Batch rename question

[Sigurdur_Jonsson]

Can one batch rename image files in Lightroom Classic with odd or even numbers only? Despite lots of rename options i couldn´t find a way to do that. Anyone?

[john beardsworth]

I don't think there's a way to do that in Lightroom or Bridge or any other program that I have seen. Why is it necessary?

[Sigurdur_Jonsson]

I am photographing a lot of medieval manuscripts on a copy stand. Thousands of pages. They are too delicate to open completely flat so they must be photographed all right hand side pages first followed by all left hand side pages and subsequently renamed in the right order. I dump all right hand side images into one collection and left hand ones into another collection. Batch renaming each collection seperately (odd and even numbers) before combining them would be ideal. Trying to organize everything in one collection is confusing as hell and time consuming when photographing the pages in this order.

[ManiacJoe]

Just throwing out ideas....

In this case since you have the odd and even grouped separately, it would seem that you can ignore the odd/even naming and just pick the appropriate starting number and use an increment of 2 instead of 1, assuming the software supports this.

[john beardsworth]

OK, I can understand the issue, but I don't think I can recall seeing this type of numbering. So why not just rename sequentially? Assuming the first page is on the right (blank left page), you would just know that odd numbers were on the right, even numbers on the left.

[Bob Somrak]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/john+beardsworth  wrote

OK, I can understand the issue, but I don't think I can recall seeing this type of numbering. So why not just rename sequentially? Assuming the first page is on the right (blank left page), you would just know that odd numbers were on the right, even numbers on the left.

To avoid complicated re-setups it sounds like to OP is taking ALL the right images in one session and ALL the left images in one session so you would have to do a hand sort to make it work.

[Bob Somrak]

On further thought you could do this

Create 2 rename templates

For left page

for right page

Do a rename on ALL the left pages using the top template and ALL the right pages using the second template.

Make sure you START both renames with sequence starting number as 1

These photos will then sort in the correct left/right alternating sequence you want.

[Sigurdur_Jonsson]

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll experiment and see if this will solve my dilemma. However having to shoot all right pages first before shooting all left pages and then renaming the page images in the correct sequence is only part of my renaming dilemma. The other part concerns the naming convention of manuscripts. The file names have to comply with the naming convention. Typically names start with sequential numbers (that's easy, once I've figured out an efficient way to sort the thumbnails in the right order), followed by a code for the particular manuscript in question (also easy) and finally a page identifier number with left/right designation. It's that last part that's problematic. Since all pages have two sides that last number in the file name must appear on two different images and have either a left or right designation. Something like this:

0001-manuscript code-001r

0002-manuscript code-001v

0003-manuscript code-002r

0004-manuscript code-002v

0005-manuscript code-003r

0006-manuscript code-003v

0007-manuscript code-004r

0008-manuscript code-004v . etc. etc.

Is there any way to batch rename the same number twice and alternating r or v designations? The r and v stand for recto and verso, latin for right and left.

[Bob Somrak]

In my first post #6 change the rename to the following replacing the 1 and 2 with r and v for the right and left

Sort by file name. (this will put them in the sequence you want)

Then rename again using the following

[barbara5FE9]

wonderful! that's exactly what I was looking for,

thank you @Bob Somrak !