The World’s Best File Naming System
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- Опубликовано: 9 дек 2014
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You were a rock star on the shoot and the client is very happy. You did an amazing job retouching and finishing the image and, not only is the client happy (maybe ecstatic!), but their client is even happier. If you’re a wedding shooter, the whole family loves you!
Now they call to do additional licensing or make a huge print. They love you so much they want to make sure you are compensated well for the added use or for the print. You're thrilled, but when you look for the image, but you can’t find it. Where did it go? What did you name it? What folder did you put it in?
Excellent, you forgot what you called it or didn’t store it properly. It’s buried in a pile of unorganized hard drives with a generic file name that the camera gave it.
In a matter of seconds you go from being so thrilled about making some easy money to spending two whole days looking for the file. In the worst case, you lost the file because it was not Archived correctly. You vow to never let this happen again!
Watch the video and use this File Naming System to save you from hours of headaches and panic. Don't let this happen to you again.
Please note: Insults are not tolerated in the comments to anyone!
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Video tutorial by Michael Grecco
I love that there is a whole RUclips channel around this concept.
I think I am going to do a video on my favorite ways of making martinis next and mix that in. You Ok with that?
Javier 🎉🎉
There should be more
@@dmitryhetman1509 m
@@davidmamusic job
At last, someone who understands that YYYYMMDD is the ONLY correct way to put dates on filenames. It always sorts properly no matter the operating system.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 iso date format
Here here, the only way!! You have the best of both worlds this way, the date, a chronological order and the subject name. This way if you shoot the subject more that once the files are also separate, as opposed to a subject folder system and arbitrary file names. That's just lazy to me.
yymmdd here, saves me time and leave the problem to the next generation!
But you can sort by date, so why isn't that good enough?
Because the date is not good enough unless you open the file or then look elsewhere to see what you shot on that date. How do you know it's the subject you are looking for??
A Linux technician told me (around 10 years ago) to only use underscores when naming my files. Good to see that advice is being passed on in this video too. It's kinda crazy that simple stuff, like naming conventions, is so infrequently taught.
That date format is ISO 8601. If you use dashes instead of underscores, it works better with searches, as does all lowercase in file names.
Learning about why to use an underscore was worth watching this video. The rest of the info was not only doable but also super easy to incorporate. Thanks!!
underscores in names of downloaded files bothered me, now that I see the utility, I won't be removing them
I’ve been using essentially this system since working on a national advertising campaign circa 1989 where I HAD to get serious - absolutely rock solid advice! I don’t understand how anyone could give this advice a thumbs down.!
I use this to summarize info from pharmaceutical stability studies in the of the file; I also used abbreviations for certain recurring names, though I'm strongly considering just typing it all out.
Such a great video !! the final touch would be adding a QR code (once you are printing those labels to stick on drives) that leads directly to the screenshots !
Clever as hell. A bunch of good ideas from a professional.
We were doing this in 1985.
Finally! Someone else understand the whole yyyymmdd file naming system. I tried explaining this to a few friends (designers) and they couldn’t understand it at all. I typically do this for folders instead of the files themselves since I use a program to lock files to folders, but I love this technique. I just don’t understand why photographers are the only ones who do this...
how do you lock files to folders
I’m SOOO Excited I found this video!! Starting my first larger project and I knew I wanted awesome organization from the get go. But didn’t know what strategy to use. THANK YOU!!!
What about "dashes" vs "underscore"? I've read an article stating that dashes are better for web indexing and search engines. Personally I prefer dashes, because it allows to "alt" (on Mac) or "ctrl" (on PC) + shift + arrow keys quickly move and erase or relabel parts of a file name. With underscores this doesn't work, because the whole name will be interpreted as one string (both mac and pc).
ive been using this method for a few years now never looked back-and recommend it to all!
