I see the step in Automator, but can’t get the action to work.
My parent’s digital camera likes to start the file name over and over again. As an example, he has 134 DSC00001.JPG’s in his computer. iPhoto doesn’t seem to mind, but he wants to archive them to disc, and the CD/DVD always gives him an error, because of these repetitive file names.
I am attempting to use the actions in Automator to take the iPhoto Library and add a _1 and up to the existing file names… any thoughts/help/insight? Appreciated.
Justin
Justin:
That sort of access is not allowed in iPhoto. When you change the root name of a file in the iPhoto tree, it messes up the whole XML tag and creates LARGE holes in the iPhoto system.
You have two choices for archiving:
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Use the built in iPhoto Share Menu, and you will get a disc with all the images, still readable by iPhoto. I typically make 2 discs before I delete the library.
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Use my nifty script, available her at ScriptBuilders: http://scriptbuilders.net/files/onehouriphoto0.1.html. With this utility, you can make an iPhoto album of your most near and dear photos, and burn a CD or DVD with just those images, all with unique filenames.
I believe it will work on a huge number of images, but I admit that I have never tried it with more than 100. If you use it and get a timeout error, please contact me immediately and I will fix it.
Good Luck,
you could also use a more robust image cataloging program like iView Media Pro. It will leave your orignal images in their place, but it has a really nice image rename feature with many viariables, like date, text strings, sequential numbering, etc.