[Mike L]

I need some help from the good folk of Pentax to rename some files in my archive. In my foolish youth I used to rename my files using YYMMDD_Description_IMGPXXXX but nowdays for a variety of reasons I've decided I would like to use the a different format YYMMDD_IMGPXXXX_Description. Basically, I want to preserve the whole file name but switch the position of the camera generated image number and description. There must be an easy way to do this in a batch but I can't wrap my brain around how to do it. I have far too many files to do this manually. I have both Bridge and Lightroom that I could use for the job.

Thanks in advance

[MarkJerling]

I use NAMEXIF by Digicamsoft.com. Having said that, I don't retain the IMGPXXXX, I use date and time only. Have a play with NAMEXIF though - It may be able to do what you want, and it's free.

[ruggiex]

If you are on PC, Renamer is my favorite tool for doing massive batch renaming. ReNamer « Downloads « den4b.com

You probably can use the "Rearrange" rule (assuming your descriptions don't have the underscore characters). And tell it that split using "_" (without quotes), and new pattern should be $1_$3_$2 to swap the parts as you described.

Preview the new name on the right side of the bottom window make sure they look good before committing the change.

[Not a Number]

Also for the PC:

Advanced Renamer - Free and fast batch rename utility for files and folders

[wombat2go]

Here is a script in X that will do it, and an outer loop can be added to crawl through all the dirs.
I suppose a win batch file would be somewhat similar.

#!/bin/bash
PR_wkdir=~/Pictures/Rename
PR_resultdir=$PR_wkdir"/Resultfiles/"
PR_ext=".tif"

cd $PR_wkdir
mkdir -p $PR_resultdir
for file in *; do
if [ ${file: -4} == $PR_ext ]; then
echo "***"
echo $file
PR_Basename=$(basename $file $PR_ext)
IFS="_"
PR_Num=0
for i in $PR_Basename ; do
PR_Num=$((PR_Num+1))
PR_ID[PR_Num]=$i
done
unset IFS

if [ $PR_Num == "3" ]; then
PR_Newname="${PR_ID[1]}""_""${PR_ID[3]}""_""${PR_ID[2]}"
echo $PR_resultdir$PR_Newname$PR_ext
cp $file $PR_resultdir$PR_Newname$PR_ext
# rm $file
else
echo "Wrong name format, not copied"
fi
fi

done

[Miguel]

For Macs, A Better Finder Rename is quite powerful and easy to use.

I'm curious why you even feel the need to rename your files to begin with?

With Lightroom it seems easier and more sustainable to use metadata, key words, collections as ways to identify the file's contents and genesis.

M

[Mike L]

Thanks for the suggestions thus far, I'm on PC so I'll give Renamer a try.

I'm curious why you even feel the need to rename your files to begin with?

The main reason is so that the files can be sorted chronologically using the file name only. Currently the files appear in date order but because the description is before the image number within each date the files are ordered according to the alphabetical order of the description, I'd like them to appear in shooting order without having to sort by other fields like date created etc.

[Mike L]

Renamer did exactly as I wanted, many thanks for the tips!