Very good tip that will help me re-think my filing system. I used to only name my folders in this way. Now I will also rename my actual files
This is what I’ve been waiting for ... a logical method of storing/filing ....l thanks 🙏
For images I use YYYYMMDD-9999 in the beginning of the file name, where 9999 is a sequence number, followed by info of the file in a same way as mentioned in the video. This way, the image file has a ‘unique’ label independent of the text in the file name. This allows for publishing the image file only by it’s unique label and keeping track in my archive. For other documents types I use YYYYMMDD at the end.
Professor, thank you. HATS LIFT UP.
This is very helpful - will try it out and organise my files over the next few weeks with this system.
Thank you Fred Armisen! Didn't know you had such practical skills!
I was thinking the same, lol
Splendid! Great, very useful material, presented so well. Thank you!! -- I have definitely discovered the value of meaningfully named files to leverage the search capability of my Mac computer. Priceless information.
This video is so wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to make this...I'm subscribing immediately!! :]
Awesome advice. Going to start implementing your method from now on.
Great video. Nice Work Michael!
I totally agree! I do the same thing with the reverse date. That way the files are always in chronological order.
Great tips here still very relevant - I have been searching for a simple way to name my folders thanks for this
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing.
Great advice, great delivery of information.
Simple and straightforward! Good video, thanks.
Thanks for the great points about naming system
cool vid.. gonna start using some of the labeling tips right away.. thx for sharing
Excellent Tips! Thank You
Your advice is amaizing !
Thank You :)
This is a great info for all struggling to organize their files!
I take a snapshot of the files on the hard drive, using an old polaroid ... then scan the polaroid and add it to the drive. Then I snapshot the archive with the polaroid I just archived, for archival purposes.
Duplication is important. Most of my working set are on SD cards carefully arranged around my home, such as behind the fridge or down the back of the sofa.... however, I also maintain duplicates - probably on that flash drive I lent to Peters' moms new BF.
Typically I try to put the duplicates on the same media they're duplicating... which is handy because then you can't lose 'em and you know what they go with.
My file naming system is a little more advanced than the one in the video. I mostly shoot weddings and portraits... so I first sort them into 'bangable' and 'not bangable' on a shot by shot basis. The 'not bangable' simply aggregate in that folder ... however, the bangable ones get further refined by hair colour or most attractive physical feature.
Thus when a portrait client walks in for copies, I know exactly where to find them.
Getting copies for weddings usually involves gathering a little more information : "Mr. and Mrs Noakes? June 2013? ... Oh, wait, wasn't she the short brunette with the ridiculous ass? ... GOT IT !"
By not sorting the uglies you save a lot of time - besides, nobody ever wants late copies of those anyway.
Oh, and finally ALWAYS keep the originals archived separately from the photoshop retouches ... nobody want's to find a picture of their mother-in-law being banged by an octopus, or their wife and niece in a three-way with a gorilla ...
... I'm not making THAT mistake again.
you just made my day :D
I use Moore's law for archival, always buying the largest available drive means that it only fills up after 3 or 4 years, and by that time the largest available drives are typically 5 to 10 times the size than the drive it is replacing, so I use 10-20% of each new hard drive to backup everything on the old one, including all previous backups.
In this way, I can always get to files from 1989 directly from the desktop, without messing with archive drives, simply via the path:
E:\Backup\oldDrives\D\Restore\F\stuff\drives\E\underTheRug\oldStuff\E\backup\D\old\media\D
estore\turtlesAllTheWayDown\pentium\F\backup\C\Restore\386\D\Stuff.
GaryChap You literally made me laugh! Very funny!
Laughed out loud just like when I read “Fear and loathing”. !NOTHING!makes me do this. Thank you!
Oh God! I know right? _"Fear and loathing"_ is just incredible : ))))))))))
Very nice! Lots of good info, I will implement all your methods!
+1 for the underscore. For me its a hangup from using computers in the 80's and 90's where you couldnt have spaces. But yes it makes it far more compatible.
Thanks. Very useful information.
