Best Practice for file downloading and avoiding duplicate filenames?

I just got my camera and everytime I download the pictures to my pc I have duplicate filenames. Is there a way you can setup the camera to have unique filenames. Each time after I've downloaded the pics from my camera I DO erase them from the smartmedia card. I'm downloading them with Camedia and storing them in a Camedia Album.

Looking for suggestions on practices or ways to handles this...

Thanks,
Triton

Hi...you should be able to have your camera use continuous numbering. In my camera the C3020Z, click the OK button to bring up a picture on the LCD, click on 'mode menu', then go down to 'settings' press> into settings, and at the top of the menu is "All Reset"...click that to 'off'. That will enable the camera to continue the number of the photo no matter if you change cards, delete photos, etc. If you have "All reset" set to 'on', it will begin the numbering over again and again. If it's set of 'off' the numbers just keep on counting.

And another tip....don't just erase them from your smartmedia card...'format' the card....this cleans out the card better...at least that's what I have learned here on the forum.

Good luck & Welcome!

Please don't take offense, but even after a year I am still learning new things with my camera....and I read and re-reread my manual often. And I printed out my manual from the CD....really helpful.
--
Lucy
Olympus C3-2-Z
pbase supporter http://www.pbase.com/lucy

I suggest you get a card reader (~$40) instead of downloading from the camera. It is easier, you can use other software to read the files (like JASC Aftershot), and easily place them in any directory.

As Lucy said, your camera should have an option to set the images names sequentially even if you remove the card or format it.

What kind of camera do you have? Someone in the forum probably has the same one and can give you the exact steps to set this up.

--
LeeTee
C2100, C-180, Metz 34CS-2, MAHA MH-C204F, Fotoshow
Why does work have to get in the way of Life?

Hi Bill, I've made the habit of putting the date of the images in the file names and renaming them with a name that means something to me right after downloading into Camedia or any software. I use Camedia 2.5, and 4.0 can't be too different. Click on the folder in the folder tree window on the left side of the screen in Camedia to open it and display all the thumbnails in the Index View Window on the right side of the screen. Click on Edit> Select All, then File> Rename All and you get a dialog box to do this. If I took some pics today,eg, I would rename them to: 012303 Volcano Trip (for Jan 23, 2003). Then, go down to "Digits" and put 2 if there's less than 100 pics, or 3 if there's over 100, then ckick OK. Since each file name will now start with a numerical date, all the thumbnails in each folder will display in chronological order as you keep adding to the folder. Two years from now, if you want to find the pics from the Volcano Trip in Hawaii, you'll know where to look since you know about when you came. Believe me, if you don't have a system like this to organize your images, it WILL become difficult to find them years from now. After you get used to it, it doesn't take long at all. Aloha, Jeff.

TritonBill said:

I just got my camera and everytime I download the pictures to my pc
I have duplicate filenames...

Click to expand...

I have the Olympus C-4000 Zoom and have the ALL RESET set to OFF. Everytime i delete the pictures or format the card it starts the picture number back to square one. In my case it resets it to 100-0001 everytime.

What could cause this?

Lucy said:

Hi...you should be able to have your camera use continuous
numbering. In my camera the C3020Z, click the OK button to bring
up a picture on the LCD, click on 'mode menu', then go down to
'settings' press> into settings, and at the top of the menu is "All
Reset"...click that to 'off'. That will enable the camera to
continue the number of the photo no matter if you change cards,
delete photos, etc. If you have "All reset" set to 'on', it will
begin the numbering over again and again. If it's set of 'off' the
numbers just keep on counting.

And another tip....don't just erase them from your smartmedia
card...'format' the card....this cleans out the card better...at
least that's what I have learned here on the forum.

Good luck & Welcome!

Please don't take offense, but even after a year I am still
learning new things with my camera....and I read and re-reread my
manual often. And I printed out my manual from the CD....really
helpful.
--
Lucy
Olympus C3-2-Z
pbase supporter http://www.pbase.com/lucy

Click to expand...

Olympus C4000Zoom

I have ALL RESET set to OFF and it still resets the file number everytime.

LeeTee said:

I suggest you get a card reader (~$40) instead of downloading from
the camera. It is easier, you can use other software to read the
files (like JASC Aftershot), and easily place them in any directory.

As Lucy said, your camera should have an option to set the images
names sequentially even if you remove the card or format it.

What kind of camera do you have? Someone in the forum probably has
the same one and can give you the exact steps to set this up.

--
LeeTee
C2100, C-180, Metz 34CS-2, MAHA MH-C204F, Fotoshow
Why does work have to get in the way of Life?

Click to expand...

You need to switch the file naming process to AUTO instead of Reset. That way, each time you take pictures it bases it on the date and the number of pictures you take. Check out my signature and the calendar page that I have. I take a good 50-100 pictures each day and never have an issue.

d

TritonBill said:

I just got my camera and everytime I download the pictures to my pc
I have duplicate filenames. Is there a way you can setup the
camera to have unique filenames. Each time after I've downloaded
the pics from my camera I DO erase them from the smartmedia card.
I'm downloading them with Camedia and storing them in a Camedia
Album.

Looking for suggestions on practices or ways to handles this...

Thanks,
Triton

Click to expand...

--
http://www.daryl.com/2002 - photo calendar
http://www.pbase.com/daryl - pbase supporter

C-FiftyFifty

Thanks Daryl, that was exactly it!!!

daryl.com said:

d

TritonBill said:

I just got my camera and everytime I download the pictures to my pc
I have duplicate filenames. Is there a way you can setup the
camera to have unique filenames. Each time after I've downloaded
the pics from my camera I DO erase them from the smartmedia card.
I'm downloading them with Camedia and storing them in a Camedia
Album.

Looking for suggestions on practices or ways to handles this...

Thanks,
Triton

Click to expand...

--
http://www.daryl.com/2002 - photo calendar
http://www.pbase.com/daryl - pbase supporter

C-FiftyFifty

Click to expand...

TritonBill said:

Thanks Daryl, that was exactly it!!!

Click to expand...

No problem. Now lets see the pictures.

TritonBill said:

daryl.com said:

You need to switch the file naming process to AUTO instead of
Reset. That way, each time you take pictures it bases it on the
date and the number of pictures you take. Check out my signature
and the calendar page that I have. I take a good 50-100 pictures
each day and never have an issue.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
http://www.daryl.com/2002 - photo calendar
http://www.pbase.com/daryl - pbase supporter

C-FiftyFifty

There are lots of ways to skin this cat, of course, but I like to name my files with the date and time of exposure down to 1 sec resolution and organize them into topical folders on my hard drive and archival media. PIE shareware from http://www.picmeta.com will do the renaming automatically on the fly as it moves images from your memory cards to your computer. You can easily record the dates of important events and shoots in a simple spreadsheet database and use your operating system file finder to locate all the images from any given date, no matter where you've actually stored them.

Alternatively, you can organize your images into a month and year hierarchy of folders using camera-generated names. You can then construct topical virtual galleries (collections of thumbnails acting as file pointers) in ThumbsPlus (www.cerious.com) or equivalent image management software.

CD-R archiving is simpler with the latter approach, but I find image retreival easier with the former method.
--
Jeremy McCreary
Chief cook and bottle washer,
http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/