Sorting Photos

The info window has fields for Title, Filename, Date, Caption, Keywords, and Location. Date can only be changed with the menu Image>Adjust Date and Time. Filename can't be changed.

You can sort an album by Title or Date, but not by Filename or any other field. If a pictures does not have a title, then it will be sorted by date.

Date data may be weird, because pictures may be taken in a different time zone, for instance. Different cameras may handle different time zones differently. You can use a Smart Album to collect pictures made with the same camera, or maybe pictures from Disney, and adjust those differently from the others. Adjust Date and Time means that-- it doesn't replace the date and time, but adjusts by a certain increment. So, if you select a bunch of pictures and change the first one from 9:42 am to 10:43 am, then each of the others you selected will add 1:01 to its time.

The title is entered manually. This is where you might use an index number to get the pictures in the order you want. There are some scripts available that can do some batch manipulation of titles. I use the app Photos Workbench ($30) to batch modify titles. You get options like this:

I title mine with the date, year-month-day, so that they will alphabetize in the order I want-- since I can put any date in there that I like, like this:

You can include the filename, if you like that. Workbench will also do find and replace in titles, so you can find Six Flags and change them all to Disney, if you want.

If you sort an album manually to the order you like, you can use Photos Workbench to title them with the counter to keep them in order for later. There are other ways to go, but I use Workbench every time I take pictures.

Does this help?

DJMc wrote:

Is there a way to added titles w/ numbers as a group vs separately?

Yes, with this AppleScript: Batch Change Title to Text w/Padded Sequential Numbers. Sort the photos manually and then select them all. In the first window that comes up enter the title you would like. In the next window enter the number of digits for the sequential number, i.e. two for 1 thru 99 and three for 100 to 999, etc.

I compile the script with Script Editor and save it as an app so I can have it in the Dock and run when needed.

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