Image name randomizing.

[bass_junkie83]

I have a little problem that is puzzling me.

Imaine the scenario, you have a whole batch of shots from an event in which there are some similar shots that feature the same people that were taken one after another. You want to use them all, but want them spread out amongst the set rather than bunched together.
But when they are uploaded to an online gallery they go up in alphanumeric order so due to the numbering system of the files those similar shots do go up togeter.

So, does anyone know of, or can think of a way to randomize the file names. Maybe a way to re-order them so that i can then re-name them so that the new order is random?

 

[EOS_JD]

What software are you using?

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

This is the way I would do it on my machine....

In the image folder ...View/arrange items by/auto arrange/

Then simply move the images into the order you want.

Then highlight all the images.

The go to the first highlighted image …right click/rename/ (keep the same end file name)

Name it whatever (say 'Blue.jpg')... then done.

The images will then all be renamed and re-ordered

Blue(1).jpg
Blue(2).jpg
etc..

Perhaps test that first on some copies, I don't want to be responsible for you messing up your files.

 

[Scarecrow]

Have you tried sorting them by filesize rather than by name? That might randomise them a bit.

 

[chris321]

Have you tried sorting them by filesize rather than by name? That might randomise them a bit.

That's a pretty good idea. Click arrange by > size. Then select them all, and rename them to the same name (e.g. "photo"). Then they'll be "photo (1)", "photo (2)" etc, but in order of size, not when they were taken.

 

[KC Leblanc]

EDITED AGAIN, it's late and I didn't read the previous posts very carefully.

Here's a few other methods.

Irfanview will let you batch rename and include the file size in the file name. So that might do the job.

http://www.irfanview.com/

Or I've found an even easier solution, if you're feeling a bit geeky and know how to use windows command line.

Click start > run.

type in CMD and press enter.

You should get a little window pop up that looks like an old computer screen.

type cd\[whatever folder you're after] e.g. cd\"Documents and Settings\Me\My Documents\My Pictures\" (you can copy and paste this from windows explorer) followed by enter

type dir and enter to list what's in the folder (make sure it's the right folder because you won't be able to reserse the effects of this)

finally rename all the files by typing ren *.jpg %random%*.jpg

 

[bass_junkie83]

This is the way I would do it on my machine....

In the image folder ...View/arrange items by/auto arrange/

Then simply move the images into the order you want.

Then highlight all the images.

The go to the first highlighted image …right click/rename/ (keep the same end file name)

Name it whatever (say 'Blue.jpg')... then done.

The images will then all be renamed and re-ordered

Blue(1).jpg
Blue(2).jpg
etc..

Perhaps test that first on some copies, I don't want to be responsible for you messing up your files.

Awesome, that works perfectly.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Karlos]

think there's a program called renamer.exe that might do this, not tried it myself though