At BrilliantPrints we are often sent images for printing on canvas that are a long string of numbers and letters. This is fine – until we try to talk to our customers about a particular digital print.

“I’m talking about DSC_9432…..no DSC_9345.”

It hasn’t happened yet…but there’s always the risk that some momentary confusion will end up with that photo you secretly hate (but put in to please your husband) being printed as a massive 3m canvas print!

This problem arises because most digital cameras will download the photos to your computer with a computer-tagged file-name.

In this article we will show you some quick and easy strategies to bulk-rename your digital camera images to make sure that your canvas printing experience is as painless as possible!

Rename in Windows Explorer

If you don’t come up against this problem too often – there is a simple 7 stage process you can use within Windows Explorer to rename your images.

1. Open up the folder that contains your photos in Windows Explorer.

2. Select View > Thumbnails

3. Press ctrl+A to select all

4. Right-click on the first file and select Rename

5. Type a name that generally described the photos and press enter

6. Every photo in the folder will be renamed in the following format – name (number)

7. If it doesn’t work the first time you might need to type in the file extension of the image – usually .jpg or .jpeg

While this is a quick and easy solution for most situations – you should remember that it probably won’t work if you are trying to rename 1000’s of files simultaneously.

Some free software solutions

If you need a little bit more control, or are likely to need to bulk rename photos on a fairly regular basis, than it is worth checking out some of the software programs available free on the internet.

The following options are just two of many, but should be more than sufficient for any of your needs.

Ant Renamer:

Check out “Ant Renamer” at: http://www.antp.be/software/renamer

Ant Renamer gives you great control over the renaming process. It has a full set of features that would be useful for anyone who need to do multiple renames. It’s only negative is that it requires a certain level of technical understanding as its user-interface isn’t as friendly as you might prefer.

The Rename Program

Check out “Rename Program” at http://www.nerdgeneration.com/info.php?item=200

 The “Rename Program” suffers from the same technical interface as the “Ant Renamer.” However, for a moderately experienced user – it should be something that you work out relatively quickly. This program would be most suited where you need to customise the name of your file to the greatest extent.

A final word:

The advantage of digital photography is that it allows you to take as many pictures as can fit on your card. This is great – until you are looking for a specific photo – and you are faced with a long afternoon wading through 100s of folders filled with files that are indecipherable numbers. Taking the extra time to rename your images can save you time in the long-run. Even better, it can help make sure that your canvas printing experience is as smooth as possible.