpg
Placing 1_, 2_, etc in front will control the order of each group and (1)
controls the order within each group.
If you want to add another group later and you want these photos to be, say
between 1_ and 2_, use 1a_ in front of the file name.
You may also want to add some more photos in a particular group, say your
Christmas group. No problem. Copy the files in the folder, move the
thumbnails in the group you want to add them to. Select all the thumbnails
in the group, right click on the first one and rename. When you rename, you
must change the name in order for rename to take place. Add something like
XYZ after Christmas. Once renaming is done, select the same files again and
rename again. Remove the XYZ and you will be back to the original name.
Note: There is a disadvantage to changing the original name of files. This
is why I recommend at the start to make a new folder and copy your original
files in the new folder before renaming. The disadvantage is this. Many have
the option of video out from the camera to display the pictures from the
memory card to a TV for a slide show. If you change the file names and copy
the files back to your memory card to display on your TV (or even to just
look at them on the LCD of the camera) your camera will not be able to read
the files. You can always rename, using the same format (8 characters) that
your camera uses, but now you have to rename each file. So, be careful what
you do with your original files.
Note: Although I recommend making a new folder and copying your files there
before renaming, there is also another way to do this and you may prefer
this once you are comfortable with renaming. Here is how to do it.
Open the folder to see your files. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the
letter A to select (highlight in blue) all the files. Hold the Ctrl key down
and press the letter C. This makes a copy of all the files to your
clipboard. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter V. This copies
(pastes) all the files back in your folder. The file names will be the same,
but the words "Copy of" will be in front of the file names. You then rename
Copy of files.
This way your original files and renamed files are in the same folder.
This is also very useful when you want to edit a photo with software. You
always edit "Copy of", never edit your original file.
You can also use the free Irfanview software to batch rename, available
here:
http://www.irfanview.com/
Another for free is Visere available here:
http://www.dmmd.net/products/products.htm
Or many others if you search via google. They all have their quirks.
A final note, if your head is not spinning by now.
When you use the above batch renaming system on XP, everything will work as
long as you are on XP. This means your XP hard drive, copy to CD etc.
However if you go out of XP you will encounter some problem. For example,
you made a photo CD on XP using the above system and you now play this CD in
your DVD. Your DVD player will not play the files in the same order. You
made the files:
Image (1).jpg
Image (2).jpg
etc.
Image (10).jpg
etc.
Image (20).jpg
etc.
They will be displayed in this order on XP but your DVD player will display
them this way:
Image (1).jpg
Image (10).jpg
Image (2).jpg
Image (20).jpg
Image (3).jpg
A real pain.
If you want to upload these files to a Web site, some server will refuse
files with ( ) in the file name while others will accept them but will
display them the same way as your DVD player will, as shown above. A real
pain.
So, what are you supposed to do with this conflict between XP and everything
else.
This is what I do.
1. Rename with XP with the system given above.
2. If I want to copy to a CD to play to a DVD or upload to a Web site, I
then use Irfanview. With Irfanview I rename my XP files using the default in
Irfanview:
image001.jpg
image002.jpg
etc.
Since Irfanview does not actually rename your original XP file names, it
only adds new file names (image001.jpg etc) in the same folder, I now have
two sets of names for the same files. Very nice. I simply copy the Irfanview
set of file names to a CD to play on a DVD or to upload to a Web site and
once done just delete them. If I add more files in the folder and rename
with XP and have a need image.001 etc. again I just use Irfanview to rename
again.
I know your head may be spinning about all this renaming but you can really
manipulate things very well by just sitting down and understanding the
system. XP has one system for sorting files with numerical values in the
file name (new system) and everything else has another (old system). With a
little practice you can get what you want.
For practice, please make a new folder and copy some files there and rename
to see how this works. Don't practice with original files.
Stan Ruble said:
Using XP Professional and working in EXPLORER I arrange the pictures in
the order I want them to burn a slide show CD.. but they are always
re-arranged by camera number id and put back in number sequence. If I have
files from 3 different cameras, as is the current case, they arranged by
camera and number no matter what I do to re-order them. Must I start all
over with a new numbering system to get them all in on slide show order?
There seems to be no way to save a desired sequence to alter the original
files.
Help.... hope there is an answer.... if not get this feature into the
next upgrade of XP. Answer OK to my e-mail address
