Filenames of panos stitched in LightRoom

wco81 · Jan 17, 2022

I have DNGs from my M2P to stitch in Lightroom. Usually the resulting panos have much better detail than the JPGs stitched by the aircraft's built-in processor. To be expected since it only produces a JPG.

Lightroom in general will take the first file name of a pano series and append "Pano" to it.

The problem is, all of the pano shots from the M2P have generic names, like Pano0001.DNG (though placed in separate folders)

As a result if I stitch these in LR Classic (Mac version),, it produces a Pano0001-Pano.DNG. So if I have 6 folders of pano shots and I stitch them all, I will have 6 Pano0001-Pano.DNG files.

In separate subfolders of course but they will have these redundant file names so if I export them later to another program or to upload online ,then it becomes a hassle.

I'd like to have more control naming them and having unique pano (and for that matter, Hyperlapse files) in my LRC library.

But I see no way to rename the Pano files nor an easy way for LRC to recognize them by more unique names I would give them, other than to re-import them.

Has anyone found a better way to manage these drone panos stitched in LRC?

Ronson · Jan 17, 2022

I have never bothered worrying about this. I have thousands of panos and export to my personal online photo album. The file structure seems to take care of the situation. The one thing I do is put a file name convention on import with a short name and dates. The two conventions have seems to take care of the situation.

MartinNWales · Jan 17, 2022

i tend to manage all the image files through Lightroom classic, and use the 'stacking' to keep the spread under control. Have a weird thing though, where i am having to do an HDR merge first (3 shots from the drone) and then separately pano the shots as it's not always working

Antero52 · Jan 17, 2022

I use Lightroom's renaming function with presets to rename my files as follows:
1. Two-character code for camera
2. Two digits for each of year, month and date
3. A dash
4. A three- (or four-) digit index number (for which LR requests a starting value).

For instance, if I name my M3 pics shot today, and I enter a value of 501 for the index of the first pic, they would be named as follows: M3220117-501, M3220117-502, etc. And as you already know, LR names panos by the attaching PANO to the name of the first shot. By renaming all shots with unique names, your panos will also have unique names (unless you merge multiple panos starting from the same first image).

wco81 · Jan 17, 2022

Antero52 said:
I use Lightroom's renaming function with presets to rename my files as follows:
1. Two-character code for camera
2. Two digits for each of year, month and date
3. A dash
4. A three- (or four-) digit index number (for which LR requests a starting value).

For instance, if I name my M3 pics shot today, and I enter a value of 501 for the index of the first pic, they would be named as follows: M3220117-501, M3220117-502, etc. And as you already know, LR names panos by the attaching PANO to the name of the first shot. By renaming all shots with unique names, your panos will also have unique names (unless you merge multiple panos starting from the same first image).

So are you renaming the files BEFORE you import to LR?

adcimagery · Jan 18, 2022

wco81 said:
So are you renaming the files BEFORE you import to LR?

Yes, the easiest way to do that is to set up the Rename on Import setting in the import menu. You can rename already imported files via Library>Rename, but that's going to be clunky for this application.

I'll also suggest trying an alternate stitching program to Lightroom. PTGui works significantly better, and gives much more control over the resulting file. This can be particularly helpful with blending things like moving objects, stitching errors, parallax correction, etc.

Antero52 · Jan 18, 2022

adcimagery said:
... You can rename already imported files via Library>Rename, but that's going to be clunky for this application.

Actually, it's not. The shortcut for Library > Rename is F2, same as in Windows. I rename files after importing, usually while LR is generating previews.