file naming suggestions

File Naming Suggestions

For ease of handling, these file naming suggestions will help avoid workflow and production delays.

The first issue to address is the file name length. Ideally, limit digital image file names to no more than 24 characters.

There are several reasons for this; for one thing, prints made on our Noritsu 32 digital photographic printer, include back printing of your order number, file names, and other data, but each line of text is limited to 24 characters.

Photos with longer file names will be truncated and the back printing may become useless for image identification.

In addition, the workstation software will only display the first 24 characters of the file name, making it nearly impossible to identify the file with longer designations.

Since shorter names are preferable, don’t add complete text of the event name and date to every file. Detailed information should be incorporated in the event folder name where the images reside.

It is helpful to prevent complex filename paths, so create a folder in the root directory of your computer and label it something like “Digital Photos”.

This will help you identify the location of your image files and you can easily create a shortcut on your desktop for easy access to your files.

When you want to save new images, you simply create a new sub-folder for each event WITHIN your main “Digital Photos” directory. Place the new images inside this new event folder and the result will be significantly shorter path/filenames for each image.

This will greatly simplify assembling orders and will neatly organize all of your events, and make it easier to locate files if your computer is connected to a network.

Avoid any of the following characters when naming files:   / ? : * . ! @ # $ % ^ & ” ‘ , |

Don’t include any characters in a file name EXCEPT alphabetical or numerical characters with either a “dash“ (–) or “underscore“ ( _ ).

The use of these characters in a file name might cause problems with our printing software and produce unexpected results.

A filename can not contain more than a single period (.) in the file name. Computer systems interpret any characters that follow a period to be a file extension type.

Written by Dave Smith