Mac app for sorting/renaming photos by date etc

[bobright]

I remember readjng there was a Mac app that would organize your photos. You know how photos are usually named just random numbers e.g DMC839498 looking for something that will rename and list my photos by date.

[NogbadTheBad]

Check out my entry http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=872377 I did something with Automator & exiftool.

[macmesser]

Originally Posted by bobright

I remember readjng there was a Mac app that would organize your photos. You know how photos are usually named just random numbers e.g DMC839498 looking for something that will rename and list my photos by date.

You could use Extensis Portfolio standalone and Applescript. Portfolio lets you add custom fields (data types include integer, decimal, textbox, text, URL, date) for user entered data in addition to extracting exif data as it catalogs. You would create a Porfolio catalog, add the fields you need to the catalog (i.e subject, price, edition_size, comments, image_URL, artist, whatever...) let Portfolio catalog the folder of images (it will optionally extract or create a thumbnail) and then review the catalog to select your keepers and add any information about the article you want. You would have created text fields in the catalog for components of the new name (i.e. material, size, weight, year_struck, designer, side, etc.) in the previous step which now can be filled in during the review process (you would most likely be doing this as a separate step anyway). Finally you would put a desired group of images into a saved Portfolio gallery window and use an Applescript to traverse the gallery record by record, concatenate any fields which go into the new name, and tell the finder to rename each file accordingly. The nice thing about it is everything is in one place. I'm working on a similar project right now to optimize my filenames for search engines. Applescript can be finicky and I'm no expert, but my scripting for these operations is simple (if probably inelegant) and it works.

Another nice feature of Portfolio that you might find useful is its ability to export a mini web site of static pages for your gallery via built-in HTML templates.

[snberk103]

Originally Posted by bobright

I remember readjng there was a Mac app that would organize your photos. You know how photos are usually named just random numbers e.g DMC839498 looking for something that will rename and list my photos by date.

There are several.... iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom. And you don't have to rename your photos to use them, they sort your images by date as well as being able to sort them using different filters at the same time.

Also, it's not a random number - it is sequential. So putting your photos onto file name order is essentially sorting them by date and time... But that is just quibbling. I do know what you mean.