Naming Failure Help

How To Fix A File Naming Setup Failure

Did you shoot a job where you didn’t have the appropriate file naming setup or your computer failed mid-job and now you need to figure out how to fix it? Then this guide is for you! Below are the steps to getting your job back on track!

You might also use this guide in situations where you shot a job before you purchased your Headshot Tools subscription and now want to utilize Headshot Tools for the delivery of those images. In this situation, you first want to get your participants names and emails into the system. Once complete, you can then skip Step 1 below and start directly with Step 2.

Step 1 – Fixing The Setup Issue

In order to make sure the rest of this guide gets you back on track, we need to first fix the setup mistake that caused this issue. Head back to our setup videos find the step you missed. There are likely just 1 or 2 steps you skipped in the setup and getting those corrected will be all that’s needed. (If your equipment failed and is now working again, you can skip this step).

Step 2 – Assess The Situation

This guide is going to assume that you have some way of determining which image files belong to which participant. For example, the participant’s files are named for them but it’s not in the correct format for Headshot Tools. Or Maybe you photographed a participant’s name tag prior to each session.

If you are unable to determine who is who, unfortunately, there is no way to recover this job. A good solution in this situation is to load all the images into a shared gallery via a less sophisticated gallery system and email all your participant’s a link to the shared gallery outside of Headshot Tools. With Step 1 from above complete, your next job will be flawless!
If you can determine who is who, you can continue with this guide, but depending on how many participants were affected, this may take a long time to fix. You may instead want to use the solution in the above bullet point.

Step 3 – Identify An Incorrectly Named RAW File / Participant

Locate the RAW files for the incorrectly named participants and pick one participant who needs their images fixed.

Step 4 – Find The Participant’s Correct File Prefix

Via the Job Detail page (the one with the big QR code on it), search for this participant. You can do this towards the bottom middle of the page via the search box in the Shoots panel. When you find the correct participant, click on their name to go to their Shoot Detail.

In the Shoot Detail page, you'll see a field titled "File Prefix". Simply click on this field. This will copy this participant's file prefix into your clipboard (similar to using the Dashboard's Queue interface).

Step 5 – Rename Your RAW Files

Now rename each of the RAW files from Step 3 so they start with what is in your clipboard. You can simply paste the file prefix to start the file name. The correct RAW file names should now look something like this:

Smith_John_123-0001.raw
Smith_John_123-0002.raw
Smith_John_123-0003.raw

"Smith_John_123-" is the file prefix from your clipboard and "0001", "0002", etc., are your file counters. See more about file naming here.

Now repeat Steps 3, 4 and 5 until all participants in this job have their RAW files renamed correctly.

Step 6 – Export Your JPEGs

Congratulations! It's now as if everything was set up correctly from the beginning. You can now export your RAW images as JPEGs. To do this:

In Capture One:
Select any images you want your participant to receive in their gallery and export by pressing Command + D on Mac or Control + D on Windows.

In Lightroom:
Select any images you want your participant to receive in their gallery and select "Export With Previous".

Your jpeg files should get assigned a similar file name as the RAW. For example:

Smith_John_123-0001.jpg
Smith_John_123-0002.jpg
Smith_John_123-0003.jpg

If you're not seeing this occur, please re-watch our setup videos export portion. You're still missing a setup step, particularly in the export sections.

Step 7 – Upload Your JPEGs

Now, launch your Headshot Tools Auto Upload Utility for this job and point it to the folder where your .jpg files from the prior step have been output. This is typically:

/Your Session Folder/Output/Headshot Tools/

These files will now upload into Headshot Tools and automatically find their correct gallery.

See here for more info on how to upload files.

Step 8 – Email Your Participants

You may want to send these participants another email letting them know their images are now ready. You can either do this one by one, clicking the "Send Gallery Email" button within each participant's Shoot Detail, or you can email everyone within the Job using the Mass Notify tool.

See here for more info on how to use the mass notify tool.

Common Issues / Questions

My RAW files are named correctly, but my JPEGs are not.
In this situation, you missed a step in the setup process for exporting. Please re-watch the appropriate setup video’s export setup section, then start this guide at Step 6 above.
I’ve watched the videos but this is still not working.
While we agree some of this setup work isn’t fun, we guarantee you that if you watch our setup video steps 1 by 1, front to back, making sure to do every step exactly as shown and ONLY those steps, you will be setup in less than 8 minutes.

Please feel free to reach out to Headshot Tools support for help. However, our data shows that all instances of this type of problem stem from a failure to complete the steps in the setup videos.