Smart way to find your files!
This was helpful, thank you.
Thank you so much, you have a great speaking voice.
Very helpful. Much appreciated !
OUTSTANDING video!!!
I'm just a Dad with a million family pictures of my family. I use a very similar system.
2020-12-01 Joe's Birthday - EOSDRXS-001.jpg (or whatever the file extension may be).
(Fictional guy named Joe with a Birthday on 12/1/2020). Camera model at the end, along with the number of the shot.
If someone else took the photo: (Fictional Character named Lucy):
2020-12-01 Joe's Birthday - Lucy's Camera-001.jpg
In the past, I didn't include the camera model. All was fine until we all started taking a million pictures with our smart phones. The above picture taken with an iphone 12:
2020-12-01 Joe's Birthday - IP12-001.jpg
Due to my (unrelated) line of work, I am all about unique file names. No two files will have the same name, period. This means having to rename files. I'm getting everything into Adobe Lightroom at the moment. If Lightroom blows up, that's OK, all of my file names still contain enough info to find them later.
Hmmmm. You're making me consider putting my initials before the camera model before I bring all my photos into Lightroom.
I use a free batch renaming program called "Bulk Rename Utility". It's crazy powerful!!!
Thanks for sharing your worklfow. Whaht is the benefit of including the camera/phone model in der File Name btw.? (For now I am only sticking to the Metadata).
Most informative video ever. Please do more 👍
Nice video sir. Ur video is much more informative, n i think everyone must be adopt such methods of proper storage files
I enjoyed your video. It was very helpful. Thank you!
Thank you!
Excellent advice! I've been programming for close to 40 yrs & use these exact same techniques for organizing my files, developed over time.
Only part I don't do, is screenshots or text listings of the drive folders, which I will add to my process ftw 💪
There was a mention of a piece of software to scan the drives called DiskCatalogMaker. We are playing with it now to see how it works over the network. I will let you know.
man thank you for making life easier
Very first time I've ever seen/heard of someone espousing a rational file naming system.
Very interesting, wish I had done this thousands of files ago. Guess need to start somewhere.
Screen Shots of files are OK. Better to just type in a cmd prompt DIR > Dir.txt. It makes a text file of the contents.
You can get even fancier. Use "Power shell" "Get-ChildItem" and this will give you options to recurse subdirectories and all file info. The best part is it will save it as a CSV you can open in Excel.
Thanks for that Mike. A suggestion to take your screenshot system further would be to run them through an ocr application to convert them all to searchable pdfs. That way you can just search that folder to find things quickly instead of having to look at each image individually 😀👍👌
I
Hobbyist photographer and I love that file naming system, I have been using something similar for my folder names, but I think I'm going to tweak it closer to your standard, I can see a few flaws in mine that are covered by yours. Thanks for making this video, I've been struggling or a while with keeping my photo archive organized and while changing the names will be time consuming, I can see how these tips will help a lot going forward.
Before you start try to write a script to do it for you
Love the screenshot...super
I just learned about this I was like what the he'll now I got It thank you so much
Micheal thanks for sharing this. I wished I'd knew and done this, since the operating systems had plast the old naming convention with max. 8 characters.max. 3 characters extension.
I've been doing this (more or less) for the past 18 years. Relying only on software to keep things straight is asking for trouble.
Very Clever!
Great tips!
Very Usefull!
It’s awesome, thanks
As a hungarian, I use this exact date and naming format , because this is the standard here, not the other way around. :) We write people names the way you have mentioned as well ( maybe japan is othe other country who does this as well)
Great Ideas !
