Here is a general scheme.
I assume your photos are in the folder "My Pictures.
Open this folder and click on File on the top bar, New and Folder.
Name this folder to what you want. A simple scheme such as year and month
followed by an event name will keep you organized. They should be name like
this so the order in which they will be listed will always be the same. Use
the following names, separating year, month and event name with underline
for easy reading.
2004_01_New Year
2004_02_Birthday
2004_02_Party
2004_04_Easter
2004_04_Easter Monday
This way you always have the year and the month controlling the listing
order.
Once you have made the appropriate folders, select the appropriate pictures
in the My Pictures folder and move them in the folder of your choice.
To select the pictures, click on the file name of the first picture in the
group to highlight the name in blue. Remove your finger from your mouse and
move the pointer over the last picture in the group. Hold the Shift key down
and click on the last picture with your mouse. This will select all the
pictures in between.
Look at the menu on the left of the file names and click on Move. A window
will open, select the appropriate folder and the pictures will be moved from
the My Pictures folder to the new folder you made under My Pictures.
If the file are not within a group, and you want to select files, say,
1,5,8, 20 you use a different method to select them. Click on file 1 with
your mouse to highlight it in blue, remove your finger from your mouse and
move the pointer over file 5. Hold the Ctrl key down and click on file 5
with your mouse, etc. until all the file you want are highlighted in blue.
Then click on the Move button.
You can click on the Move or Copy commands. With Move, files are moved into
the new folder you select and removed from My Pictures. With Copy, files are
left in My Pictures and copies are made into your new folder. You want to
use Copy first until you are comfortable with the procedure.
Once you have made the appropriate folders and moved (or copied) your files
into them, you may want to rename the files to what you want.
If you need to batch rename and number, you can do this easily with XP.
Copy the photos to a new folder.
Open the new folder. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter A. This
will select (highlight in blue) all the files in the folder.
Right click on the first file (important to right click on the first file
because renaming will start from there).
Click on Rename on the opening menu.
Type in the name you want, to replace the current name. Any system will
work, such as year, month, event. For example type in:
2003_09_Virginia Beach Vacation (1).jpg
and press Enter.
XP will automatically rename all the files (1), (2), (3), etc. and they will
open in the order (1), (2), (3), etc. If you copy them to a CD, this order
will be maintained.
Two important things when renaming using the above method.
1. Look at the name of the above file, you must include a space between the
last character of the file name and (1)
2. When you rename, don't forget to add .jpg after (1). If you forget, XP
will warn you, so enter .jpg after this warning. If you don't, you will not
be able to open the file. If you still do not enter .jpg after the warning,
don't worry. Rename again and enter .jpg
You can rename any time and as many times as you want. You are not dependent
on the camera wizard to rename.
You can rename portions of files in a folder, just select the group you want
and right click on the first one and rename from there.
You can do even better than this. Suppose you want a slide show and you want
the last three pictures taken to be the first three or in between some other
photos. Easy to do. Open the folder in thumbnail view, use your mouse to
place them in the order you want. Select all the photos and rename. The (1),
(2), (3), etc will be added in the order you placed the thumbnails. They
will stay in this order if you copy to a CD.
Convenient if you want to make a slide show of pictures from different
folders. Just make a new folder, copy the photos you want in the new folder,
place the thumbnails in the order you want and rename.
You are not restricted to only one name and you can control the order in
which each group will open, by placing a number up front of the file name
for each group. You may have photos of Christmas, Easter, New Year etc. and
of different years. Once you have the thumbnails in the order you want,
select the first group, right click on the first thumbnail in the group and
rename:
1_2002 Easter (1).jpg
Then select the second group and rename
2_2002 Christmas (1).jpg
Placing 1_, 2_, etc in front will control the order of each group and (1)
controls the order within each group.
If you want to add another group later and you want these photos to be, say
between 1_ and 2_, use 1a_ in front of the file name.
You may also want to add some more photos in a particular group, say your
Christmas group. No problem. Copy the files in the folder, move the
thumbnails in the group you want to add them to. Select all the thumbnails
in the group, right click on the first one and rename. When you rename, you
must change the name in order for rename to take place. Add something like
XYZ after Christmas. Once renaming is done, select the same files again and
rename again. Remove the XYZ and you will be back to the original name.
Note: There is a disadvantage to changing the original name of files. This
is why I recommend at the start to make a new folder and copy your original
files in the new folder before renaming. The disadvantage is this. Many have
the option of video out from the camera to display the pictures from the
memory card to a TV for a slide show. If you change the file names and copy
the files back to your memory card to display on your TV (or even to just
look at them on the LCD of the camera) your camera will not be able to read
the files. You can always rename, using the same format (8 characters) that
your camera uses, but now you have to rename each file. So, be careful what
you do with your original files.
Note: Although I recommend making a new folder and copying your files there
before renaming, there is also another way to do this and you may prefer
this once you are comfortable with renaming. Here is how to do it.
Open the folder to see your files. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the
letter A to select (highlight in blue) all the files. Hold the Ctrl key down
and press the letter C. This makes a copy of all the files to your
clipboard. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter V. This copies
(pastes) all the files back in your folder. The file names will be the same,
but the words "Copy of" will be in front of the file names. You then rename
Copy of files.
This way your original files and renamed files are in the same folder.
This is also very useful when you want to edit a photo with software. You
always edit "Copy of", never edit your original file.
You can also use the free Irfanview software to batch rename, available
here:
http://www.irfanview.com/
Another for free is Visere available here:
http://www.dmmd.net/products/products.htm
Or many others if you search via google. They all have their quirks.
mike said:
hi would like to know how to arrange my digital photos that i have put on
computer .sort them out and put in diffferent files.and also how to email
some of them .please help as have been trying and getting know where.
