This provides a great deal of flexibility to suit any workflow. The Filename Template Editor and the custom filename templates you create are accessible from everywhere you can batch rename photos. There are many possible combinations of those pieces of data, and Lightroom allows you to create custom filename templates in its Filename Template Editor.

Typically, a filename serves the purpose of providing some information about the photo, possibly some information about the creator, and a unique identifier like a sequence number. That’s fine for single image renaming, but the real power is in the batch renaming process. Simply select the photo you want to rename, expand the Metadata panel, set the panel to Default view, click into the File Name field, and edit the filename as needed. If you just need to change the name of a single photo inside of Lightroom, the process is very straightforward.

The File Naming panel of the Export dialog when you want to rename the copies you’re exporting.

The Library>Rename Photos menu in the Library module when you want to rename a batch of photos.

The File Name field of the Metadata panel in the Library module to rename individual files.The File Renaming panel of the Import screen when you’re using Lightroom to Copy, Copy as DNG, or Move your photos.Avoid breaking that link by using Lightroom to do the renaming. If you rename your imported photos outside of Lightroom, you break that link and are then faced with the tedious task of reconnecting all of those photos back to the catalog again. Once the photos have been through the import process, the filename becomes an important piece of data that links the work you do in Lightroom to your photos. If you’re used to using Bridge or some other software to rename your photos you can still do that before you import them into Lightroom, but once those photos are part of a catalog you’ll want to use Lightroom from that point forward. Let’s look at all the different ways you can rename using Lightroom. Lightroom’s file renaming function is powerful and customizable. File renaming may be one of the more mundane tasks in a digital photography workflow, but it’s a critical component to managing your digital assets.

Batch rename photos