Been doing this (reverse date) for my whole career. It's a UK project management standard. It sorts everything by date beautifully. The American date format is totally illogical & confusing when working on International projects
I looked up Adobe DNG and apparenty it's an open royalty free format! I'm positively surprised. With companies trying to keep their file formats incompatible with competitors (like Free and Open Source software) all the time, Adobe is doing better than expected (PDF as well as this). Truly grade-A archival tips! Remember to have cold backups!
luutifa0 Look into issues interpreting color information in DNG files. If you use a non-Adobe RAW professor like Capture One, the camera profile information is discarded upon converting from native RAW format to DNG, and therefore, software like Capture One can't use information about the camera that took the image to better interpret the RAW data. I haven't done an analysis myself and am trusting the analysis here: petapixel.com/2015/07/16/why-i-stopped-using-the-dng-file-format/
Typefaces historically were very proprietary. They have an attribute that determines whether the typeface can be embedded into another file, such as a PDF. Most typeface manufacturers wanted to protect the design, and have each customer purchase a license. Embedding it into a PDF file and then having that file be used by a different user defeated their intent. In response, Adobe developed their own typefaces, and made each have the attribute to be embedded. It gave Adobe an advantage and helped make PDF files acceptable. Typeface companies have never been happy about this but they do have to deal with it. Adobe always works to help Adobe, no matter who else it affects.
The fact that RUclips suggested me this video, tells me I need to watch more fun videos... 😂 i watched it till the end though...
Very nice video.
I've used the YYYYMMDD file naming since the 1990s. I doubt that many of you have done much or had files from before the turn of the century. I sometimes question whether the first two YYs are necessary, but for safety and consistency I still use all four.
Anyone who lived through a Y2K conversion will never go back to a 2-digit year value. The first two YY's are not only necessary, they're critical to good design and best practices. That said, I'm telling my kids to prepare for Y10K! :)
LOL
Let's deal with the Year 2038 problem first...
That's an independent problem though.
Yes, but it will break things in the next 20 years as opposed to ~8000 years. Overflow problems like these are pretty similar in concept. There is a similarity with the limits of addressable memory a particular computer architecture has.
Another aspect of organising file which he didn't mention is structuring directory trees and naming the directories.
My gawd I just got excited! This guy knows my secret shame :)
I work at a huge engineering company, and when I was starting out I thought this was an unnecessary and complicated way of naming the files/folders. So I decided to name the files the way I thought was better. Only the final versions that I had to upload were named YYYYMMDD.
Talk about learning things the hard way...
I created such a mess within a year on my own computer and all the projects that I did within that period were and still are in a complete jumble.
So yeah - YYYYMMDD is the proper way to go.
Another tip is to buy as many hard drives all together from the same manufacturing model number. This way they all have the same circuit boars inside in case one drive goes bad, then the data can be recovered with the circuit board of a spare drive
Ronnie Shand that is a really great idea! I mean one needs the courage and some skill...not for the risk averse (who wouldn’t probably buy drives like this in the first place).
I've been doing very similar for a long time. It truly is the best system.
Why would anyone *not* use YYYYMMDD at the beginning of their filenames? It's so logical and simple.
+Jared Ribic I agree for sure.
For some people/companies, it makes more sense to put the date at or near the END of the file name because they don't necessarily want files to sort by date. For instance, in educational publishing, we would want files to sort by (for example) grade, unit, and lesson, but would still want to have the date later in the file name for archive and versioning purposes. For example: Math_G1_U1_L5_2018-03-06.docx. Trying to find the right lesson manuscript when the files are sorted by date would be a nightmare. :-)
I have folders made like year/month/day(week_day)-extra_info
Very logical and useful
A combination of hyphens and underscores would allow you to parse your files, and even programmatically update metadata.
1:56 it's not a "reverse order", it's ISO 8601! It's the only logical way to write the date in digital world.
There is only one correct format for a data stamp and that is ISO 8601: YYYY-MM-DD
See also XKCD 1179
What suggestions would you have for teachers teaching in terms of the subject name, there are so many options that it would be overwhelming!
Thank you !!!!!!!!
Reverse date order makes a lot of sense and have been bulk renaming digital photo files for years using Metamorphose 2, which can use this system and also be customised to include camera and user data. For other individual documents such as invoices, bank statements etc, I use NameThatFile which also uses the reverse date order.
