Renaming Photo on Import and Folder Destination LR4

Sometime back I moved away from Lightroom for two specific reasons. I'm interested in possibly returning to the LR workflow but I've reviewed the new LR4 and can not decipher if it is possible to do the two specific things that made me leave it behind. Here is what I want LR4 to do.
1). Allow me to rename images on Import with a custom name and ongoing sequential number. In other words the custom name would be the letter D and the ongoing number would look something like 234189. Final Image number would look like D234189.NEF. The key to this numbering system is the ongoing sequential number has to be remembered where it last left off each time a new Import is initiated. I'm not interested in having to reset the sequential number on each Import. The system I describe is an option on both Photo Mechanic and Aperture. I'm hopeful Adobe finally added this in Lightroom 4.
2). I need to have the ability to Import all images into a folder on the day of IMPORT. Not the day the Images were shot. Lots of reasons why I don't want folders on day images where shot. I won't get into all of that. Suffice it to say I need the ability for the images to go into the folder on the DAY OF IMPORT. Older versions of Lightroom did not allow this. It would only allow photos to go in to separated folders on day of image capture.
Thanks for any help that's provided. LR4 has some great new features and I have to say it is by far simpler to use than Aperture. I'm hopeful it can meet the two requirements above and if so I'll be moving back over.

Not sure what you mean by "Ongoing sequential naming breaks down as a completeness control as soon as you delete images from within the sequence" I'm guessing you mean that there will be holes within the system? If so, that's not an issue. With an on ongoing running number, the only thing I want to make sure of is that each and every image has it's own personal ID. I don't care if I throw away a dozen, hundreds or ten thousand images in between. Just so the ones I keep have a unique, easy to read Identifier/name. Who cares if there are holes in the system. That's what software is made for. Yes, I could put all images in one folder but what's the point to doing something manually when you are using computers to eliminate manual work. Doesn't make any sense. Finally, you are mostly right about Adobe not loosing many sales without these options. However, my earlier mention of two other professionally dedicated software packages, that do have this capability, suggests that I'm not the only guy wanting more customization. They may be loosing more sales than you think. I've worked with Lightroom for years, as well as Aperture for years and the same goes for Photo Mechanic. I find that most people who take a stand one way or the other haven't tried all the options in a full fledged work environment. Would be nice if Adobe and Apple combined their products so to speak so we could have the best of both worlds.

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Import and rename photos via Automator and ExifTool

Hiya,
Just finished my work on a Automator workflow in order to import and rename photos from a portable hard disk.
I had the problem that my portable hard disk (with integrated card-reader) was not recognised by Image Capture or Aperture. Therefore I couldn't import my photos straight away into Aperture.
Another problem I had was that Aperture doesn't rename photos while importing. Whereas other Automator actions offer this feature, they all didn't fulfill my requirements - yeah, I can be very fussy
That's why I started initially to write a Perl script based on ExifTool in order to copy and rename photos to my liking. Once this was done and very much in use, I started to put it into an Automator action with a little AppleScript around it.
Eventually, I initiated the entire Automator workflow with the Check For Disk action.
More information and the files needed can be found on my website http://photography.stephanjaeger.eu/2007/03/improve-your-digital-photography-wor kflow.html.
The only drawback of this script is that only one camera is supported. At the moment, I work on a solution to support several cameras.
The Perl script can used by itself, if you feel comfortable in using the Terminal.
I hope you find the information and the Automator action helpful.
Any feedback appreciated.
Best regards,
Stephan Jaeger
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2.66 GHz, 4 GB RAM

Brian,
Thanks for giving it a try. Let me know how you get on!
If you have any problems, please don't hesitate to contact me.
By the way, you don't have to use an external hard disk. You could replace easily the first step in that workflow with an other action, such as defining a folder that should be monitored, or selecting manually a folder that contains photos.
I hope that I find some time over the week-end to make some changes to the script. I will set up as well a page on my web site with more details.
All the best,
Stephan

I cannot shu down my iMac (for days) as I get the following message:Photos are being imported to the photo library. Now as far as I know there are no photos being imported and even if there were 5 days is crazy. How can I resolve this please?

