# Auto update sequence number for Lightroom



## jaayres20 (Jul 16, 2016)

This has been bugging me a lot lately. I shoot weddings and I edit 1200-1800 images per wedding. I like to split the wedding in sections (portraits, ceremony, reception, ect.....). After I edit each section I like to export that section so I don't have to wait and export and upload 1800 images all at once when I am finished. I used to use ACR and when I would save images, lets say 100 images from the portrait part of the wedding, and I would then save 250 more from the ceremony later, it would automatically update the start number from 1 to 101. In LR it keeps the start number the same as you left it last time so I have to go back and look at where I left off. I know it is not a huge deal, but it bothers me that it is such a convenient setting and I can't figure out how to make it work for LR. Any ideas?


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## pwp (Jul 16, 2016)

I use the star ranking function to filter different sets within a shoot. 

-pw


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## Valvebounce (Jul 16, 2016)

Hi jaayres. 
Having I got this straight, you want the first 100 to start at 1, the 250 batch to start at 101, the next batch to start at 351 etc?

Cheers, Graham. 




jaayres20 said:


> This has been bugging me a lot lately. I shoot weddings and I edit 1200-1800 images per wedding. I like to split the wedding in sections (portraits, ceremony, reception, ect.....). After I edit each section I like to export that section so I don't have to wait and export and upload 1800 images all at once when I am finished. I used to use ACR and when I would save images, lets say 100 images from the portrait part of the wedding, and I would then save 250 more from the ceremony later, it would automatically update the start number from 1 to 101. In LR it keeps the start number the same as you left it last time so I have to go back and look at where I left off. I know it is not a huge deal, but it bothers me that it is such a convenient setting and I can't figure out how to make it work for LR. Any ideas?


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## RGF (Jul 16, 2016)

Not exactly what you want, but you could number the images P001-p100 for portrait, C001-C250 for portrait.

I find numbering 001 vs 1 is helpful if I want to sort them.


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## mtam (Jul 16, 2016)

I too use the star function to sort photos within a shoot. It is not idea. Would be interested to see what other people do for this too.


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## JonAustin (Jul 16, 2016)

Since it appears from your question that you edit the images for a given wedding shoot in sections, and export each section separately, I can recommend a couple of approaches to do what I think you want. (I don't know what version of Lightroom you're using, nor if the steps below vary that much from version to version, but this is for v5.7.1, which I'm currently using.)

- In the Develop module, select the group / subset of edited images you want to export (i.e., ceremony), right-click on any one of the selected images, and click Export, then Export ... The heading for the export dialog that pops up will identify how many images you're exporting (i.e., "Export 24 Files"). In the File Naming section of the export dialog, select the Rename To: checkbox, then click the dropdown to its right, and select either Custom name (x of y), Custom Name - Sequence or Filename - Sequence, depending on your renaming preferences. For any of the selected options, you can specify the starting number for the sequence in the Start Number: box. At the bottom of the File Naming section of the export dialog, the "Example:" will display what the first of your new filenames will look like, based on your selections. If you select "Edit..." from the bottom of the list of choices in the Rename To: dropdown, you can access even more custom file-naming options.

*Re-reading your post, it's possible that you already know how to do the steps above, you just don't want to have to look back to see what the last number of the previous sequence was, to know where to start the next sequence. If that's the case, then I've not helped you, but possibly someone else, so I'll leave my post as is. *

- In addition to / as an alternative to the file renaming techniques described above, you could use the Export Location section of the export dialog (directly above the File Naming section) to export each group of selected images into its own subfolder of your destination folder for the shoot.

Hope this helps.

Off-topic: I'm not a wedding photographer, but I'm floored by the 1200-1800 image count per wedding cited by the OP. I'm not surprised that a WP would shoot that many images in this digital age, but I'm amazed that one would have to edit and export that many images after culling. I realize that I'm an old fogie who got married 26 years ago in the dark ages of film, but our wedding album comprises about 65 images, and -- still happily married after all these years, and as an avid photographer myself -- that seems like more than adequate coverage of the event. I don't recall how many proofs we culled from to arrive at our selections for the album, but I doubt it was more than 200. Even if every shot was a keeper, I couldn't imagine selecting more than 100 tops for the final album.


