Renaming images edited in Photoshop

[banksiagirl]

Hi, I'm getting myself in a mess and cluttering up my drive with multiple copies because I don't have a consistent renaming convention. I've just been using the default file name-edited.psd from lightroom. Then making a copy to flatten. Any suggestions ? Thanks, Mary

 

[Packhorse-4]

Part of my reply may depend on how you are "Round Tripping" your image from Lightroom to Photoshop and back into Lightroom.

I use the "Edit in" dialogue box (found in the Photo menu) to send an image to Photoshop. When I'm done editing the image I just hit save (as a PSD) and close Photoshop. I don't flatten the image because I may want to adjust a layer at some point in the future. Lightroom will read the PSD document so you can export or print from that edited PSD file.

I think the default setting is to send the image to photoshop as a TIFF. The TIFF format has it's advantages, but I find the PSD format works for my needs.

If you just want to rename your image files to something more informative than FileName-Edit, FileName-Edit1, FileName-Edit2... You can use the Library Module (Grid or Loupe views) and go into the Metadata section to change the File Name. You could change the file name outside of Lightroom as well, but then Lightroom would not see the image. Lightroom will help you find it by clicking on the question mark that pops up on images Lightroom can't find. It's just easier to make file name changes in Lightroom.

 

[Tony Jay]

Hi Mary.

There is no one magic-bullet answer here but I can give you plenty of food for thought.

How to rename your images depends a lot on your workflow and the eventual destination of your images.
I am assuming that the baseline name of images is a well thought out meaningful one.
If so, then one does not want to do any name changes that will remove that meaning.

The next clue to renaming is to ask - 'What are you doing in Photoshop?' and 'What is the purpose of the editing in Photoshop?'.
Is it rare for you to edit in Photoshop or very common?
Either way I guess it should be possible to come up with small, two to three letter standardized and unambiguous suffixes that explain what you did in Photoshop.
So if 20130425_rivergum_0004.cr2 was roundtripped through PS for creative sharpening purposes perhaps the csh could be appended ot he name like this: 20130425_rivergum_csh_0004.PSD.

Filenaming is a very dynamic and creative part of one's workflow that when applied appropriately can be a big help in one's workflow.
It should also be noted that another approach could be to use keywords to describe what you have done in PS, some people use both because they like using Smart collections.

Perhaps, on reflection, more issues occur to you which require clarification so don't hesitate to post follow-up questions.

Tony Jay

 

[neilvonhof]

My workflow:
1) Import RAW files directly into LR from card reader - location is: Photo Library/Images/2013 and then a subfolder with 4 digit number for month & day then a brief description (like 0101 -John & Mary Wedding). This path can be set up on any drive. I use a drive other than the C:\ drive
2) Process the photo in LR to my liking
3) Right click and select "Import". In the Import Dialog I create a subfolder under 0101 and name it PSD. I select that the photo is to be opened as a PSD file and be opened in PS6. Make sure that you save it to the newly created location in subfolder PSD (If you are doing a lot of photos in the 0101 folder you can save this as a preset. Give it a name like PSD John & Mary......or whatever you like)
4) this opens the file in PS6 and there I complete my adjustments, make sure it will be saved in the new PSD subfolder, select to delete it and then select to save it.
5) back in LR find the PSD file and right click on it and select "Import" again. Now create another subfolder under 0101 and name it JPEG. Select it to be saved in .jpg format, select the size you want (use the same number for both horizontal and vertical, like 1024 x 1024 or 1280 x 1280 and select "do nothing" under "Post-Processing". Again, make sure the destination is set to the new JPEG folder and again create this as a pre-set if you have a lot of photos to do in 0101. This makes a .jpg image suitable for email and preview etc.
If you really want to set this up, there are some details left out here and I'd be glad to help you with the whole process if you have questions.
This is something I created that gives me the images I want to have available for use any time. There are nearly an infinite number of ways to accomplish the same thing. If anyone reads this and has better ideas I'd love to hear them.
HTH - Neil