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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Don't let 3896D439U get you down! Give your photos real names


March 11, 2001


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2001, The Syracuse Newspapers

   Collecting all the entries for the Stars - Technofile Digital Photo Contest was (if you'll pardon the play on words) an eye-opener for me. I was amazed at the quality of the photographs. But I was disappointed to see that about a third of the entries weren't named in any helpful way.
   Many entries had numbers instead of names. This seemed quite odd, because none of us would forget to name something important to us. Heck, I even knew a guy who gave names to his car and his hunting rifle. And people give names to boats all the time.
   So why did dozens upon dozens of entries pour into the newspaper office without proper names? We got many photos that had numbers instead of names. apart from the obvious joke -- "Remember 107522? What a guy!" -- the real problem of dealing with contest entries with numeric names is that they didn't match what the contest entrants said they were supposed to be.
   "Here's a picture of my cat playing with a ball of yarn," somebody wrote. With the note came a picture of a cat and a ball of yarn. The name of the picture -- the filename of the actual digital photo -- was DI031497.
   This and the many other photos that came in with similar numbers in place of names gave me a clue. Apparently the software many of you use puts numbers on the pictures you take. It does that for you.
   I suppose it has to do that. After all, how would the camera or the software it comesa with distinguish between Picture 1 and Picture 15 if it didn't give them numbers?
   That's understandable. But that's also where your job comes in. You're supposed to rename the pictures that you want to save. You're supposed to give them names that make sense to humans. (I often point out that computers are dumb and people are smart, and I couldn't find a better example than the manner in which pictures are named. When you take a picture that's obviously a shot of a sunset, how come the computer doesn't call it "SUNSET"? It thinks a perfectly good name is "298106" or something equally inane.)
   So to rescue things, you have to give your pictures sensible names. Don't stick with the ones that the dumb computer (or even dumber camera) gives you.
   How do you do that?
   Ah, I'll bet you could see this coming. The answer is, "It all depends." The software you use with your digital camera probably gives you a way to rename your photos. If so, don't do it any other way. If you do it right there in the program that extracts the pictures from your camera, you're undoubtedly able to see the pictures while you rename them. That way you can make sure the names match the photos.
   But what should you do if you already have a lot of photos with crazy names stored in a folder somewhere? Don't put off renaming them with sensible names. As time passes, you're less likely to remember what each picture is all about.
   Your image-viewing software should solve the problem for you. If it's good software, it will give you a simple way of renaming your images. You should be able to click your mouse button on a thumbnail view (tiny image) of a picture and rename it that way or from a menu after the picture is selected.
   If you're wondering what I mean by "image-viewing software," you probably haven't been introduced yet to any of the good image viewers I've written about. You'll find articles about image viewers and specific recommendations on the Technofile Web site, www.twcny.rr.com/technofile.
   An image viewer is not the same as a photo editor or image editor. It's a small program that displays images quickly. The best -- ACDSee, available for both Windows and Macintosh computers, and Irfan View, a Windows-only program -- also let you view thumbnails, crop images and correct them in minor ways.
   And, of course, they also give you a quick way to rename your pictures while you are viewing them. if you don't have ACDSee or Irfan View, don't waste any more time. Go get one or the other.