Recovering the original photo filename, and identifying camera used for photo?

Wildjack · Apr 6, 2015

After having thought I lost most of my family photos for the last 13 years due to a corrupt harddrive (yeah, had the backup, but not a backup of it, so that's a way to learn it), I've been through all my old computers and have probably found most of my old photos.

However, I've had two cameras over those 13 years, both being Sony's, so filenames have been the usual DSC00001.jpg (and counting up).

I've roughly taken 4000 photos with each camera, and am now trying to find out if there are any black holes, where I have lost something entirely. Hereby meaning that if I have the photes from the summer holiday in 2005 and 2007, but missing DSC00250 to DSC00500 in between those, at least I know that it was whatever we did between those two years that is lost.

So, I have two problems here, when trying to figure out what photos was from what camera, and where have I just lost all the photos from a given period of time.

1. How do I search for the filenames, but get it split up on cameratype? I.e. both cameras I have used have had approximately 4000 photos taken with it, and thereby I have two batches of DSC00001 to DSC04000 but from different cameras?
2. My brother got some of the photos as we had a long holiday together with his family. So, I recovered those photos from him. However, he has overwritten the DSC filename with Thailand1, Thailand2 etc. Is there anyway I can see the original filename, perhaps recover to this, and even better see what camera took the shot, as our parents were also on this trip, so in total we had 4 cameras to shoot the photos, and I can only see DSC-W1 and CYPERSHOT as the cameramodel, which is not enough for me to figure out if they were from my camera or theirs (also, we've all used Sony's, so same filename problem, which is probably why my brother had the files renamed).

I feel like this is kind of a longshot, but hope someone on this forum can help me on either of the above questions.

bratkinson · Apr 6, 2015

I recently purchased 10 identical used point and shoot cameras and gave them to individuals to use for a specific event. When I got them back, as expected, all the file names were essentially the same. But as each camera had previously been used for an unknown number of shots, I didn't have any problems...except for the 2 refurbs I bought. They were 00001, 00002, etc. I had no choice but to put them in separate folders and then rename the shots to not conflict with the 'ranges' of numbers I got from the other cameras. Then I 'put them all together' for editing with Lightroom.

As your 'overlapping numbers' came from 2 different cameras, after placing each cameras' pictures into separate folders, the only way to keep them separated is to rename each individual picture. It's a pain in the butt if there's more than 20-30. I've become adept at renaming photos as all my finished photos are named <shoot ID>-001, <shoot ID>-002, etc. That way, they're presented in the exact sequence I want them to be presented.

As far as accessing 'original' file names, the DSC00001 you indicated would seem to be the original names produced by the Sony cameras (I've never had a Sony). In terms of the recovered photos from your brother, the EXIF information =MAY= still be accessible and =MAY= contain an original shot number. There's a number of free EXIF viewers available on the web. Everyone has their favorites. I've tried 2 and am happy with both of them. But using what I present here, specific names are irrelevant.

Now...if you really want to 'go for broke'...
1. Make at least 2 backups of everything before you start. Even burning CDs will suffice if you don't have enough space on your HD.

2. Rename all the pictures in the folder for one Sony camera to not conflict with the numbers from the other Sony camera. I use the 'simple minded' rename method in Windows 7, renaming each one individually. However, IF YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR MS-DOS (yes, DOS!) and are running on a Windows machine, you can do a 'mass rename' within an entire folder by going to the command prompt in Windows, CD to the specific folder, and then use an appropriate DOS RENAME command like: RENAME ABC?????.JPG XYZ?????.JPG where the ABC is the common letters and the ????? are wild cards for the varying numbers. Needless to say, knowing the folder naming conventions used in Windows and how they are abbreviated to DOS 8 character limitations is critical. This is not for the feint of heart!

3. Now...combine all three folders into a single folder...Sony 00001, XYZ 00001 and brothers camera pictures. In the interest of keeping a 'running backup', COPY the contents of each camera specific folder to a new 'super folder'. That way, if you inadvertently delete the wrong one, you can always get it back using the Windows recycle bin, or, just copy it again from one of the original folders.

