I often encounter disorganized, confusing naming conventions from clients and photographers. Every archive has its own requirements, but there is a superior naming convention for Capture One sessions and image names that works across all genres and categories. A few years ago, I finally adopted the naming convention I had been recommending for some time, and it made a huge difference. Shout out to Marshall Long, the digital lead at Nike Icon Studio, for hammering this home for me. Let's explore why it can save you time, money, and organizational headaches.
yearmonthday_client_jobname (yearmonthday is all in 2 digit format)
For example, a shoot based on this blog post would look like:
230203_SamCornwallBlog_NewNamingFormat
It is important to keep the date to 2-digit year, 2-digit month and 2-digit day.
That’s it. Very simple and very flexible. Date, client, jobname. No spaces, no dots, no dashes, no special characters. Only numbers, underscores and characters. A 4-digit year is a waste of space, and a 1-digit month or day will create problems when you reach the 2-digit days and months.
Yes, it satisfies any OCD urges with a little OCD dopamine hit every time you open your archive. More importantly, it organizes all of your shoots in the most straightforward and simple manner, making it a breeze to find old work whether you use a catalog, like Lightroom or Capture One, folders in your Finder or Adobe Bridge. The major improvement for most people is starting the date with the year, instead of the day. This allows the archive to grow gracefully and in order. Previously, my workflow was divided into years with my session naming as monthdayyear_client_jobname. This meant I needed an extra folder for each year. Now with my new naming convention all my shoot folders can live in one archive folder still organized by year, but not divided up into sub-folders. It’s a small change but can save a lot of time when you have to go back and find old images in your archive.
Examples:
Personal work
yearmonthday_subject
Yearmonthday_projectname
Yearmonthday_projectname_location
Yearmonthday_projectname_subject
Yearmonthday_subject_location
Ecomm
Yearmonthday_client_jobtype_jobname