GIMP and DPP file names vs WINDOWS vs MAC

[speedneeder]

Hey, I did do a search for some info here, but didn't quite find what I was looking for.

I have been using a windows computer since I started digital photography years ago. I developed a directory and file naming protocol to help me find stuff later. For example, when I import photos on my Windows machine, I am prompted to name the directory I am importing to, and the file inside contain the same name!
So my directory might be called 2012-04-25 Hockey, and the files would be 2012-04-25 Hockey 001.jpg etc.
After importing (RAW) files, I then process with DPP, convert to .jpg, and then do any further processing with GIMP. I have tried LR4 beta, and.... am not sold on it.

I decided to try an iMac and while there are many things I do like about it, I am currently unable to maintain my file naming protocol without extra steps, and who wants those! So, does anyone know how I can maintain my same directory/file naming structure on a mac? Do I need to just start a new file naming protocol?????
Any input is appreciated.

Thanks

[speedneeder]

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[Andrew76]

Hi Brian! I don't have an answer for you, but I felt so bad that no one could help you, I thought I should at least post something!!

[Donald]

Apologies Brian. I can't provide an answer on this one either.

[speedneeder]

No worries guys!
I posted the "." post thinking I could let this post fade away. Donald - feel free to delete it.
There are many ways to rename batches of files, but they all require 'another step', and I don't think I am discipline enough to do that consistently! I will figure something out.

[drjuice]

Hi, Brian -

First, are you called speedneeder because of the boat races in Owensboro? I've long been a fan of the unlimiteds since I grew up watching them at Seafair time. Just curious.

Then in the matter of directory structure, maintaining the same structure on ALL operating systems where I have pictures is exactly the problem I have. I use camel case if I give images "names" so that they'll work in all the environments. "Camel case" would look like: SunriseOverMountBaldy. You should be able to maintain the same directory structure. I have the same issue and have the identical structure in both Free BSD (a *x OS) and Windows which should cover your needs for Mac, other *x OS, and Windows.

All still photography goes into the same directory which I use to build my archives from. The directory for still photos is:

newstillcam

It lives at the root of what in *x would be considered my "home" directory while in Windows it lives at the root of the C: drive. Then, within newstillcam, everything is organized by date until I get inside the "bottom" level directories. Since today is 02 May, I'll use this month as my example. Below newstillcam in all OS is the month date as 201205 for this month. Within the month, each day's shooting is numbered by date so that anything I shot yesterday will go into 20120501 and images taken today will go into 20120502, etc. If I have distinctly different subjects, for example, like a studio photographer may have, the client name is the next level directory while, if the subjects are the reason for separating, the subject is that next level directory. If I have several days spent in a particular location, then I'll have 20120502, 20120503, and 20120504 as subdirectories right under the 201205 directory.

For yesterday's work I decided that no intermediate directory was necessary, but for today's work, I had two distinct subjects. So I have two intermediate directories for today, CoHRoses and DescansoRoses, whereas yesterday's directory did not have any intermediate directories. My thinking is that a number of times I've been asked to use only images from particular locations, so this helps me keep relevant images together. At that level, then each directory is divided into four subdirectories, AllRAW, AllJPG, AllPNG, and AllTIFF. The images in AllRAW and AllJPG are copied over from the camera media into a single directory. I then have a script that moves the RAW images into the AllRAW and the JPG images into the AllJPG, again these images are generated by the camera.

Once that's accomplished, I use a standard set of parameters to create a complete set of TIFF images from the files in the AllRAW directory and then place the resulting TIFF images in the AllTIFF directory. At this point the next step is to create a set of JPG thumbnails of all the images in the TIFF directory. The app I use to create the thumbnails is from Fookes Software's ezThumbs available at www.fookes.com at no charge. The reason I make my thumbnails as .jpg is that they're easily used in my gallery webpages without further change. From this point onwards, NONE of these images in the three directories (AllRAW, AllJPG, and AllTIFF) gets changed because I consider them the "originals". Further, these three directories are archived "as is" before I do any other work with them.

Whatever manipulation I perform on any image is carried out on the original TIFF file which will be named by its original name modified to reflect my shorthand for manipulations. For example, one of the images I took today is DSC00582, so it will have a record in the database with DSC00582 that contains in the original EXIF information and also the information about modifications I made. For example, I might reSample to a given percentage which is noted by S50 if it is resampled by 50 percent in both directions. If I reSample in different amounts, then it might be SH50-V80 for Horizontal and Vertical. I might also adjust the individual color curves which are noted as AR, AG, and AB with the data value of each following its label. If I adjust all three of the curves together, the notation is A followed by the data value that applies to all three. Finally, if I expect to print the image, I note the gamma that I like best for it on my printers, for example G1.8 in the database.

When I am finished with the modifications, its filename is changed such that, if I'd made the modifications mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the modified copy of DSC00582.TIFF would become DSC00582-S50-A75,125-G1.8.TIFF and saved back to the same AllTIFF directory where an original copy is located. (Remember that, by the time I begin modifying the image, all of the original images have been archived to another location. Finally, the database would get the record with the image name of DSC00582-S50-A75,125-G1.8.TIFF, the details of the modifications including new EXIF informationalong with a link to the original RAW image's EXIF information. This is one time when I go beyond anal-retentive.

The reason is that I can never tell what people will want to know about an image when I submit it to a competition. Certain information is always requested, things like image location, image name (if it's named something like "Sunrise over Mount Baldy" or whatever), camera model, F-stop, ISO speed, and shutter speed. But, occasionally, a competition asks for other information and having my database properly set up saves me a lot of time down the road.

Finally, you're probably wondering about the AllPNG directory. This is where I put any PNG image from that day which I'm happy with to the extent that I'll put it/them on a website without further work. Sometimes, when I'm working with a number of images that will require the same processing, for example, objects shot in a particular environment with consistent lighting, I'll make the PNG files immediately after finishing the modifications to the TIFF image and apply the identical modifications in the process.

In summary, the directory structure looks like this for yesterday and today (because the computer program processing appends won't let me put spaces in before the names of the directories, please excuse the leading ... in the list below) :

newstillcam
...201205
......20120501
........AllRAW
........AllJPG
........AllPNG
........AllTIFF
......20120502
........CoHRoses
..........AllRAW
..........AllJPG
..........AllPNG
..........AllTIFF
........DescansoRoses
..........AllRAW
..........AllJPG
..........AllPNG
..........AllTIFF




You'll notice that, after I've identified my root directory, the only difference in dealing with an image will be the direction of the "slant" of the slashes separating the subdirectory names. So, on my FreeBSD system or on a Mac with OSX, I would have:

home/drjuice/newstillcam/201205/20120501/AllTIFF/ DSC00582-S50-A75,125-G1.8.TIFF

whereas on a Windows system, I would have:

C:\newstillcam\201205\20120501\AllTIFF\DSC00582-S50-A75,125-G1.8.TIFF

If you have questions about what I've done here, please PM me and I'll be glad to answer. Please be aware that I'm often out of Internet contact because I volunteer in a project located in the Mojave Desert which is nowhere near any internet connection!

Hope this helps.

v

[Colin Southern]

First, are you called speedneeder because of the boat races in Owensboro?

Heck, I've always thought it was because he needed speedlite flashes!

[speedneeder]

Dr J,
LOL! I was thinking I was being OCD about file names and such, I feel a lot better now

Colin,
These days that's right on target
I used to use the SpeedNeeder moniker on a car forum I used to frequent, and didn't want to remember a new one so I used it when I joined here.