[MD Optofonik]

My import workflow looks like this:

Copy images on the SD card to Desktop/SD Camera Cards/2014-xx-xx (where x = month and day of import).

Copy /2014-xx-xx from Desktop/SD Camera Cards/2014-xx-xx into NAS Drive/Photos/Photography Backups/Capture/2014/ .

Copy /2014-xx-xx from Desktop/SD Camera Cards/2014-xx-xx to Photo ST/Photography/Capture/2014/.

Open Lightroom and import images from Photo ST/Photography/Capture/2014/2014-xx-xx into my Lightroom catalog.

Today while transferring files from my MX-1 and Q it occurred to me that if they are using the identical file naming convention I'm going to wind up with an image from one camera that has an identical file name as an image from the other. Both cameras at some point will create a file named: _IGP3320.DNG.

It seems an easy way to solve this means modifying my workflow and file structure from today onward very slightly by adding subfolders for each camera model to each transfer i.e; Desktop/SD Card/2014-xx-xx/aa where aa = camera model:

Desktop/SD Card/2014-09-30/MX-1
Desktop/SD Card/2014-09-30/Q
Desktop/SD Card/2014-09-30/K30
Desktop/SD Card/2014-09-30/K2000

and so on.

However, since LR's catalog is folder agnostic and uses file names for reference I'm not sure the above will work. That leads me to wonder if I can have Lightroom rename the file using the original file name plus some other unique identifier.

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Last edited by MD Optofonik; 09-30-2014 at 01:43 PM.

[LensBeginner]

1. In some cameras you can decide the pattern, at least with regard to letters (unsure about MX-1 and Q)
2. I personally use a structure with cameras on the top level and dates on lower levels, but yours is as valid as mine
3. Who cares? You're eventually gonna get dupes after 9999 pictures with one camera, so I don't se a problem there. Put some tags into Lightroom if you wish to be able to sort them easily should the need arise and you're good to go.

[emalvick]

As long as there are two files, LR won't care if two files have the same name. You are right that it doesn't care too much about file structure, but I believe underlying everything is a basic database that will put its own unique key identifier so that files with the same name won't clash unless they would actually clash in the file system (i.e. if you did put the same file name in the same folder, which the OS won't allow anyway).... In other words, LR wouldn't care if every file had the same file name as long as their actual location wasn't the same, which is physically impossible. Whether that is smart of course is another thing.

This would lead me to think that you wouldn't necessarily have to create independent folders unless you KNOW you would have a file clash. Your transfer would probably warn you if there is a clash, at which point you could tweak the offending file name IF you are trying to economize on folders for some reason.

---------- Post added 09-30-2014 at 02:36 PM ----------

Separately from your other question, I've developed a file system where photos are placed in folders that are essentially date based (date the photos were taken) with a small identifier that guarantees a unique file name for every image in my collection...

e.g. YYYYMMDD_CamID_XXXX where the XXXX is the original image number out of the camera, The first 8 characters are the data, and CamID is a unique token ID for each camera represented in my collection.

This is just an example of course and probably a bit more than is actually needed, but it works within my Database and Cataloging Workflow.

[rawr]

I faced the same problem at one stage, so began to tell my K-5 and K-3 to put the camera model in the file name prefix - so now I get (for sRGB images) K3__1234.DNG, K5__6534.JPG etc. Once the image count goes beyond 9999 for a camera, I add an additional character to the prefix like so - K5_A0001.DNG, K3_C4389.JPG.

I wish the camera went higher than 9999 before resetting the count to zero. Going up to 99999 would make life a touch easier.

[SpecialK]

I do not separate images by camera at all :-)

After getting the images off the card onto the hard-drive, I rename IMGP to YYMMDD. I then chimp away, add a short description to the file name, and process the images. Eventually a may change the -xxxx sequence number on a few images to make the series flow a bit better. I store images in YYMMDD folders.

Here is the renamer I use.

Flexible Renamer

It's easy, and has an "undo" if you goof it :-)

[Just1MoreDave]

Lightroom makes it easy to separate images taken with each camera. It will even distinguish between two identical models by serial number. But it is pretty easy to come up with a system that is not dependent on Lightroom, in case of a future problem.

[MD Optofonik]

Thanks for the replies. I may just be "over training".