In the last article we ended up with several folders with photos that need to be renamed. This is the folder for July 24, 2023. I will take you through the simple steps to batch rename these photos.
Click on any image in this article to see a larger version.
Folder with all images selected.
The first step is to select all of the images you want to rename. All of the photos in this folder have the same subject so all of them have been selected. You can tell because they all have blue borders around them. There are two ways to select all of the images in a folder. Click on Edit (red A) in the upper left file menu, and choose “select all”. Or you can manually select all of them by clicking the first image and shift clicking the last image (Windows operating system) and all of the images in between will be selected too.
Next, click Tools at the upper left file menu and choose Batch Rename.
The Batch Rename box will open. The firs time you use this box you will need to decide how you want your file names to look. By clicking + or – (red A) you can change how many elements you have in your file name. On the left side of your element choices, you can decide on the kind elements in the file name. I have 4 elements. They are (1) the date of the photo in a YYMMDD format, (2) text: subject of the photo, (3) text: the camera I used, and (4) the original file name ending in a 4 digit number. After I made the choices for (1) and (4), Bridge puts them in the file names automatically and I don’t have to worry about them any more. All I have to change are elements (2) and (3).
This is all I had to do to rename all of these photos. In the first text box (red C), I typed “Yellow-shafted Flicker”. In the second text box I typed “7D2”, the camera I used (a Canon 7D Mark II). I located at the what the new file names would look like (red E), and clicked Rename (red F) at the upper right.
The other day I had a total of 73 photos of a 4th of July parade to rename. In the first text box (red C) I typed “July-4-parade”. In the second text box (red D) I typed “5D3”, the camera abbreviation. I clicked Rename and in a matter of seconds all 73 parade photos were renamed. Quick and simple. Bridge automatically did the date at the beginning and the original file name at the end.
Here are the renamed photos. They are still all selected (blue borders). Don’t deselect them yet. We want them all selected to batch keyword these photos. That is the next article.
What if you have more than one subject in the same folder for a particular date? Manually select all of the photos for the first subject and batch rename them. Then select the photos for the second subject and batch rename them, and so on.
Adobe Bridge Series Links
Adventures with Adobe Bridge – What Adobe Bridge Can Do For You
Adobe Bridge Basics: How to Download Photos into Folders By Date