Need help sorting images.

I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge would
have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Can someone please point me in the right direction.

Rudy Benner wrote:
I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge
would have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Can someone please point me in the right direction.

ACDSee from www.acdsystems.com will sort based on just about any attribute,
including ANY attribute contained within exif data. I often sort using the
original date and time of the exif, since this ignores similarly named files
that could mess up the order of event images.

This program would sort every image in a jiffy. Once you've let it
automatically sort this way, you could then (if you wanted to) have it
automatically rename the files with sequential numbers...so that they'd
always display in order just based on their new names, or even just a prefix
added to their existing names.

-Mark²

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote in message
...
Rudy Benner wrote:
I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge
would have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Can someone please point me in the right direction.

ACDSee from www.acdsystems.com will sort based on just about any
attribute, including ANY attribute contained within exif data. I often
sort using the original date and time of the exif, since this ignores
similarly named files that could mess up the order of event images.

This program would sort every image in a jiffy. Once you've let it
automatically sort this way, you could then (if you wanted to) have it
automatically rename the files with sequential numbers...so that they'd
always display in order just based on their new names, or even just a
prefix added to their existing names.

-Mark²

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson



Thanks for the tip.

What has complicated the whole procedure is the duplication of filenames,
somehow the counter on the camera was reset back to zero. I am currently
manually renaming the files to eliminate the duplicates. At least the
duplicates were in different folders. Its a mess.

There is a total of 2144 shots, two cameras, all taken near Moscow in
Russia.

r.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:43:23 -0500, Rudy Benner wrote:

I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge would
have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Do you want to sort a lot of images and then copy or move them
*into* subfolders? Or are they already in subfolders and you want
to sort them as if they were already in a single folder? The reason
for asking is that the latter should be pretty straightforward, but
the former would require some complicated rules for identifying
where image files should be moved into, unless it's based on the
actual names of the files. If it's the latter, this is the kind of
job that unix "tool" utilities do well. If the number of files was
huge, I'd probably create a text file containing the filenames and
paths and either sort it using a field based general purpose sort
program, or parse the text file using a quickie program to get it
into good enough shape so that it could then be easily sorted either
by a spreadsheet or by the rather dumb sort.exe utility provided
with every version of DOS and Windows that I'm aware of, by
Microsoft. I don't know about Vista, but I see that there's a
version of it in XP's \Windows\system32 subdirectory.

BTW, one of the unix tools for handling sorted duplicates is the
"uniq" program that's often run in conjuntion with sort. For a free
windows based program that can create a sorted text file containing
all or selected files contained within subfolders, you could
download the Directory Printer app. from Karen's Power Tools
website. You'd still want a tool such as uniq to handle duplicate
files, but with a sorted filelist, a quick&dirty program could
instead be used to easily produce a list of just the duplicates.

http://www.karenware.com/

"ASAAR" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:43:23 -0500, Rudy Benner wrote:

I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge would
have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Do you want to sort a lot of images and then copy or move them
*into* subfolders? Or are they already in subfolders and you want
to sort them as if they were already in a single folder? The reason
for asking is that the latter should be pretty straightforward, but
the former would require some complicated rules for identifying
where image files should be moved into, unless it's based on the
actual names of the files. If it's the latter, this is the kind of
job that unix "tool" utilities do well. If the number of files was
huge, I'd probably create a text file containing the filenames and
paths and either sort it using a field based general purpose sort
program, or parse the text file using a quickie program to get it
into good enough shape so that it could then be easily sorted either
by a spreadsheet or by the rather dumb sort.exe utility provided
with every version of DOS and Windows that I'm aware of, by
Microsoft. I don't know about Vista, but I see that there's a
version of it in XP's \Windows\system32 subdirectory.

BTW, one of the unix tools for handling sorted duplicates is the
"uniq" program that's often run in conjuntion with sort. For a free
windows based program that can create a sorted text file containing
all or selected files contained within subfolders, you could
download the Directory Printer app. from Karen's Power Tools
website. You'd still want a tool such as uniq to handle duplicate
files, but with a sorted filelist, a quick&dirty program could
instead be used to easily produce a list of just the duplicates.

http://www.karenware.com/


The files were already in subfolders. Each day's images was sent by FTP to
my server.

Because two cameras were used and one camera was left on PDT, things got
even more complicated.

