All right, this is just a quick little tutorial on how I use Exifer to rename my files.

Now, for weddings, I shot with two cannon 10 D’s and I try to get the times on them sync almost exactly the same within a few seconds of each other, but I still end up with multiple file names from my wedding, so I’ll end up with like four images called 9981 or so forth. So, when I come home after my wedding and I download my images, I’ll download all the images into one folder until I get a repeat, and then what I’ll simply do is I’ll create another folder and download the images in there. Most of the time, I just end up with two folders with files in both folders.

Now, what I want in those, I want to have all those images in one folder, and I want them all in sequence, so this is where Exifer comes in to play. So let me just go to my folder here, if I can find it right here. Now, as you can see I have all my images here, and I also have a second folder, which has no images in there. So, let’s just find out where those images went.

All right, there we g. Got them back. So, I have got all my images here and I also have my second folder with images in here. Now, what I do is I simply just select them all and you can press control A to select them all if you wish, and I simply just right click on it, then I go to sort and I go by date. And I just make it’s by date and what this does is this actually sorts it out by the day, by the hour, by the minute, and by the second. So I’m let me just go into my second folder here, and I’m just going to do the same thing.

Now, what I’m simply going to do is, I’m going to sort, it’s already done. I’m actually going to rename, redate, and copy, and I’m going to rename all the files in one of the folders. So now, this comes where you can rename it by year, month, day, hour, minute, second. I’m simply just going to click each of this off because all I want is just a counter, just like that. And I’m going to have it start with, let’s just go and I’m going right to 4000 and I’m going to have four digits in it, and that’s it. And I’m going to hit okay, “Do you really want to rename all the selected files?” Yes I do, and there it goes, all renames, just like that.

Now, I’m just going to right click again, and I’m going to move to, and I’m going to select my folder, because I’m actually going to take these files now and move them all into the one folder. Now that they’re renamed, I will not over write any of my files. So I’ll just find folder on my hard drive, there we go, okay. And now, they’re all moved into the one folder, as you can see here.

So now I have all my files in one folder and I can sort them out by time again, which is already done, so they are in a chronological order. And now, I’m just going to do the same thing again. I’m going to go to rename, redate, recopy, and I’m going to rename them all. Let’s start with a counter. Let’s just go and, you know, I’m just going to right up to 7000. It doesn’t matter. I’m just going to change it. And let’s just, you know, if you want, you can just put in the persons name. Let’s just go Hiffy. So now, it’s going to go Hiffy with the file name. “Do I really want to rename all selected files?” Yes I do. This is so fast. Look how fast this goes. There you have it. Now, I have got all my files, they are all renamed in chronological order. Now, I would burn this to a CD and DVD backup and everything and I’m all set.

So again, just to repeat, I download all my flash cards onto my hard drive and I put them in multiple folders if I have repeating file names or if I have two cameras and two separate cameras, two different cameras, but mostly, this is because or if you have repeating file names and you don’t want to overwrite any of your images. So separate them two into two folders, then go in, use Exifer to rename one of the folders or the files within the folders, then you can simply just copy those files into the one folder so they will not over write. Select them all and rename them again, and there you go. All set.

Hope this helps.