4. While viewing the new folder full of pictures, right click (not on an icon) and select VIEW, and choose 'DETAILS'. If the SIZE column isn't visible, right click on the header bar of the contents and add the SIZE column.

5. Now, left click on the word 'SIZE' in the header of the display. This will sort everything by number of bytes...eg, file size. There may be a couple of instances where two different pictures have the same size. This is not a problem...just a caution.

6. The premise is that duplicate photos will have duplicate sizes. However, I sometimes see photo size changes after editing a photo...especially if I reduce the noise. Generally, though, the different sizes for a duplicate photo will be within 1-2%.

7. Now, right click somewhere not on a specific file, and select VIEW, and then LARGE ICONS.

8. At this point, duplicate photos will be adjacent to each other. Delete duplicates as appropriate.

9. When all done, use Windows viewer to view each photo remaining at full screen size. This way, you may be able to find duplicate shots that aren't adjacent size-wise. Ie, "didn't I see Uncle Bill fishing in the grey boat already?".

10. Now, one may consider that the 'created date' or 'modified date' on each picture is the date it was taken. That is quite unlikely. It's more likely the date it was saved on yours (or brothers) computer, assuming the date in the computer was accurate. BUT...IF there the EXIF information is intact on each photo, going back to the 'details' view of the folder full of pictures, right click somewhere in the 'header bar' and add the 'date taken' column. Then, left click the 'date taken' column header, and it will be be sorted by date taken. Left click it again, and it will be in reverse date taken, most recent first.

11. At this point, you're on your own for renaming the photos. One idea would be to import them into Lightroom and immediately output selected groups with specific names in specific folders, like 'Vacation 2020', 'Christmas 2010' , 'Bills wedding'...you get the idea.

Good luck! And be sure to have a backup from every step, just as a 'safety'.

snowbear · Apr 6, 2015

I don't know about Sony, but Nikon embeds the camera serial number into the EXIF, or at least it does with the D40. I also get shutter clicks so I could, with some filtering and sorting, get shots in sequence. The issue, I'd see, would be anything but the original images, as sometimes EXIF is stripped or minimized.

The_Traveler · Apr 6, 2015

You could take them into LR and separate by embedded metadata

Joves · Apr 6, 2015

Ummm! Just read your creation dates on the photos, and that will tell you which camera it was. Well that is if you remember which one you owned at that time. For Windows it is easy, just right click, and go to properties, and then summary, then click on the more info button on the bottom. But the file creation date is the down&dirty fast way.

The_Traveler · Apr 6, 2015

Do you have any editing software like PS or LR?
If not you can download free EXIF readers.
Then you can look at the embedded metadata and see what there is to use to differentiate amongst them.

Almost anyone here would help you by adding them into a LR catalog and trying to separate them by camera in some way.
Doing them one by one is a crazy thought when/if the data can be sorted by computer easily and quickly.

FeatherMonkey · Apr 6, 2015

Advanced Renamer - Image tags Advanced Renamer - Image tags this looks like it will do it. Can't recommend but knew there would be some kind of tool. This looks like it will rename with the camera model if it's in the exif. As for recovery of name not sure that tool will if it is in the exif the backend exiftool, a perl exe could be used but would need someone with minor programming knowledge.

Dave442 · Apr 7, 2015

I don't see why there is a need at this stage to distinguish what camera was used for the photos or to use the almost useless DSCxxxxx filenames, that you have discovered are too repetitive.

I would just add the date before the filename (and the filename can also be anything you want). I do this to all my photos upon import into LightRoom (yyyymmdd) as that means no duplicate file names. If you were using multiple cameras on the same day you could even add the hour and minute and the make and model of the camera. Of course this is assuming you and others set the time in the cameras.

A couple Windows programs I use are IfranView (free) and Xplorer2 (paid), between them you can also do what you are looking to do. I think for photo management LightRoom is the best option, but need to plan out the process or will end up with a mess (test on a small scale to start with).

My Sony DSC-V1 is currently used by my grandson and in LightRoom it shows up as DSC-V1 and that could be placed in the file name (no real need as you can filter by camera type in LightRoom). I would think you could find at least one picture you know is yours and so from that you would know for example that all DSC-W1 are yours and Cybershot are your brothers.

