FileName Rules for Importing Photos

[larrymcg]

I've edited on my PC several hundred photos and have copied them to an SD card so I can import them to the Photos app. Almost all of the edited photo filenames have an underscore in them, or a dash, or a space, or.....

When I plug the SD card into the adapter only the photos with an original name as created by the camera (e.g., P1060003.JPG or P1060003.jpg) show up.
Even simple names like ABC.jpg are ignored.

What are the rules for photo file names for importing into the Photos app?

--Larry

Using iPad2 with latest iOS (6.something)

 

[larrymcg]

Interesting -- around 200 views but no reply. Wonder what that means??

I've noticed that I can put photos with any kind of name on Dropbox and then, on the iPad, export to the Photos app. Works fine. So this issue doesn't really have to do with what kind of file names the Photo app will accept. It seems to have to do with importing from an SD card. I guess the import function assumes that an SD card must have come from a camera and so why would there be any names other than those a camera would create. Pretty limited thinking on the designers of that function, IMHO.

--Larry

 

[giradman]

Hi Larry - welcome to the forum! As you can imagine w/ a world-wide group of this size, that a post will often get PLENTY of views and much fewer responses.

But regarding your initial question on naming all of those photos on your computer and then hoping that the native Photo App on the iPad would import, alphabetize, and show the names of your efforts did not work as expected - sorry! The app is quite limited and the import features from a SD card are similarly lame. The CCK (Camera Connection Kit) for the iPad will accept an SD camera card but will only export from a DCIM folder w/ an appropriate name (depending on the brand of camera), e.g. the last image from my Panasonic Lumix was named P1010318.JPG by my DC - now if I wanted to place images from my computer onto the camera's SD card, I would need to rename the images w/ that format (and of course increase the end of the number) and place them in the DCIM folder, and I've done that but it's a PITA!

Now if you want to manipulate the names of your images on the iPad once imported, synced from iTunes, are sent via the cloud, you will need an app that will permit this renaming process, an example is Photo-Sort which is on my iPad 2 - others may exist. There are plenty of threads in the forum that discuss imaging and iPad photo apps, so some searching might help to address your more specific issues. Finally, I would also suggest to future posters that are just getting into imaging editing & sorting on the iPad to come here FIRST and ask your questions before spending a LOT of time on a computer hoping that your valuable time & work will easily transfer over to the iDevice - usually doesn't happen that way! Dave

 

[larrymcg]

Thanks for the info Dave. I did discover (via experimentation) that the photos had to be in special folders (e.g., DCIM). I had the camera format the SD card and then I copied photos from the PC to the DCIM folder. I'm connecting the SD card via the Apple Camera Connection Kit. I find it interesting that the iPad will import those files but if I put the SD card back in the camera it does not see any of the files. However, if the files are written to the SD card by the camera, the camera sees them and the iPad will import them.

Since I do all my photo editing on the PC with Photoshop Elements, I found and used a very old PC app to rename the files before I copied them to the SD card. The PC app is CKRename. I especially liked it because it shows the original filenames in the folder in a left pane and shows what the filenames will be renamed to in a right pane. So you can fiddle with the renaming options until you get what you want. Very nice. CKRename does rename in place so I copied all the files of interest to a new folder before renaming them.

So now I think I know how to fairly efficiently get photo files from the land of Photoshop Elements to the land of iPad Photo app.

Cheers,
Larry

 

[The OB]

Gentlemen, this is a very informative thread which has filled a number of gaps. Thanks!
Andrew


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[giradman]

Thanks for the info Dave. I did discover (via experimentation) that the photos had to be in special folders (e.g., DCIM). I had the camera format the SD card and then I copied photos from the PC to the DCIM folder. I'm connecting the SD card via the Apple Camera Connection Kit. I find it interesting that the iPad will import those files but if I put the SD card back in the camera it does not see any of the files. However, if the files are written to the SD card by the camera, the camera sees them and the iPad will import them................

Hi Larry - yep, pretty much what I've done w/ the CCK since owning the iPad 2 - glad that you developed a system for doing photo transfer to (or from) the iPad. Another wireless option that I use is an inexpensive app called PhotoSync - takes a little learning curve to get the sync details down but renaming and placement on a SD card are eliminated. Keep your ideas coming - this has been a common question since I've joined the forum and I've left many posts in various threads. Dave