eseverts
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: How to randomize order of pictures

I scanned some pictures with my scanner recently that named the pictures in a sequential order like 001, 002, 003, etc. However, the person I am making the slideshow for, requested that I randomize the pictures from the order I scanned them in. Is there any way to randomize their order in the timeline without having to literally manually move them around in the timeline one at a time (we're talking hundreds of pictures)? Renaming them is also time consuming. Is there any way to shuffle their order in the timeline or how it organizes them under the project clips rather than alphabetically or by date created? Many thanks for any tips, even if it's outside fcpx.

Posted on Dec 18, 2015 1:48 AM

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eseverts

Q: How to randomize order of pictures

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  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Dec 18, 2015 5:09 AM in response to eseverts
    Level 6 (12,392 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 18, 2015 5:09 AM in response to eseverts

    I propose to do this outside FCP X.

    I created a small Automator service that renames selected files by adding some random characters at the beginning - thereby changing their naming order.

    This should easily do the trick.

    The service has only one action, which call a small shell script to do the renaming. To use it, just select a bunch of files in the Finder, control-click choose Services->Prepend random numbers to file name. Since this renames a bunch of files, it may be wiser to do this on a copy of those files.

    The shell script uses the rand command of openssl to generate a little four-character string (which represents a two-byte hexadecimal number), and prepends this to the file name. For example, IMG001.jpg and IMG002.jpg may become 9030IMG001.jpg and ad21IMG002.jpg or similar.

    The image shows a screenshot of the service. I quote the text of the shell script below in case you want to copy and paste. It is essential to do it exactly, including the double quotes and back quotes as they are written.

     

    for f in "$@"

    do

      a=`basename "$f"`

      p=`dirname "$f"`

      mv "$f" "$p"/`openssl rand -hex 2`"$a"

    done

     

    Screenshot 2015-12-18 at 13.02.45.png

  • by BenB,

    BenB BenB Dec 19, 2015 6:10 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1
    Level 6 (9,936 points)
    Audio
    Dec 19, 2015 6:10 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

    FCPX places multiple clips into the Timeline in the order that they are selected.  So, go to Filmstrip View int he Browser, Shift-Z does a fit-to-window, or set the icon scale slider to ALL.  Now, click randomly on one photo.  Hold the Command key, while randomly clicking on other photos.  When they've all be randomly selected, E to edit them, in the order you clicked on them, into the Timeline.