Can I sort the library by Folder-name.File-name?

[kloomnik]

My folders (corresponding to film rolls) are sorted alphabetically; say, A, B, C...

Within each folder the frames are sorted numerically; say 1, 2, 3, ...

Can I sort the entire library in the order A.1, A.2, A.3, .... B.1, B2, B3, ... C.1,C.2,C.3, ...

This would be the order in any print album.

Many thanks!

[GoldingD]

Not really, Alphanumeric sort order will be just like in your OS File Manager. 

Those frame numbers for example, think past one digit. say you have A1, A2,....A10, A11..  A19, A20...A100

sorting would come out

A1, A10, A11...A100, A2, A3

Now a fix to that is more than one digit for frame number, and allowing for leading zeros. That is A001, A002..A009, A010,,, A099, A100..

would show up as

 A001, A002, A003...A009, A010, A011...A099, A100..

Plan on more than 999 images, then 4 digits.

[GoldingD]

You might want to consider an alternate file name strategy. Their are many, one often used by pro landscape photographers is date centric

YYYMMDD_hhmmss

Date and time derived from capture date in image metadata.

[kloomnik]

Thanks.  

I have about 10,000 negatives/transparencies that I am scanning with a digital camera.  It's a bit late to change the file naming strategy.  

The folders correspond to rolls and they are indeed named like 1982_10_2 (second roll in October 1982).  The frames are numbered 1 to 36, and the LRC's sort by file name places 10 after 9.

Best would be to sort by the original capture time which is a field I provide manually.  A plugin that allows to sort by this field is what I need. 

[johnrellis]

For archival purposes, it's generally best to set the EXIF capture date (when the shutter was pressed). Then you can easily sort in LR and the capture date will be available to other apps and services.

You can set the capture date with LR's Metadata > Edit Capture Time, but that's inconvenient for scans. The Capture Time To Exif plug-in will let you set a batch of photos all to the same time or to sequentially incrementing times:

http://lightroomsolutions.com/plug-ins/capture-time-to-exif/

[kloomnik]

For my needs, the EXIF capture date is not meaningful, as it is the time the frame was scanned, not when the photo was actually taken.

[johnrellis]

"For my needs, the EXIF capture date is not meaningful, as it is the time the frame was scanned, not when the photo was actually taken."

Instead of entering the capture date manually in NLP's custom metadata field, you could use LR's Metadata > Edit Capture Time to set the EXIF capture date.  That will then allow you to use the sorting and filtering by capture date that's built-in to LR, and external apps and services will see that correct capture date (when the shutter was pressed).

[johnrellis]

"Can I sort the library by Folder-name.File-name?"

You could use the Sort command of the Any Filter plugin to sort first by folder name then by file name.

[kloomnik]

Thanks.

I checked out the plugin and it would have been be OK, except that among its many sort fields I don't see the metadata field that I am using to manually enter the original time when the photo was taken (a field added by NLP -- a plugin that I am using to scan negatives)

[johnrellis]

For reference by future readers, I emailed kloomnik how to tell Any Filter to search a plugin's custom metadata fields.

[kloomnik]

Perfect solution to my needs!  

And John Ellis (the plugin author) reponded immediately to my request for help.

Thanks!