Renaming all photos at the same time

Question

Hi - just had a quick question about organzing all your pictures. I have multiple folders from the same trip -- and want to have them all in one folder but cannot do this because I do not know how to rename the whole batch at once...ex: China (1), China (2), China (3)...like a batch change. Vista lets you do this by selecting all the photos (with different names) and right clicking then selecting "rename" this then allows an entire batch change of the highlighted photos.
I tried this with iphoto and it worked -- but when I tried to stick them into a folder it told me there were replicas, meaning the actual properties of the picture name didn't change outside of iphoto...
Does someone know how I can rename all my photos at once so I don't have folders with subfolders?
Cheers.

Answer 1

Below is new content for the script, which can find files with a variety of extensions. Also, it will search through all levels of subfolders, rather than just the first level of subfolders.
#! /bin/tcsh
\# This script makes copies of files and puts them in a new folder named "Newly_Named_Files".
\# Make a new folder one level above the current folder.
mkdir ../Newly_Named_Files
\# Search for files with various extensions, and make a list of them in a temporary file.
\# The search is case insensitive, thereby finding files with uppercase or lowercase extensions.
find . -iname "*.jpg" > list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.jpeg" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.tif" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.tiff" >> list_of_file_names.txt
\# Search for files which have extensions associated with various raw file formats,
\# and add them to the list.
\# The below extensions for various raw file formats was obtained from:
\# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAW_image_format
find . -iname "*.raf" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.crw" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.tif" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.mrw" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.nef" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.orf" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.dng" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.ptx" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.arw" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.x3f" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.erf" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.mef" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.raw" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.cap" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.r3d" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.fff" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.pxn" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.bay" >> list_of_file_names.txt
find . -iname "*.rwz" >> list_of_file_names.txt
set TOTAL_NUM_OF_FILES = `wc list_of_file_names.txt | awk '{print $1}'`
echo "This script will change the names of $TOTAL_NUM_OF_FILES files."
set COUNTER = 1
while ( $COUNTER <= $TOTAL_NUM_OF_FILES )
set FILE = `head -$COUNTER list_of_file_names.txt | tail -1 | sed 's/\.\///'`
set FILE_EXTENSION = `head -$COUNTER list_of_file_names.txt | tail -1 | awk -F "." '{print $NF}'`
set NEW_FILE = `echo "China ($COUNTER).$FILE_EXTENSION"`
echo "Working on $COUNTER of $TOTAL_NUM_OF_FILES ($FILE). The new name will be $NEW_FILE."
cp -p "$FILE" "../Newly_Named_Files/$NEW_FILE"
set COUNTER = `echo $COUNTER 1 | awk '{print $1 + $2}'`
end
\# Move the below temporary file to the Trash.
mv list_of_file_names.txt ~/.Trash/
\# Open the folder containing the newly named files.
open ../Newly_Named_Files
\# This is the last line of the script. Don't paste anything below this line.
There might also be free Automator actions of AppleScripts that can perform the same functions. Finally, there is a free product by Picture Studio called "QuickImageCM" that also performs the renaming function by means of a context-sensitive menu. Below are some relevant links:
http://www.pixture.com/software/img/screen-qicm-4.jpg
http://www.pixture.com/software/img/screen-qicm-1.jpg
http://www.pixture.com/software/macosx.php
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11532
Another free product by Picture Studio called "PhotoToolCM" might also be interesting. It has choices of "Batch Rename using Exif Date" and "Batch Resize". Below are some links:
http://www.pixture.com/software/img/screen-ptcm-1.jpg
http://www.pixture.com/software/img/screen-ptcm-3.jpg
http://www.pixture.com/software/macosx.php
-John
Message was edited by: John with a G4
Message was edited by: John with a G4