3.4

Chapter 3 Importing Photos 62
Applying Valid Filenames
Proper lenaming is one of the most critical aspects of media and project management. When
you capture your originals, consider how and where your les may be used in the future. Naming
your les simply and consistently makes it easier to share media among multiple photographers,
transfer projects to other Aperture systems, move les across a network, and properly restore
archived projects.
The most conservative lenaming conventions provide the most cross-platform compatibility.
This means that your lenames will work in dierent operating systems, such as OS X and other
UNIX-based operating systems, and Windows. You also need to consider lenaming when you
transfer les over the Internet, where you can never be certain what computer platform your les
may be stored on, even if temporarily.
Avoid Example characters Reasons
File separators / (slash)
\ (backslash)
Some applications may not allow
you to use slashes in the names
of items. These characters are
directory separators for OS X and
DOS (Windows), respectively.
Special characters not included in
your native alphabet
¢™ These characters may not be
supported or may be dicult
to work with when exported to
other applications.
Punctuation marks, parentheses,
quotation marks, brackets, and
operators
. , [ ] { } ( ) ! ; “ ` * ? < > | These characters are often used
in scripting and programming
languages.
White space characters such
as spaces, tabs, new lines, and
carriage returns (the last two are
uncommon)
White space is handled dierently
in dierent programming
languages and operating systems,
so certain processing scripts and
applications may treat your les
dierently than expected. The
most conservative lenames avoid
all use of white space characters
and use the underscore (_)
character instead.
Creating Custom Name Formats
In addition to the preset name formats, you can create custom name formats. To create a name
format, you select the name elements you want in the File Naming dialog. You can compose a
name format that combines the following name elements:
•
Version Name
•
Original File Name
•
Sequence Number (1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, and so on)
•
Image Year
•
Image Month
•
Image Day
•
Image Date
•
Image Time
•
Index Number (1, 2, 3, and so on)
•
Custom Name