Great suggestion! I am a Mac guy though, so the software I like is a Better Finder Rename. If you mess up the names and want to fix them from the finder, this is the app to do it!
Great tips! Your file naming system can be adapted for lots of applications and I use something similar for my personal files and bookkeeping. Mine looks a little different though to save space and make it easier to read. Your example would become "2014-05-04_MartinSteve_MGP_0678.dng" . I use Pascal case for the descriptors, and then often use them as folder headings to organise my files .
I didn't know what Pascal case was; thank you for the introduction, I think it a great idea
That was helpful.
DNG is fine if you plan to stay in the Adobe universe; but if you plan on using something like Capture One, you should only work with the original RAW format from your camera. Capture One (among other software) can not work with DNG files. Also if you prefer to maintain camera-specific adjustments, you will lose them when converting to DNG.
What added naming conventions to YYYYMMDD would you suggest to plan for time-travel?
Instead of screengrabs
From the command prompt or terminal:
dir > drive.txt
dir /b drive.txt
ls -l -s -h > drive.txt
ls -lsh > drive.txt
01:50 ótimo formato de nome.
For a catalog, on Windows, I would suggest instead of using a "screen shot", the command: tree.exe d: /f /a>archive_05.txt (assuming the archive drive is D: and it was drive #5, also the archive_05.txt file will be created in the directory the command prompt is executed in). This will produce a text file with an ASCII tree structure of the folders with the files listed in each folder. This catalog text file is easy to search so you can locate the media that holds the file you are looking for. The only other things I would add is for the data I really don't want to lose, I also use an external parity program do if a file is damaged (and the second backup is lost or unavailable) there could be a shot of recovering it (usually PAR2 or DVDisaster). I also include the recovery programs on each piece of media so if the recovery program was damaged, all I need is an uncorrupted copy on another media. Other than that, this video gives solid advice.
That's actually pretty brilliant (just omit .exe as it will error in some command prompts)
I independantly came to the same conclusions for my own needs. I guess great minds think alike.. ;)
Me too.
The command prompt is useful for saving a list of all files on an external hard drive. Useful when you want to see a list of files for a drive that is not currently connected to your computer. The command is "Dir /s /on /a > C:Dir_Yellow_20180305.txt". You would change the drive name and date to something that is more appropriate for you. I wrote a small program to rename many pictures at once. If you have many pictures from a Jamaica trip, you might as well rename the whole batch at once. It retains the camera number you mentioned.
I do not believe this is a function on a Mac?
It's a Windows command.
If a Mac has Linux, there may be an equivalent command "ls". I've forgotten all of the ls options.
VirtualVolumeView is a free open source altwrnative to screenshots. It makes a searchable index that's super fast and lightweight. You can index all your harddrives in one catalog such that searching for a filename will then tell you what hard drive it can be found in
good syggestions. for super fast offline file search use free locate32 program (for windows) does not hoard resources and you can use one central db on a network drive
Dear Michaell, Please tell me setting of your dslr camera while shotting this video. It is wonderfull. Tell me some tips while making videos. Thanking you in anticipation
It seems that naming with respect to TIME is a UNIQUE identifier. You COULD name it down to the second; but date seems good enough. The reason it is UNIQUE; is that the TIME for a day only allows so many photos to be taken or named during that time by one person. Therefore, you limit the POSSIBLE identifiers; and eliminate most of the headache with respect to having to come up with a unique identifier.
It would be interesting to try and consider OTHER categories that would be unique like that. I don't know if there ARE any; but it would be a good exercise, nonetheless.
The DATE also has MEANING to ANYONE who views the file name. Just NUMBERS or just LETTERS do not necessarily have the SAME MEANING. Therefore, using the date creates a UNIVERSAL standard by which people can quickly retrieve a file. You just have to keep in mind that some people think write out and think of dates in a various orders. If you are sharing these files; then you must let the people know that your FORMAT for the date is YYYY, MM, DD.