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## jaayres20 (Jul 16, 2016)

My original post was unclear. I edit sections of the wedding separately and export them separately. However, they are all together at the end. So in the end there is filename0001 to filename1800. The problem is when I have exported, lets say 303 photos of the ceremony, I often forget what the sequence number is when it comes time to export the formal portraits. So I have to go back an look to see what the number is. If ACR did not automatically update the start number after each export then I wouldn't even care about it. But now that I know it is available and convenient in ACR I would very much like the same setting in LR, which I prefer to use to post process my images. I just can't imagine why ACR would do it automatically and LR wouldn't even have the option to do it.


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## Valvebounce (Jul 16, 2016)

Hi jaayres. 
I guess this is so as not to over write files. How about picking a purely arbitrary number, one you will never reach in one section. 
Bride getting ready, 0001
Ceremony, 1000
Formals, 2000 etc. 
Just a thought to save having to check before each saving operation. 

Cheers, Graham. 



jaayres20 said:


> My original post was unclear. I edit sections of the wedding separately and export them separately. However, they are all together at the end. So in the end there is filename0001 to filename1800. The problem is when I haave exported, lets say 303 photos of the ceremony, I often forget what the sequence number is when it comes time to export the formal portraits. So I have to go back an look to see what the number is. If ACR did not automatically update the start number after each export then I wouldn't even care about it. But now that I know it is available and convenient in ACR I would very much like the same setting in LR, which I prefer to use to post process my images. I just can't imagine why ACR would do it automatically and LR wouldn't even have the option to do it.


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## LWP4 (Jul 16, 2016)

JonAustin said:


> Off-topic: I'm not a wedding photographer, but I'm floored by the 1200-1800 image count per wedding cited by the OP. I'm not surprised that a WP would shoot that many images in this digital age, but I'm amazed that one would have to edit and export that many images after culling. I realize that I'm an old fogie who got married 26 years ago in the dark ages of film, but our wedding album comprises about 65 images, and -- still happily married after all these years, and as an avid photographer myself -- that seems like more than adequate coverage of the event. I don't recall how many proofs we culled from to arrive at our selections for the album, but I doubt it was more than 200. Even if every shot was a keeper, I couldn't imagine selecting more than 100 tops for the final album.


I'm with you-- this seems excessive to me. Not only is he EDITING that many images after culling, which is torture in itself, but he's then exporting them and giving them to the client. I would never want to have my clients sort through that many images. Ever. I feel that part of the reason someone would hire a professional wedding photographer is to sort through the images to show them only the best ones, and very, very few weddings are so good that you can't cull them down below 1200. We try to stay at about 700 proofs.

Aside from that, showing a client 1200 images is a good way to overwhelm them, and then it's gonna be that much harder to get them to make picks for their album.

50-70 images is about right for an album (although if someone wants to spend for more pages to fit more images, I'm not going to stop them). Not everybody wants an album, of course, but I doubt very many people want 1200+ images either.

As for the original question, Valvebounce probably has the best idea. Four digit numbering, starting at 0 or 1 for the first batch. That way you'll only need to remember how many exports you've done for a particular job, and the images stay in time order when sorted by name.


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## jaayres20 (Jul 16, 2016)

LWP4 said:


> JonAustin said:
> 
> 
> > Off-topic: I'm not a wedding photographer, but I'm floored by the 1200-1800 image count per wedding cited by the OP. I'm not surprised that a WP would shoot that many images in this digital age, but I'm amazed that one would have to edit and export that many images after culling. I realize that I'm an old fogie who got married 26 years ago in the dark ages of film, but our wedding album comprises about 65 images, and -- still happily married after all these years, and as an avid photographer myself -- that seems like more than adequate coverage of the event. I don't recall how many proofs we culled from to arrive at our selections for the album, but I doubt it was more than 200. Even if every shot was a keeper, I couldn't imagine selecting more than 100 tops for the final album.
> ...



