Adding a sequence number - when necessary - on ingest

[fhammond]

Hi,

It's been several years since I've used Photo Mechanic so apologies if this question is basic. (I did do a search in the forum for an answer but didn't find anything.)

I rename files on ingest using a date_time format, like this: 20170520_10-31-43.CR2. I'd like to add a sequence number but only when required. That is, only when there is more than one photo with the same hour, minute and second capture time. So, I'd have file names like this:

20170520_10-31-43.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_01.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_02.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_03.CR2
20170520_10-25-13.CR2

I don't want to use sub-second because I'm not sure all the cameras I use support it and because I'd like to keep the file names as short as possible.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Kirk Baker]

Hi,

It's been several years since I've used Photo Mechanic so apologies if this question is basic. (I did do a search in the forum for an answer but didn't find anything.)

I rename files on ingest using a date_time format, like this: 20170520_10-31-43.CR2. I'd like to add a sequence number but only when required. That is, only when there is more than one photo with the same hour, minute and second capture time. So, I'd have file names like this:

20170520_10-31-43.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_01.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_02.CR2
20170520_10-33-22_03.CR2
20170520_10-25-13.CR2

I don't want to use sub-second because I'm not sure all the cameras I use support it and because I'd like to keep the file names as short as possible.

Any suggestions?

There is no way to do that exactly in PM.  The closest you can get is to set the "Renaming resolution" to add digits when needed.  See:

http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php/User_Manual_Flat_View#Files_Preferences

Renaming resolution: Set options for what Photo Mechanic should do when it tries to save a file to a folder and there is an identically named file already present at the destination. This policy applies to all renaming operations. You can choose to append a letter, or a single or double digit number, when needed. The best option here is probably ‘Append Digits when needed (01,02 etc.)’. This option makes it easy to see at a glance when there were two files with the same name since the new file name will be longer and easy to spot.

Your resolved filenames won't have an additional '_' before the digits.

-Kirk

[fhammond]

Oh, that's too bad! Could you add my post as a feature request? The renaming resolution option seemed to be the answer but I think the inability to add a separator character before the number stops that from working.

Thanks for getting back to me.