Heck, upload all the photos to Flickr and the Camera Roll will show them in the order taken and will show camera EXIF info if it was not stripped out of the file. And that would make it easy for family to help with photos you don't recognize.

cclhuzhou · Apr 7, 2015

I'd see, would be anything but the original images, as sometimes EXIF is stripped or minimized.

Wildjack · Apr 7, 2015

Thanks for all the very good answers. I think there is some misunderstanding to my problem however. I don't want to rename the files from DSCxxxxx, I actually want to undo the renaming, and get them back to DSCxxxxx. The reason I want to recover the old names, is to find what number (and what period) I have lost some of the family photes.

I'll look into all of the above, but one more question:

You could take them into LR and separate by embedded metadata

What is LR?

Dave442 · Apr 8, 2015

LR is LightRoom. This is a database program to manage photos and includes modules to edit photos, print, etc.

I can see where you want to find where you have gaps in the sequence of file names, but knowing the old file name is going to be difficult to put back once changed.

For that reason I would just look to rename with date first and then your initials and an xxxxxx sequence and could even have the current file name stuck on the end for cross referencing while you continue to look for lost photos.

To sort the photos it will really help if the photos still have the "date-taken" information embedded in the file. With that info then LR, and many other programs, can read this and make a new file name that could be the date followed by DSCxxxxxx and the current file name.

You can also have the program put the photos into folders that go by date, so you would have the year and then below that every day for the year that you have a photo. That is how I have my Catalog set up and you can see any days that do not have photos as the program will only make the folders when it needs to.

When you Import you could keep the original files and have the program copy and rename files to a new location. Then with the files you do have still named DSCxxxxx you could spot check how many photos you should have in between and could narrow down the date range of missing photos.

Anyway, thats more or less what I would do. If you don't want to invest in LR then look into some of the other options like Advanced Renamer or what I used with good results in the past, IfranView (has basic batch renaming and could do year, month, day, hour, minute, second, then your initials, then a counter, then the original file name as one example).

Wildjack · Apr 16, 2015

Thanks. Been trying to work with LR, and I'm just not getting things done the right way. Basically I just want to import all my photos, which is probably 40.000+, but I also get all other jpg files on my computer, as well as I still haven't figured out how I actually get them cataloged so I can work with them. I think I reasonable strong with computers, but this is really killing me. Any suggestions, or any recommendations for a tutorial somewhere?

Dave442 · Apr 16, 2015

One of the reasons I like LR is all the tutorials that exist. One place to start is the Adobe site and some of their videos. Of course there are many videos on YouTube and I think most the Library Module has stayed the same from LR3 to now. Might start by searching for Lightroom Organizing Photos.

Learn how to Import photos and the options of Move, Add, etc and data that can be added/changed upon import. This just puts the photos into the database - the Catalog. Most people like to have just one Catalog, that way your database has all your pictures in one place.

You might try starting out by just importing about 1,000 photos and playing with that Catalog that you could name Test. When you Import you can just Add (that will leave the photos where they are currently stored), or Copy (that will make a copy of the photos to a new location where the program will look for them). I do not use Move as I feel it is better to Copy and then when everything is good you can delete from the old location (such as a memory card). When you Import it works better if the location only has the photos you want to import and nothing extra.

Where you import the photos to and how you rename the photos can make a difference on how easy it is to find the photos at a later date. I rename my photos on import and that is one thing that you just can't go back and easily change at a later date, so if you do this then have a format that will work well into the future.

At first stay in the Library Module and learn how to add information to photos so you can use the database capabilities so you can find photos you need later on.
Learn how to move photos from one location ot another without breaking the link, and then learn how to find photos when you do break the link (like when photos are moved to other locations outside of LR).
Then learn about Metadata, keywords, and rating options.
Then Collections.

Best to learn from a number of sources as someone doing wedding photography will usually do things differently that someone doing stock photography, but each can have something useful towards what might work best for you.

Thats a start, if you leave a copy of your photos in their original location you can always start over if things get messed up on the first try.