Instruction manual

6.5 Naming Photos

It can be challenging to find that one photo that you need, when you need it.

By renaming your files you make it easier to find a photo.

When you shoot a digital photo the camera assigns it a file name, but the file

name is not very descriptive; most cameras give photos sequential alpha-

numerical file names, such as P0000100 - P0000120. But three months after the

mission you need to retrieve the photo you took of the damaged power plant; do

you think you’ll remember that it was photo P0000110? This is why it is essential

that you assigning new, descriptive file names to your photos.

6.5.1 Naming Files

Here are some ways that you can name files for easy retrieval:

1. Use something obvious (e.g., the target’s name or the mission number

and the sortie number).

2. Include a date, even if it is simply the year the photo was taken. This is

especially important because each time you save a photo it changes the

date in the file details. [When you add the date in the title, place it at the

start of the file name; placing the year at the start of the file name and a

sequence of numbers at the end makes file names easier to read.]

[Your camera stores additional information within each image, but this

information is invisible and not part of the image itself. Some examples

are the date and time the photo was taken, the camera settings at the

time of the shooting, and information about the photographer or the

location where the photo was taken. Image management applications

allow you to display this information next to your images, giving you more

information to work with while you organize.]

3. Add a sequence of numbers to the end of multiple photos from the same

event.

For example, a single photo of a disaster reconnaissance sortie may be

Sep04Floods001. More photos from the same reconnaissance would be

named Sep04Floods002, Sep04Floods003, and so on.

As you saw in the Photoshop Elements example above and as you will see in

the next chapter, browsers or photo editors that enable you to “batch rename”

photo files makes this process quick and painless.