I read a lot of comments, going straight down the page, to get a sense of the arguments for and against this system. I like the fact, that by naming by date FIRST... you set up the files to be stored in a logical order; and circumvent other systems from possibly changing things around (such as removing the date metadata, or modifying or copying it incorrectly).
The other point I like is that, a file should be able to be retrieved NO MATTER THE NAMING SYSTEM OF THE FOLDERS. It should be able to stand alone OUTSIDE of the idea of being in the 'right' folder.
I will definitely begin adding this to the way I name my files.
Thanks so much. Much respect to your 30-40 years of professional experience.
Hi David, The idea is that you create a system that works for you and stick to it for consistency. I only do one shoot a day for the most part, so the date, without time works. If you are doing multiple shoots, I would devise a system that might incorporate the hour, on a 24 hour clock, into the file name. It must be 2 digits. This way the folders and files all stay in the chronological order. The time has to go after the date like so: 2018010113, the 13 being One O'Clock.
Genius
You need a document management software. The filenames then become irrelevant (though you can still use the same convention). The software stores the metadata and has a database to catalog it. So all the sorting and searching is done off the metadata stored in the database. You don't have to worry about dates getting corrupted by copying files or other things because the info is archived in the database.
The files themselves can be stored on any disk added to the software because the location is managed by the software.
Such software also usually has version control, keeping a history of changes to a file. It can often store thumbnails, and even a small viewable version, jpg for instance, that is associated to the primary file so that you have a quick way to preview it. They usually manage security too in a more advanced way than the OS.
How are you archiving and backing up these disks? If you take a disk out of a machine and leave it for years, it may not work when you put it back in. The bearings of the spindle creep over time, and eventually that causes failure. A spinning disk does not have that problem, but may fail due to wear. In either case you need backups for disk failure and for data corruption protection. What if you get a virus that destroys the data. Having the disks offline protects against viruses, but not corruption and disk failure. A proper backup method should protect against viruses and disk failure.
I've used YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-MMM on multimedia filenames since 1997! (retroactively too) I also use metadata extensively. On that note, I really miss picasa. Lightroom is simply not as powerful with face libraries or address-book synchronization. Do you know of anything as good as the defunct Picasa?
Since i moved i IOS my files are a mess. First i do set up a good file folder title but first when i try to save a file itr wont let me file where i want ot i cannot ge to the file , so i have to remember to move files to their folder.
I'm in the U.S., and our calendar date method never made logical sense to me, even as a child. From when we are born on until we die, we think of time, so we are conscious of the year being the most significant, but due to dealing with more current and recent thoughts, we put month first, and end with the year. Unfortunately that is not likely to change soon, but at least think of using a more logical method for recording history.
In the 1960s, I numbered my 35-mm film rolls by YYYY-MM-DD-RR-Location/Event/Subject, the RR being a two digit roll number, figuring I would never shoot more than 100 rolls in one day. It helped me keep a sorted track record. For any image, I could estimate the year and period, thus quickly zero in on the roll that contained a particular image.
Some people may ask, what if you do not shoot an entire roll? I remember the Nikon School of Photography instructors telling us how the typical camera owner used a roll of film; shooting some Easter scenes, some more on Mother's Day, trying some Fourth of July fireworks, Halloween costumes, and ending up with some Christmas shots, then rushing the roll to the local processor asking, "How soon can I get the pictures back?"
My numbering method works for me because I generally shot several rolls on a subject, and never had a roll that lasted for more than one day.
Today, I still use YYYY-MM-DD in anything I need to sort by date because it is the least confusing to anyone attempting to determine if the other numbers are the month of the day of the month. It is no wonder that it became the ISO standard. It is still odd to me that I receive files from others where the year is last, as if they never thought about keeping track of multiple years of data in a sensible sorted way.