I get this from time to time and I have to disagree. I would guess from your critique that you and I approach a wedding much differently. There are lot of reasons why I shoot, cull, edit and deliver as many images as I do. My clients are not your clients and what works for you doesn't work for me. I have always received wonderful feedback from my couples that appreciate the time and effort I spend before, during and after their wedding. I have never once heard that someone was overwhelmed with the number of images they received; the opposite actually. I have shot a little over 150 weddings and have gotten settled into a pretty good system. I shoot a lot, I cull quickly, I edit efficiently, and I enjoy what I do. It is not a hassle or torture, it is a pleasure.


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## JPAZ (Jul 17, 2016)

jaayres20 said:


> My original post was unclear. I edit sections of the wedding separately and export them separately. However, they are all together at the end. So in the end there is filename0001 to filename1800. The problem is when I have exported, lets say 303 photos of the ceremony, I often forget what the sequence number is when it comes time to export the formal portraits. So I have to go back an look to see what the number is. If ACR did not automatically update the start number after each export then I wouldn't even care about it. But now that I know it is available and convenient in ACR I would very much like the same setting in LR, which I prefer to use to post process my images. I just can't imagine why ACR would do it automatically and LR wouldn't even have the option to do it.



If I understand your problem correctly, I can tell you what I do when when I sort through thousands of images after a big trip. I use the "Keywords" in the develop module (recently, for example, Tibet, People, Lhasa for those images from that part of the journey). 

So you could use "Ceremony" and Reception" for example as keywords for each part of the portfolio (might also add "Jones Wedding" as a keyword for the whole set). In the Library module, it should be fairly quick to find the first and last image from the reception, select all of just them (on a PC click the first of those images then hold the shift key and click on the last of those images), type "Reception" in the Keyword box, hit enter, and all of those selected images now have that keyword in the data. I don't use a Mac, but there is a similar process available in that OS. Then in the Library module, select the Text filter and enter, for example, Reception. Only those images with that keyword will them be selected. From there, you could rename those files, and export them into a folder or disc or whatever. 

If I really want to rename the files as a batch, however, I find Bridge to be the easiest way to do that.

I think a variation on this could help you.

JPAZ


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## privatebydesign (Jul 17, 2016)

You guys make me laugh. None of you have a clue how to do what the OP wants and you end up criticizing the number of images he shoots at a wedding!

Anyway, to answer the question, yes you can do what you want.

In the Export dialogue just select 'Custom Name' no 'sequence' or anything, just the 'Custom Name' option. LR will take care of sequential exports *to the same folder* and will number them in numerical order. For subsequent Exports you can just click "Export with Previous".

P.S: The first image will be called 'custom name'.jpg, the second will be 'custom name'-2.jpg so if you change the first one to 'custom name'-1.jpg at the end they all display in the correct order. Don't change the first image number to 1 until you finish all your exports to that folder or it will use the numberless moniker again before resuming the actual image number.


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## JonAustin (Jul 17, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> You guys make me laugh. None of you have a clue how to do what the OP wants and you end up criticizing the number of images he shoots at a wedding!



I wasn't criticizing; I started my response with what I had hoped would be a helpful reply, and then ended with a self-documented off-topic observation about the seemingly high (to me) image count for a wedding event.

Even the OP sounded a little sensitive in his second reply to those comments, after another poster concurred with my observation. The OP was clearing trying to be nice in his response, but his sensitivity seemed to show through a bit. Maybe he's not all that confident in his business model, either; perhaps he started out as a "high image volume provider," and doesn't know how to back away from that, now that his reputation as such has been established?

Any, bottom line: geesh, lighten up.


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## privatebydesign (Jul 17, 2016)

JonAustin said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > You guys make me laugh. None of you have a clue how to do what the OP wants and you end up criticizing the number of images he shoots at a wedding!
> ...



Have you seen his website?

http://www.joshuaayresphotography.com


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## JonAustin (Jul 17, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Have you seen his website?



Yes, why?


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## RGF (Jul 18, 2016)

privatebydesign said:


> Have you seen his website?



Website is very attractive. Great work - from a nature photographer who has only shoot (photographed - to keep the police from raid my house) a few people in my life.

Rich


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