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This is an awfully specific problem, but it seems possible so I thought I'd see if there was the IT God above all IT Gods in here :)

So....

I run an In Person Sales business where we showcase pictures to clients after a shoot. The pictures are shown in Photoshop in JPEG format, while the RAW versions are in the same folder.

However, when the final pictures have been selected and are open in Photoshop, I would like it to batch process the RAW version/corresponding filename of the JPEGS that are open and rename them with prefixes changed.

Basically, I open 10 photos, discard 8 and am left with IMG_01 and IMG_20, and to save time I would like Photoshop to transfer the corresponding RAW version of each file and batch process them into another folder while renaming them so I don't have to look for each RAW file when I have 16 images for every client. Before I came they would just take a screenshot of the opened/selected images and the retouching team would have to find the matching numbers among 150+ photos.

Yes, I am aware that there is most likely a way easier way to process and batch the images, like opening them in Lightroom instead of the JPEG version in photoshop, but let's pretend like people are stubborn and have a hard time adapting to change here ;)

Any suggestions?

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    if I am reading this right, you want to identify the raw files without a jpeg version and move those files. You would not need to open them. This is off-topic i think. Perhaps migrate this to "superuser" ( superuser.com/search?q=batch+rename+files ). I think the easy way is to chnage your workflow: make a client subfolder with the RAW files and then manually move the two jpegs to the main parent folder.
    – Yorik
    Oct 5, 2017 at 14:16
  • The problem is that I need to use the Jpegs to show the pictures in Photoshop, so if I open the Raws and open 150 RAW images, Photoshop will crash or slow down heavily. Therefor the Jpeg version of each photo needs to be used, but the RAW version that corresponds the final choice has to be renamed and transfered automatically to another folder
    – James Allen Stewart
    Oct 5, 2017 at 14:39
  • You do not need to open them to move them. Nor do you need Photoshop. You only need to identify which RAW photos you do not need, and you did that manually by opening the ones you wanted and then saving a jpeg. The existence of a jpeg file is a flag. If it were me, I would open windows explorer, ensure detail view was chosen, sort by name, select the first image at top, hit shift+ctrl+end, then scroll trhough and ctrl+click to deselect the 2 jpegs. Then I would ctrl+x, move to a subfolder and hit ctrl+v
    – Yorik
    Oct 5, 2017 at 14:51
  • The inverse would work like this: put your RAW files in a subfolder, find the ones you like and save them. Then group by type in exporer, and all the jpegs are now in order, move them to where you want.
    – Yorik
    Oct 5, 2017 at 14:52
  • With this method I would be left with the same problem: Having to pinpoint 16 photos out of 100+ photos to deselect them? They are ALL opened in photoshop, every single Jpeg. Then the ones that are not wanted are deleted and we are left with 10-16 images that we would like to rename and send with a batch process, but only the RAW version of those jpegs. They are in the same folder to begin with. Is this what you are referring to?
    – James Allen Stewart
    Oct 5, 2017 at 16:07

1 Answer 1

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As you noted, Photoshop is not the best tool for this. You'd be better served Using Adobe Bridge or Lightroom. Lightroom can automatically "lump together" the RAW and JPEG files. Lightroom is pretty slow to build the view. Adobe Bridge requires no import. You didn't specify which OS you are using.

Let's assume you have two directories: CANDIDATES with all jpegs and correspondingly named .raw files. CANDIDATES\CULLED where you will put the jpegs that pass criteria.

One way to approach this is to use the "Photoshop Image Processor" built in script. The script saves every open file (assuming all the duds have already been closed) into the CULLED folder. Thereafter run a batch script that finds the raw files in CANDIDATES corresponding to the JPEG files in CULLED photos and copies (or moves them) into the same folder.

In Windows the batch file would look something like this assuming CANDIDATES is the parent folder of CULLED, and that the batch is run from the CULLED directory.

GETRAWS.BAT

@ECHO OFF
FOR %%f in (*.jp*) do (
    echo %%f was selected
    @REM Copy all files from the parent directory with the matching filename
    copy ..\%%~nf.* .
)

If you know your raw files are always .NEF or .RAW or .CR2, .DNG you can change the copy to copy only ..\%%~nf.NEF for example. You can also use MOVE. On second thought, you probably would prefer the .* to copy all matches in case you have already made some adjustments - assuming you have enabled sidecar files to save the Adobe Camera Raw (or Lightroom) adjustments.

The construct %%~nf means retrieve only the file name (not extension) from the variable "f". E.g. if f=imagename.jpg then %%~nf=imagename

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