I think it is a good idea this is in a video. I have found that it can be "a touchy subject" trying to suggest putting the year first. It is as if you are insulting their intelligence. In those cases, step back. They can become so against the idea that they will defend month first forever.
Thanks Michael. I am about to embark on a massive renaming project.
Important to have a good file name convention.
I'm hoping this brings up some good ideas, conversations and helps me and others come up with a good method. Or those that might not be doing this or have thought about it, but haven't implemented.
Elements of the name:
Date: YYYYMMDD seems to be widely recommended. Looks clean and commonly understood.
Subject: Keep it simple and descriptive. Makes sense a year later or if file is misplaced. Helpful if another person can also decipher what it might be.
Sequence:
1. HHMMSS seems to be an easy to use format. A DNA of the photo. Strait out of the camera (EXIF), can use multiple cards, don't have to reset sequence when importing. If your OCD, don't worry about number sequence, especially if some are deleted. What I don't like so much is 6 spaces long... and if there is a burst shot in there 7 spaces long.
2. Numbers can work if you have a small number of shots. Slight chance that I'm going to take (keep) more than 100 photos on 20180213, so a 3 digit (4 if I need) sequence number would work, half the number of HHMMSS.
Someone mentioned the importance of underscore versus hyphen. Good info.
Arrangements that I have kind of settled on. What do you like?
20171130Test152114.JPG
20171130_Test_152114.JPG
20171130Test001.JPG
20171130_Test_001.JPG
Test20171130_001.JPG
Test_20171130_001.JPG
Test_20171130_152114.JPG
The problem with the date first is the subject gets truncated (...) by most file managers and I have spread open the file path to see the name, not good for quick viewing.
Name first is easiest for quick viewing when rifling through the file managers.
Looking through my photos, I tend to put the subject first. I also tend to name folders with a subject then sub-folders can have a date.
BTW: Tagging/key wording is another thing I do after/while filing.
Subject first could make sorting by date harder if you are solely relying on the filename for sorting.
I would definitely include a delimiter character such as _ between subject and date though. Imagine if your project name actually included a year; it could make it harder to differentiate between the subject and the actual date. e.g. NYE2017_20171231 vs NYE201720171231.
Not sure what I would rely on for sorting. I think my folder structure would be more helpful for date sorting. Having a - between date and subject will def be implemented. I see the importance to that. Is a underscore more important/useful than a dash?
Well, consider the case that Merriam-Webster is your client. Using an underscore rather than a hyphen/dash would prevent it messing up your separation. :) Underscores are far less common in every day written language than hyphens/dashes.
While the separation might remain clear enough to your human eye, having a fixed naming scheme that isn't messed up by data including your delimiter character, would make things far easier should you at some point want to implement a automated system that relies on getting the data from your filenames.
Good points. OK, so having experimented endlessly, I have come to the conclusion that I prefer text-date-##.
I am visual in the sense I want to first see what the pic is about... then date for filing reasons and a 2 digit number.
I can not see shooting (keeping) more than 99 pics of the same subject on the same date... when that actually starts to happen frequently then I'll change to 3 digits.
Getting a camera and taking pictures has opened my eyes to just how FU my current filing program is. I've spent hours finding pics and putting them in a folder, checking for duplicates, filing in some sort of order and then renaming them.... while doing all of that, I have also realized just how stupid of the pic are...I've deleted over 25%. Out of focus, bad light, zero composition, no real subject... just lame... hahaha. Now I do the deleting after importing and before renaming.
Anyway, thanks to all.
YYMMDD is plenty enough. I began file naming in the 1980's (84xxxx). I don't think I'll be around in 2085 (85xxxx). :-)
What 35mm film SLR's are they on the shelf behind Michael? Great advice by the way, will be adopting this method, thanks!
It's an old Nikon F, the standard of the Vietnam era photo journalist!
I use AutoHotKey to insert a date like 2018-03-20. It's very helpful!