don said:
I have combined two lots of pics from two different
cameras into one folder. I now want to put the photos
onto a cd in the order I want so that a slide show makes
chronological sense. The operating system is Windows XP.
I have used drag and drop to get the order I want but I
can't find any way to save the result and when I turn the
computer on again the thumbs have reverted to their
original order. Any ideas anyone?
========================================
The order can be preserved if you number
the files.
Maybe the following tutorial previously posted
by MVP Yves Alarie will be useful to you:
===
Using XP to organize your folders and your photos within
folders
1. How to organize your photo folders so you can find them.
(03-27-05)
2. How to make a collection of photos from different folders
(or just within
a folder) so you can place the photos in the order you want
and they will
stay in this order when you open the folder again for a
slide show or copy
to a CD.
1. How to organize your photo folders.
You should make new folders on your drive for each group of
pictures, or
make new folders under My Pictures folder, one folder for
each group of
pictures. Either way will work. Now, how do you name the
folders?
Remember that XP will list (or sort) folder names by
numerical/alphabetical
order.
So the folder 2004_Vacation will be listed before the folder
Vacation. You
can take advantage of this. What do you remember about a
photo folder when
you search for it? A name or a date? It is a lot easier to
find photo
folders when they have both a date and a name, but easier
when the folders
are listed chronologically by date first instead of by name
of event. So,
the listing of your folders should be: year, month (and day
if you wish, but
be consistent, if you want the day enter the day for all
folders) followed
by the event name. These should be separated by underline so
it is easy to
read on your screen. So you should name folders something
like this:
2003_12_25_Christmas
2004_12_25_Christmas
2003_04_07_Easter
2004_04_17_Easter
XP will list the folders in this order:
2003_04_07_Easter
2003_12_25_Christmas
2004_04_17_Easter
2004_12_25_Christmas
You can see what is happening. Your folders will be listed
by year, month
and day and then the event name. This makes it easy to find
them. You can
use some other system, but use one to list with a particular
order other
than name of event alone. Otherwise you will have a messy
listing of folder
names. If your folders are not properly organized, right
click on a folder
name and click on rename on the opening menu. Then change
the name using the
above system or a system you want.
2. How to organize a collection of photos in a folder, in
the order you want
the photos to be displayed for a slide show. This will
include renaming the
photos from the original name assigned by your camera.
Make a new folder on your hard drive. You can also make a
new folder under
"My Pictures" if you prefer. Both will work.
Name the new folder something easy to remember and search
for: year, month,
day, event, separated by underline. For example:
2004_09_16_Summer Vacations
Copy the photos you want to place in a particular order into
this new
folder. You can copy photos to this new folder from a single
folder (first
and simplest thing to do) or from any photo folder you have
to make a new
collection. If you are making a collection, use a collection
name, and the
date you are making it, something like:
2004_11_19_My Collection of Summer Photos
(this is a little more complicated but will also be
explained below).
Once the photos are copied in this 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 of
the first file.
Any system will work, such as year, month, day, event. For
example type in:
2003_09_16 Virginia Beach Vacation (101).jpg
and press Enter.
XP will automatically rename all the files in this folder:
2003_09_16
Virginia Beach (101), (102), (103), etc. and they will open
(sorted or
listed) in the order (101), (102), (103), 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 (101)
2. When you rename, don't forget to add .jpg after (101). If
you forget, XP
will warn you (window will open telling you the file type is
being changed,
answer NO) and 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 groups of files in a folder (in the example
above, the date
can be 16, 17, 18, etc for each day of your vacation) just
select the group
of files you want and right click on the first one in the
group and rename
from there. For each group you select, just add (101) after
the name you
want for the first file in the each group. So, you can
rename as you want:
2003_09_16 Virginia Beach Vacation (101).jpg for all
photos taken on
the 16
2003_09_17 Virginia Beach Vacation (101).jpg for all
photos taken on
the 17
etc,
You simply select all the photos taken on the 16th and
rename, etc.
You can do even better than this. Suppose you want a slide
show and you want
the last three pictures taken on your vacation to be the
first three or in
between some other photos, or re-order the photos in a
folder in any way.
Easy to do. Open the folder in thumbnail view, use your
mouse to place the
thumbnails in the order you want. Select all the photos and
rename starting
from the first picture adding (101) to the name you want for
the first
picture. The (101), (102), (103), etc will be added
automatically in the
order you placed the thumbnails. They will stay in this
order in your folder
and if you copy to a CD because XP lists (or sorts) by file
name only on a
CD.
