Arrangement of pictures

[fromatoz]

Hi -

I am new to this forum and would like to know, how you handle this simple procedere:

- Have a collection of, let's say 100 pics, numbered from 001 to 100.

- Want to arrange them for a slideshow, that means that all of them are visible (in a kind of photo album) and that I can change their order freely to bring them in a new order (something like 004, 017, 099, 005 etc.)

- Want then to rename the pics automatically in the new order (004 > 001, 017 > 002, 099 > 003, 005 > 004 etc.)

For the moment I use "Ulead PhotoImpact Album 8" to arrange the pics. (It works well)

Then, because there is no feature to automatically rename the newly arranged pics, I write down the new filenames and change them all manually. (I feel very, very stupid.)

Until now I could not find a better / faster / simpler solution, and P2Exe doesn't seem to have this kind of feature either. But I'm sure that there must be a way to get the job done with a few clicks.

Any hints? Your suggestions will be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[JRR]

ThumbsPlus, a software available via the web can do most of what you ask very smoothly, except the numbering automatically. You have to re-number each one individually.

Irfanview, a free download, might be able to help you with the auto-renumbering, but maybe not as I expect it would re-number in the same sequence as the existing.

BUT, and this time it is a GOOD "but" , Alrobin is working on a beta EXCEL program that is specifically designed to work with PTE that has a "dark table" that takes the images within a PTE show, lets you re-sequence your images without changing their names, then drops them back into your PTE show in the new sequence.

See Alrobin's post of Feb 23 at 4:42pm (EST) the one with the red heart next to it.

[fromatoz]

Thank you, JRR, for your hints.

As you say, IrfanView can rename files automatically and even change the order of the files, but since I cannot view the image thumbs simultaneously like on a "light table" (or "dark table"), it doesn't really help.

Right after posting here I saw Alrobins post and checked his utility out. Exactly the thing I am looking for! Alrobin, please keep on developing this "dark table" feature. Very convenient. I wonder why there are no simliar, handy utilities available. To be honest: Just a list of image files as you have in PTE isn't helpful at all for the re-organisation and re-naming of a bunch of images. How do PTE users usually get around this - very basic - problem?

Anyway - thank you again for your help.

[alrobin]

Thanks, Fromatoz! And thanks, Jim, for the plug.

I was beginning to wonder whether anyone was finding the latest addition useful. Glad you appreciate it!

I will be taking a little holiday away from programming for a while, but hope to get back to working on it and adding more features in April. Let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see.

[Grant]

Hi,

I am currently using ULEAD PhotoExplorer 7.0, and it does what you are looking for. It shows thumbnails in a pane, and you can drag them around to order them. Then you either select all, or a subset of the thumbnails, run the rename wizard, and presto, they're all renamed. Alrobin's solution sounds very nice. I like the way it seems to integrate to PTE files. I currently don't have Excel (I use Lotus Smartsuite) so I unfortunately can't try it out.

Grant

[fromatoz]

Oh, that sounds nice, Grant.

Thank you!