If you look at the names of your digital photos that you’ve downloaded onto your computer, do they have names like IMG_009854.jpg or DCS_102313.jpg? With digitally assigned names like that, it’s no wonder it’s hard to find your wedding photos!
It is extremely helpful to give your digital photos descriptive names so you can use your computer’s search function to find them again. Don’t despair! I’m not telling you need need to individually rename each photo. No matter which type of computer you have there is a way to batch rename your picture files. Currently I use a Mac so I use a handy little program called NameChanger. When I used a PC, I simply highlighted the photos whose names I wanted to changed, right-clicked, selected Rename and entered the desired file name.
Now what to name them… I recommend that you come up with a photo naming “rule.” Here is mine - Date (Month-Year) Location Event. So the name of the picture below would be “6-2011 Perry Fathers Day”. However I have multiple pictures of this day so after the Event label, each picture is given a number. In this case “6-2011 Perry Fathers Day 02”. If you are batch renaming your photos, your software can easily do this for you.
If you want to go one step further, adjust the picture file name to name the people in the pictures. I find this very helpful for using my computer’s search function to find images of specific people. So again using the example above the full name of this picture is “6-2011 Perry Fathers Day 02 Lauren Troy Alex”. My personal rule is to only use first names and to only name family members and close friends.
You can make this process as simple or as complex as you want, but I guarantee you that in 20 years you will never figure out where IMG_45623 is but if you take a little time and rename your photos you will have a much easier time of it.
So how do you name your photos?
