PSE5 - Downloader & custom file renaming

[gswarbrick]

With previous versions of the downloader the default was to put an underscore between the custom part of the name and the serial number. With 5.0 the separator is a space, which is a major problem if you're going to put the files on the web or use almost any batch processing tools (other than PSE itself...)

Is there any way to get the Downloader to use an underscore instead of a space? If not, I'm going to have to buy the ludicrously complicated Downloader Pro from Breeze...

[geralds34]

Has anyone figured out how to implement custom names in the PSE5 downloader?

[NickLewis]

I don't mean to sound facetious, but what exactly are you trying to do?

As far as I can see, you simply select "Custom Name" from the dropdown, enter a name in the box, and Downloader uses it.

So if you type "NAME", your files get called "NAME 001" NAME 002" etc..... Or you can additionally attach the shot date in a variety of formats.

Nick

[Juergen D]

Nick,
The problem is the space between NAME and 001.

File (re)naming is really not one of Elements' strengths, in Downloader or otherwise. A workaround would be to download with Windows Copy and Paste, rename the files with some other utility and then get the photos with Organizer.

Juergen

[NickLewis]

Hi Juergen,

I wasn't sure whether Gerald's issue was the same as the OP's.

But if the issue is the space, why not simply batch rename them in Organiser after downloading? That will add a sequential set of numbers to a common base name, with a hyphen as a separator.

(Taking care not to trip over the bug I found a few days back, of course!!;))

Nick

[Codebreaker]

In the Downloader just add the Name and an Under Score e.g TEST_ and you'll find it works as you want......e.g TEST_001.CRW, TEST_002.CRW and so on.

At least it does for me.;)

Colin

[NickLewis]

I get a space between the underscore and the first zero.....:(

Nick

[Codebreaker]

How intriguing. I guess it's possible that different versions of the downloader exist. Mine is version 3.0.0.53237

Colin

[NickLewis]

That's interesting - mine is 3.0.0.1448. (came from the PSE5 disks).

Where was yours sourced?

Nick

[NickLewis]

Actually, I'm not sure what my version is........

The "File Version" reported at the top of the Version tab in Properties is 3.0.0.1448, but the version number reported in the "other version information" box is 3.0.0.66984..... :confused:

Why are these different?

Nick

[geralds34]

I was hoping to use custom names such as;

Geralds34_YYYYMMDD_sequence.jpg

Following some of the recommendation of TheDAMBook , and preferably sticking strictly to PSE 5 (Tried idimager, nice app, but very slow on my machine)

[NickLewis]

Well, you could have "yyyy mm dd geralds34 001".... Which might serve your purposes.

But it'll put in spaces, not underscores (unless Colin's behaves differently :)), and you can't start with the text part.

If you use File>Rename on a selection of photos, you could get:
"geralds34_yyyymmdd-1", "......-2", etc. But you have to specify the date part manually, it won't pick it up automatically from the file. And you can't pad the numeric part with leading zeroes.

Nick

[Juergen D]

Maybe some renaming utility is a better bet. I've been using A.F.5 Rename your Files (http://www.fauland.com/af5.htm) for quite some time. I ran a little test, specifying Geralds' details and it works like this:

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2379/clipboard01sp5.jpg

Juergen

[Codebreaker]

Nick.....

I have version 4 of Elements and I assume that's the version that came with it.

Colin

[geralds34]

I played around with some other rename utils, and found that XnView was the easiest to rename as I wanted - and had a good photo browser etc.