I cannot shut down my iMac (for days now) as I get the following message: "Photos are being imported to the photo library."
Now as far as I know there are no photos being imported and even if there were 5 days is crazy. How can I resolve this please?
JLB284

Open Activity monitor in Utilities, go to the CPU tab>All Processes, and note any process that would appear to be related to importing photos, such as iPhoto, and use Force Quit. This may only be a temporary fix, as it may start all over again when you reboot. If that happens, we need to do some more investigating.
Also, close all open Applications, then open Terminal in Utilities and copy/paste and hit return, then post the output of this command.
lsof -l +L -R -V | grep /

How to fix Import and folder-synchronize?

Installed Lightroom 4.2 RC. Now Import and folder synchronize hang up. Uninstalled 42. RC with same result. Removed and then reinstalled 4.1 with same problem.
Please advise.
[email protected]
Message was edited by: SD Rowdies

They might not be compatible with the iPad's video capability. Are they Flash videos?

Simultaneously rename photos in LR and on disk

Hi...just purchased and started using LR today so I am a total newbie. The reference book I purchased states that renaming photos in LR also renames the image files on disk. However, so far, LR has not renamed the photos on the disk...what am I doing wrong? Obviously, I'd like the file names be consistent between LR and the source...Thank you!!!

I was importing images from an external hard drive and upon import, was inadvertently copying them to a location on my C drive. So when I renamed my files, the names were modified on default backup location on the C drive as opposed to the external source disk. Not sure why the images wouldn't be renamed on the actual source disk from where the images were imported, but there it is....

Need to rename photos already imported

I imported photos from a shoot, and after getting them into lightroom I realized the year was off in the camera. My import preset uses the year as the first part of the file naming convention. So now I want to rename the files by correcting the year in each one. Is there an easy way to do this? I suspect that unless I go through lightroom somehow, the catalog won't know where they are if I change them.
Thanks,
Jim

Click the link in my previous reply (ooooops, looks like the link broke - here you go - http://members.lightroomqueen.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1135/185/the-time- on-my-camera-was-incorrecthow-do-i-change-it) and you can correct the exif capture time from within LR - even if you've fixed the name, it's probably worth doing that. Then your normal naming template should have worked, but well done for finding an alternative solution!
Yes, you can convert already-imported photos to DNG, no problem. Just select them in Grid view and go to Library menu > Convert Photos to DNG and it'll automatically swap them out (and can delete the NEF's for you, at the same time)

Something went wrong with iPad photo/Video import and now iPhoto on Mac does not see content.

I just connected my iPad (4.3.2) to my mac (10.5). It launched the synch process for photos and videos and everything went fine. I then clicked on one of the newly imported photos in iPhoto and it choked and ultimately closed the app and gave me message along the lines of "iPhoto quit Unexpectedly." I rebooted the machine and when it came up went to look in iPhoto and saw that the new photos/video were not there. They are still on the iPad (Fortunately!) However when I reconnect the iPad to the Mac it does not see any content to import. In essence it seems to think it did the import and is not aware that it lost the content.
There's a couple possible solutions I'm interested in. One, are the photos/video somewhere on the Mac and just need to be dug up? I nosed around a bit but found nothing. Then other solution would be is there some way to force iPhoto to reimport what's on the iPad, ignoring that it feels it's already done this?
Thanks,
Wil

Where did these photos come from to begin with? Did you import them from the iPad into iPhoto on your Mac? Is that what you are saying here?

Date format for import sub-folder destination

Greetings,
I have been using a trial version of LR 4 and would like to know if LR can use the format of "MM-DD-YY" for the subfolder of the destination folder.
My many years of files are organized by the "YYYY" top folder then "MM-YY" then by date of shooting, "MM-DD-YY" within the corresponding month.
Is this possible or must I continue to rename the folders after import?
Thank you.
Joe

Not that format, no. All of LR's date-based organising schemes generally are in the format YYYY-MM-DD or some variant of that. Have a look at the options in the Destination section of the Import screen and you'll find these options:

Import and Folder Issues

I've spent hours trying simply to consolidate some images into various folders. I'm trying to import a file with the extension .CRW into a folder and get the message that (same filename).psd already exists in the folder. Yes, it does, but I want them both. Why is that a problem?
Next, I want to move three files from one folder to another but I get the message that (filename).XMP already exists in the destination.
So I created a new folder and tried to move the files to that folder. Two of them moved, but the third one didn't. I've repeated this several times, but the remaining file just stays in the original folder.
I already started over with a fresh database once and lost many hours of work. I can't afford to do it again.
Please help!

