Renaming Aperture files

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Level 1

69 points

Renaming Aperture files

Hello, I am relativaly new to Aperture and I would like to have advice on naming my files. I have a huge collection of scanned images (20000+) that I want to import into Aperture. However, most of these files bare a generic name(For ex.:80270001.TIF). Eventually I want to change this to a naming convention I have, but I want to make sure that Aperture will still find the files and that both Aperture and the file in Finder have the same name. Is there a way to change the name in Aperture and have the name change reflect in the Finder?

Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Feb 19, 2012 3:13 PM

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Answer 1

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d-light

Level 1

45 points

Feb 23, 2012 10:30 AM in response to Yvon Couture

Hi Yvon,

if you click on the Import icon you'll find several settings on the right hand side of the screen. Be sure to select the desired folder under "Save files in...." In order to rename the files according to a pattern which fullfills your personal requirements select "Rename files" and choose one of the standard renaming patterns or - alternatively - create your own renaming pattern (there's a "customize" entry down in the dropdown list). Also be sure to check the "Rename Originals" option box! Otherwise the names will only be changed in APerture but not in the Finder.

Depending of what you prefer you may either select "Move files" or "Copy files" in the "Save files in.." section of the Import dialogue.

One last tipp: Try the procedure with a few dummy images first before you start with your 20,000+ collection, o.k.? I know that things may be weird if you miss to set the correct options...

I hope that works for you!

Cheers, MIchael

P.S.: As I don't have the English version of Aperture running (or more precisely the English locale on my system) it may be that the lables ofthe respective settings read slightly different.

Message was edited by: d-light

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Answer 2

Yvon Couture Author

Level 1

69 points

Feb 23, 2012 10:30 AM in response to d-light

Thanks! Indeed, I am running different test on file renaming. As most of my file relate to actual negatives. My naming convention reflect the actual sleeves where the negatives are kept.

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Answer 3

d-light

Level 1

45 points

Feb 23, 2012 10:30 AM in response to Yvon Couture

I am glad to hear that it starts to work for you 🙂

I have employed (and I still do) quiet a similar approach. In my case I simply used a "film no." as one part of the name and a counter that stands for the image within that film. Then I stored the renamed images in a folder with exactly that film no.

I know that some people recommend to also include some "image year-month-day" naming issue. But that's not a simple question to answer at 01.20 a.m. (CET) 😉

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Answer 4

Yvon Couture Author

Level 1

69 points

Feb 23, 2012 10:30 AM in response to d-light

My numbering sheme goes like this:

0000-000000-000-0-0-00.psd

Year

Photo Number (sequential from year to year)

Sleeve Number

Row Number in the sleeve

Photo Number in the Row

Actual Number ion the negative (as it sometimes differ from the row. Mainly for printing purpuses)

I did not keep track of the days as most of these were taken in Quebec National Parks during my vacations. I never imagined it would become such library.

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