Finding original file name of renamed copy

[jch2103]

I was discussing IMatch with a pro friend, who wanted to know if IM can keep track of original file names. His situation involves renamed copies of images (ie., recipient-friendly names) and wanting to be able to find the original source image (e.g., to make and sell new copies).

I can think of several approaches for handling this (e.g., versions and/or attributes), but what would be the best/most efficient approach?

[ColinIM]

Hello John,

The overall answer to your question is 'yes', it's possible to keep track of multiple previous names for a file in IMatch.

There may be other/better ways to do this, but as an example I do this manually with a basic copy & paste of the image's 'current' file name, storing it in an Attribute field, before renaming the image file.

I'm very sure that (if I committed the time to do so) I could write a quick 'App' to streamline this tedious but (happily) not too frequent copy+paste step, but I'll be interested to hear if anyone else suggests other / better ways of storing previous file names.

[Mario]

The XMP tag XMP::xmpMM\PreservedFileName\PreservedFileName was once designed t hold the original file name (and is available in IMatch). But this tag was silently removed by Adobe from later editions of the XMP MediaManagemt namespace (?) and I cannot find reasons for it. Adobe never documents such details. They just do stuff.

If you rename a file in Lightroom, Lr shows the original file name in the Metadata Panel, but it does not save it into the XMP. Why? Ask Adobe.
I think Lr only stores this in the database. But it does not show in Bridge...

For the Getty workflow, the original file name goes into XMP::GettyImages\OriginalFilename\OriginalFileName, typically.

But both tags (if used at all) can hold only one original file name.

Note: IMatch records every rename operation in the file history and you can see it in the History Panel (<F9>,<H>).

[jch2103]

Thank you both; very helpful.