I recently started to build a proper archive after being inspired by The DAM Book. I'm currently using Picasa to do all tagging and was using a linux program called PyRenamer to rename all images into format YYMMDD-HHMMSS- ORIGINAL NAME.jpg. I was able to put in custom critieria in order to extract that information into the filename. Unfortunately, my laptop recently died and I can't find a windows equivalent to PyRenamer to use on my main box. Can anyone help with a program that might be able to do this?
THE Rename: http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therename.zip Works well, batch mode, fairly fast, configurable Free, author asks accepts donations.
Cant help you w/ what software might work (although I'm sure the listed ones can, there is also ImageIngester). Anyway, in my naming system, like yours, I did yymmdd_hhmm_originalframenumbers.jpg (ie. 090123_0912_1234.jpg (was DSC_1234.jpg)). I considered using the seconds but then realized it was a waste of 2 digits (the file has it captured anyway and the frame number will always disambiguate even if your shooting multiple frames per second as was keeping any alpha prefix (ie DSC_xxx) that the camera gave the file. so, in Lightroom (which creates folder structure & renames during import), I have vault -> 2009 -> 2009-01-23 -> 090123_0912_1234.jpg Easily sortable and I can get to every year, every day quickly and if I export a file, I know immediately where it belongs or where it came from. every element in the filename uniquifies the file from another w/ no wasted data.