Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: Stacking and Renaming Files
From the book
Stacking Files
Stacks simplify the Content panel view by grouping similar images (see Figure 5-80). For example, if you bracket the exposure of a scene, you can keep all of the bracketed frames in one stack by selecting the images and choosing Stack > Group as Stack or pressing Command-G (Mac) or Ctrl-G (Windows). You can expand or collapse a selected stack by clicking the number in the top-left corner of the stack that tells you how many files are in the stack. If you want a particular image to be at the top of a stack, open the stack, select an image, and choose Stack > Promote to Top of Stack.
)
Figure 5-80 These stacks are handheld panoramas that were automatically stacked by the Auto-Stack Panorama/HDR command.
Bridge can automatically gather certain types of similar files into stacks if you choose Stacks > Auto-Stack Panorama/HDR. Bridge figures out panoramas by analyzing scene information. It creates HDR stacks by analyzing the scene content and also the EXIF information in images to determine whether you have bracketed using exposure intervals typical of a series shot for later HDR processing.
Renaming Files
Bridge gives you three ways to rename a selected file:
- Click a filename and wait a moment.
- Right-click or Control-click (Mac OS X) a file and choose Rename from the context menu.
- Press F2.
After any of these, type the new name and then press Return or Enter.
Renaming Multiple Selected Files. Use the Batch Rename dialog (press Command-Shift-R in Mac OS X or Ctrl-Shift-R in Windows) to rename selected files and their filename extensions (see Figure 5-81).
)
Figure 5-81 The Batch Rename dialog. The cursor appears as a hand because it's over a region where dragging changes the order of the renaming options.
The "Preserve current filename in XMP Metadata" option adds a custom metadata tag containing the current filename. If you've already applied Camera Raw settings before renaming, you can skip this option because the Camera Raw metadata already contains the original filename. But if you're renaming otherwise untouched raw files and you want the original filenames to be retrievable, it's a good idea to turn on this option.
Bridge CS5 adds several very welcome enhancements:
- Save frequently used settings using the Presets options at the top.
- Find and replace a sequence of characters (what programmers call a "character string") using the awesome new String Substitution option in the first New Filename column.
- Rearrange the New Filename rows by dragging them.
- Spot potential file-renaming disasters before they happen by clicking the Preview button, so you can correct your settings before it's too late.