Ken,
There are numerous posts on this subject. Currently LR treats same name, different extension files as sidecars of each other. Check out the numeroues RAW + JPG posts for example.
Import your files into different folders and then move them into the folder you want for now.
Hopefully this behaviour will be changed in the forthcoming 1.1 release mentioned by Jeff Schewe et al.

Duplicate photos on import and imported photos not appearing

I brand new to the Mac world and I am hoping to get iPhoto to help me organize my photos.
I have set it up so that my wife and I both are separate users (or accounts, I guess). Plus, I set up a "media" user, where I import all our photos. Then, I share the Media account with my both my account and with my wife's.
Two weird things have happened. On one import, I got duplicates of every item. Kind of a pain and a huge waste of diskspace, especially for video files.
2), There were a bunch of photos that were visible on the shared account, but when I tried to import them into my own account they wouldn't show up. I actually clicked and dragged the shared account to my photo library and then checked off the "do not copy duplicates." But not all of them moved. It's not that many photos (<1500) and I cannot figure out for the life of my why they are not showing up. And the iphoto help files seem useless on this.
Any help much appreciated

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. For the duplicates (as long as they are viewed as duplicates while in iPhoto) you can use Duplicate Annihilator to cull them out.
As for the sharing I've not done any of that so can't help. But Terence or Larry will surely be along and can help you there.
OT

How do I rename photos after import?

I tried the filenaming template and direct input into metadata. Lightroom displays a message that the file name cannot be renamed_but no explanation is given. What am I missing?

Perhaps (this is a guess) Lightroom does not have write permission for the folder where these photos are located.

Import and storage of LR4 develop presets

i use iMac 27", 16GB ram and mountain lion, along with LR4.2
i have only recently begun to use develop presets, being lazy has just creeped up on me. I have 15 or 20 presets showing in my preset panel. Most are old.
i find that under app;ication/support/adobe/lightroom, that i have two folders. one called "develop presets", and one called "user presets." both contain folders of presets. some seem to be duplicates. in total, the 2 folders contain about twice as many as in the preset panels. a good number do not show in my develop preset panel.
is this as it should be? can i create subfolders under the USER PRESETS in the develop presets panels and move them to there?
this is already sounding more complicated than it should. I will read the online help again.
thanks for any suggestions in this area.
vince

thanks RIKK. i had figured that out a few minutes ago and was considering withdrawing it. it was so simple.
in any case, i am grateful for your response
vince
Message was edited by: vinsolo

How do i delete photos which were being imported and are now stored in a folder which i can't access

how do i delete photos which were being imported and are now stored in a folder which i can't access

Go to your Pictures Folder and find the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.
Look there for a Folder called 'Import' or 'Importing'.
Drag it to the Desktop. *Make no other changes*.
Start iPhoto. Does that help?
If it does then look inside that folder on your desktop. Does it contain anything you want? If not you can trash the folder.

I'm using LR5.7 on a Mac Mini running Mavericks and when I attempt to import a folder of new RAW photos from my external drive into my catalog instead of seeing a preview of each thumbnail photo I see the following message displayed: "Preview Unavailable

I'm using LR5.7 on a Mac Mini running Mavericks and when I attempt to import a folder of new RAW photos from my external drive into my catalog instead of seeing a preview of each thumbnail photo I see the following message displayed: "Preview Unavailable for this file." If I highlight any other folder of photos the previews are all there. What is the likely reason for these previews being unavailable? JohnnyCam

What camera took these RAW photos?
Did you use any Nikon software to transfer the photos to your computer's hard disk?

Why aren't my scanned photos showing up in iphoto? I have an HP scanner with the option to import directly to iphoto. It says "sending to destination" but it never gets to iphoto. I scanned hundreds of photos several months and it worked fine - now it won

Why aren't my scanned photos showing up in iphoto? I have an HP scanner with the option to import directly to iphoto. It says "sending to destination" but it never gets to iphoto. I scanned hundreds of photos several months and it worked fine with the photos going directly into iphoto - now it won't work. Any suggestions?

As the feature is part of your scanner set up nd not iPhoto, you'd need to ask the makers of that for help.
Regards
TD

Renaming Photo on Import and Folder Destination LR4

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