Batch Renaming Photographs

Question

Hi all,
I have a series of around 8,000 photos from my recent trip to Botswana.
They were taken on a variety of cameras, 30D and 40D mostly, a borrowed 1DS MkIII for around 5 mins.
Some of the 30D files have jumped from like MG0950.cr2 to MG5020.cr2
Is there a way I can rename then but just subtract the difference between the above two files where it jumped?
Thanks,
Fred

Answer 1

You can try doing it with applescript. In AppleScript Editor do something like this:
tell application "Finder"
-- The number to subtract from the filenames i.e. last number before the jump
set num to 950
-- Ask for files whose names are to be changed. Only select the files after the jump here
set allPhotos to choose file with multiple selections allowed without invisibles as alias list
repeat with thisPhoto in allPhotos
-- Name with wrong numbering
set oldName to name of thisPhoto
-- Extract the number from the name
set thisNum to (items 5 through 8 of characters of oldName) as string
-- Subtract the predefined number
set thisNum to (thisNum as integer) - num
-- Add the leading zero if required
if thisNum < 10000 then set thisNum to "0" & thisNum as string
-- finally add the prefix and file extension and change the name
set newName to "MG" & thisNum & ".cr2"
set name of thisPhoto to newName
end repeat
end tell
After you're done just run the script.
I haven't run the code on my computer so there might still be some errors that need to be ironed out.
Message was edited by: hungryjoe
Corrected a bug