File naming and Versions definitions - A discussion

[ubacher]

I like to start a discussion about good ways to link masters to versions.


I see four ways we can link masters and versions:


1. Version has a different extension
2. Put version in a different directory.
3. Have an appendix on the file name. Link is via the root name.
4. Manual version link.


Here an example which I think shows difficult situations:


I start with A.raw and create a A.jpg. No problem. Way 1 above.
If I produce variants from the RAW file I get (using Camera Raw default) a file A_1.jpg.
For this to be recognized as version I need to use Way 3 above.


Now let me use one of these variants and produce a photoshop .PSD file. (I ignore here the possibility of generating a .PSD file directly from the RAW converter). This I can set up (with a version rule) to be a version of the jpg files. In turn I can create one or more versions of .jpg files from the PSD file.
How do I now name the files and create an appropriate version rule to distinguish these jpg files from those JPG files created from RAW. Putting the files in different directory will help but is inconvenient. Manual version link is similarly inconvenient.


A.RAW → A.jpg, A_1.jpg ....


A.jpg → edit→ A_crop.jpg, A_small.jpg, A_framed.jpg


A_1.jpg → A_1.psd → A_1_from_psd.jpg, A_1_from_psd_1.jpg....


And for each version rule one needs to specify what metadata will get propagated.


Has any of you considered this issue and found a good way to deal with it?

[sinus]

Because usually I create from a raw (nef) only one version, I have a system, but you will think, not very sophisticated.

I do simply (I never use capitals):

_a.nef → these are images without versions, means not used
_m.nef → this raw has at least one version

_m_v1 → this is the first version, not depending on the extension (can be jpg/tif/psd...)
_m_v1_f → this is the first version with a white background (because I do this a lot, I do so and helps me often)

***
This above are the most used cases for me. I used in the past still several different endings for small, bigger, cutted and so on, but it turned out for me, it is not really helpful, hence I do this not more, only the _f I do use.


The following examples below, since I do this since a long time, but not very often, are good for me and I have no problems to identify them or find.
***

_m_v2 → a second versoin, not depending on the extension (jpg/tif/psd...)
_m_v3 → a second versoin, not depending on the extension (jpg/tif/psd...)

These v2, v3 and so on I do, if I create them also, like v1, from the raw

***
If I create versons from the jpg/tif/psd, then the raw is not more involved, hence I write this:
_m_v1_c1 → means a first jpg/tif/psd ... from the first version
_m_v1_c2 → means a second jpg/tif/psd ... from the first version

_m_v2_c1 → means a first jpg/tif/psd ... from the second version

***
I do all propagations the same way, all versions only from the raw, meand one rule.

I am sure, there are more sophisticated systems out there, but the described does it for me. 

[JohnZeman]

I have a somewhat simple way of configuring masters and versions that's basically a combination of ways 1 and 3.

Before processing a new raw file to create versions I use IMatch to rename the raw file by date and time in the YYYY_MMDD_HHMMSS_SSS format where the SSS are subseconds.  This ensures I never have any duplicate file names.

For file relations all of my masters are either cr2, cr3, dng, tif, or tiff files.

With the exception of old scanned photos that were only black and white photos originally, each master has two versions, both of which are JPGs.

The color jpg version has the same name as the master with the exception of the file extension (way 1).

The black and white version has the same name as the master and color versions but also has a uppercase S appended to the name (way 3).

Masters and both versions are stored in the same folder.

A typical example would be the following

2025_0313_154250_271.dng
2025_0313_154250_271.jpg
2025_0313_154250_271S.jpg

I've been doing it this way ever since I started using masters and 2 versions about 2 or 3 years ago and it's worked well for me.

Master Versioning
\.(cr2|cr3|dng|tif|tiff)$

Link Expression
^{name}\.jpg$

B&W Versioning
\.(cr2|cr3|dng|tif|tiff)$

Link Expression
^{name}S\.jpg$

I realize I could combine the color and B&W versions in the link expression, and I did that for awhile but for some reason I don't remember now I decided to make them separate.

[Mario]

I realize I could combine the color and B&W versions in the link expression, and I did that for awhile but for some reason I don't remember now I decided to make them separate.

If you separate them, you can enable different uses, e.g. use the color version as the visual proxy but not the monochrome version.