At some point, one of the cameras file counter was reset, resulting in
duplicate file numbers. Fortunately, the dups are in different folders,
hence no conflict up until now.

I have renamed the duplicate files to prevent further errors.

I will separate the files from the two cameras, then I will sort the files
into different directories by date created. Tedious.

Thanks for the help.

Rudy Benner wrote:
What has complicated the whole procedure is the duplication of
filenames, somehow the counter on the camera was reset back to
zero.

Rename the files to YYYYMMDD_HHMM_counter if duplicates. It's very
easy to do with jhead or a similar tool. That way you have all the
images synchronized from the different cameras and sorted
chronologically by all programs that sort alphabetically.

If you want to do something depending on the camera, use jhead or
similar to make filenames such as
YYYYMMDD_HHMM_Camera_counter if duplicates
--
Toke Eskildsen - http://ekot.dk/

Rudy Benner wrote:
I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based on the
creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe Bridge would
have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.

Because two cameras were used and one camera was left on PDT, things got
even more complicated.

At some point, one of the cameras file counter was reset, resulting in
duplicate file numbers. Fortunately, the dups are in different folders,
hence no conflict up until now.

Look into Exiftool. It can recurse through subdirectories and do
renaming based on any EXIF field. It can also add time offsets to
images, to sync images from multiple cameras.

Through EXIF, there's a good chance you can identify which camera which
image came from, then act on them differently. (e.g., via camera s/n field)

What brand of camera? If it's a Nikon camera, I find the ShutterCount
field is a nice unique value per body.

Is this on Windows?

In Windows Explorer add "Date Picture Taken" to the columns of the
file list.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"Rudy Benner" wrote in message
...
:
: "ASAAR" wrote in message
: ...
: On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 22:43:23 -0500, Rudy Benner wrote:
:
: I have been asked to sort a lot of images into subfolders based
on the
: creation date of the original files. I had hoped that Adobe
Bridge would
: have a method of doing this task, I have not been successful.
:
: Do you want to sort a lot of images and then copy or move them
: *into* subfolders? Or are they already in subfolders and you want
: to sort them as if they were already in a single folder? The
reason
: for asking is that the latter should be pretty straightforward,
but
: the former would require some complicated rules for identifying
: where image files should be moved into, unless it's based on the
: actual names of the files. If it's the latter, this is the kind
of
: job that unix "tool" utilities do well. If the number of files
was
: huge, I'd probably create a text file containing the filenames and
: paths and either sort it using a field based general purpose sort
: program, or parse the text file using a quickie program to get it
: into good enough shape so that it could then be easily sorted
either
: by a spreadsheet or by the rather dumb sort.exe utility provided
: with every version of DOS and Windows that I'm aware of, by
: Microsoft. I don't know about Vista, but I see that there's a
: version of it in XP's \Windows\system32 subdirectory.
:
: BTW, one of the unix tools for handling sorted duplicates is the
: "uniq" program that's often run in conjuntion with sort. For a
free
: windows based program that can create a sorted text file
containing
: all or selected files contained within subfolders, you could
: download the Directory Printer app. from Karen's Power Tools
: website. You'd still want a tool such as uniq to handle duplicate
: files, but with a sorted filelist, a quick&dirty program could
: instead be used to easily produce a list of just the duplicates.
:
: http://www.karenware.com/
:
:
: The files were already in subfolders. Each day's images was sent by
FTP to
: my server.
:
: Because two cameras were used and one camera was left on PDT, things
got
: even more complicated.
:
: At some point, one of the cameras file counter was reset, resulting
in
: duplicate file numbers. Fortunately, the dups are in different
folders,
: hence no conflict up until now.
:
: I have renamed the duplicate files to prevent further errors.
:
: I will separate the files from the two cameras, then I will sort the
files
: into different directories by date created. Tedious.
:
: Thanks for the help.
:
:

"Joan" wrote in message
...
Is this on Windows?

In Windows Explorer add "Date Picture Taken" to the columns of the
file list.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly


Dang, that is too easy. Thanks Joan. Guys look for hard answers, women come
up with easy solutions.

Now if Windoze had a 'flat folder' option, it would be nice to be able to
view all the files in subfolders in one window.

rudy

Rudy Benner wrote:

Now if Windoze had a 'flat folder' option, it would be nice to be
able to view all the files in subfolders in one window.

Use the build-in search and start in the root folder for your images.
--
Toke Eskildsen - http://ekot.dk/