In this case, you can omit the day and the first file would
be:
2003_09_Virginia Beach Vacation (101).jpg
If you copied many pictures from different folders in this
new folder and
all you want is to order them in chronological order, moving
thumbnails in
the correct order is tedious. Let XP do this for you. Change
the View from
Thumbnails to Details. In the Details view, right click on
the column header
"Name". This will open a list. Click on More at the bottom
of the list. A
list will open, check the box "Date Picture Taken". This
will add the
column Date Picture Taken in the Details view. Then you
click on the column
header "Date Picture taken" and XP will now change the list
of files (the
order of the listed files) from the name of the files (the
default) to
listing files in chronological order. Now, change the View
to Thumbnails and
they are in chronological order. Select them, rename them
using the above
procedure and you are in business. There is also another way
to do this.
When in Thumbnails view, click on View on the top bar, then
Arrange Icons by
on the drop menu and then select Picture Taken On. The
thumbnails are now in
chronological order. This is fine if all the photos are of
the same year
since XP list the order by MM/DD/YYYY as the default. If you
have multiple
years, change the default to YYYY/MM/DD using Control Panel,
Date,Time
options.
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 (you use one name
for one group of
picture, another for the next group, etc. and this also
avoid making
subfolders to separate pictures from the same event) 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 and you want them all together
in the same
folder for a big slide show or save them on a CD to send to
friends. Make a
new folder, copy them to the new folder. Then, place 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 (101).jpg
Then select the second group and rename
2_2002 Christmas (101).jpg
Placing 1_, 2_, etc in front will control the order of each
group and (101)
controls the order within each group.
If you want to add another group later and you want the
photos of this group
to be, say between 1_ and 2_, use 1a_ in front of the file
name.
In the above example, after you make the new folder for your
collection,
copy your Easter photos in it and rename them. Then copy
your Christmas
photos in it and rename them. Then copy the next group in it
and rename
them. Easier to do it this way than copying all of them and
then renaming.
Also, after you copy a group, you can move the thumbnails to
change the
order before renaming.
You may also want to add some more photos in a particular
group at a later
time, say your Christmas group. No problem. Copy the files
you want to add
in the folder, move the thumbnails in the group you want to
add them to,
where you want them. 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 in your camera 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 may not be
able to read the files. You can always rename, using the
same format (8
characters) that your camera uses, but now you will have to
rename each file
and this is tedious. So, be careful what you do with your
original files.
There is a second disadvantage. The above naming system in
an XP system. As
long as you are on XP everything will be displayed properly
with this naming
system. However, if you go out of XP, the display order is
unlikely to be
the same. Particularly true if you want to play a CD on your
DVD player.
Your DVD player will read files on your CD differently and
will want them in
the order 001,002,003, etc. rather than with the above
system. It wants
files listed like:
Image 001.jpg
Image 002.jpg
Etc. to display them in the proper order. Since you now have
your files in
the order you want in a folder, rename again if you want to
copy them to a
CD and play this CD in a DVD player. Easy to do. Download
the free software
from here:
www.irfanview.com
Once installed, open it and click on File and Batch
conversion/renaming.
Select the files to rename, select the same folder for the
new names.
Irfanview will not delete the file names you made with XP.
It will add new
file names in the same folder (or you can make a new
folder). You select a
single new name for all the files and 001, 002, 003, etc
will be added
automatically. Open the folder and you will see the added
files. You now
copy these files to a CD. Then you just delete these files.
Select them,
hold the Shift key down and press the Delete key. They are
removed and will
not go to the Recycle bin if you hold the Shift key down
when pressing the
Delete key. You will encounter the same problem if you
upload your photos
to a server on the Internet and you are using the XP naming
system. The
order will not be displayed properly. You need to use the
Image 001.jpg etc
system. So, again, once you have your photos in the order
you want them and
you renamed using XP, simply use irfanview to change the
name and upload
these files as when preparing them to copy to a CD for
display via a DVD
player.
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 it
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 photos with
software. You
always edit "Copy of", never edit your original file.
All this renaming may seem a little complicated at first,
but you can really
manipulate things very well by just sitting down and
understanding the
system. With a little practice you can get what you want.
However, before renaming, make sure you make a new folder
and copy some
photo files there so you can practice with no danger to your
original files.
After you are comfortable with this, once you download the
files from your
camera in a folder you can skip copying them into another
folder and you
just rename the files.
Once your photos are arranged with folder names in
chronological order, you
can use the free Picasa 2 from
www.picasa.com This will scan
your hard drive
for all your photos. After this, when you open Picasa only
your photo
folders will be listed and all the thumbnails in all your
folders will be
displayed. A lot easier to work with than from Explorer or
My Computer
listing.
--
John Inzer
MS Picture It! MVP
How to ask a newsgroup question:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375