Stymied and somewhat frustrated I again turn to this forum for help. :)

I use the standard XP programme for photographs.
From a recent trip, I have downloaded my own pics and somebody elses from the same trip, into the same file. So far so good.
Both my owen pics and the other ones are not in chronological order. Which I would like them to be.
I have tried moving them by hand (time consuming) but when the folder is closed, they return to the previous random positioning.

Is there any way at all to get this done in XP or is this yet another hopeless case?

Not quite sure what the problem is, FF, but if I understand it, find the folder they are in and right click in an empty area and select "arrange Icons by"/"modified". Is that it? Picture viewer should then run in the chrono order.

Flaps you could download Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.2 It's free and is quite good for organizing albums.


http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshopalbum/starter.html

I think BOAC's solution should work. There is a 'picture taken on' sort order I think as well, and a simple by 'name' which will work if you haven't renamed your pictures from the DSC001, DSC002... etc that comes from the camera.

Right clicking gives you a choice of arranging in Name, Size, Type, Modified on, Picture Taken On and Dimensions. And if you select Name repeatedly it cycles between 0-1 then A-Z, and 1-0 then Z-A order.

What they said.

If you haven't tried Picasa, you may be pleasantly surprised.

To go a couple of steps further:

This works easiest if the folder type is "Pictures" (the only difference between the types is the default column headers).

Look at the files in "details" mode. You have a row of column headers across the top. Right-click anywhere in that row where you think you'd like to add a new column. A drop-down list of possible column headers is displayed. If you click "more...", a lot more are displayed, including ones like "Date Picture Taken" (this should already be selected if the folder is of type "Pictures"), camera model and so on. You can sort on any of those attributes easily in details mode. The extra columns you selected are also added to the "View, Arrange Icons By..." list, so when you go back to thumbnail view, you can still sort the pictures easily.

That's all well and good, unless your camera date was incorrect, or you had to change the battery in between shots and the date was reset. If the "taken" or "created" date isn't in the right order then manually indexing and adding a code before the pic name is the only reliable way to do it.

unless ... or ... and ...

Surreal. Or you could load the files from the wrong camera into the wrong computer, even. Dicking with file names is not "the only way to do it".

Juud - have only just noticed this! :\

I have the same problem as you as I use the same program as you do.

The way I personally get around it is to organise my images as you have, and then copy an extra one at the beginning of the 'tiles' - doesn't matter which one as you'll be deleting it in a moment.

then i highlight the whole lot of them, place my cursor over the first image and then ask to 'rename'. I then rename them a name that is not already existing in the list of names that you have on there, and then press 'return'.

Hey presto, they are all called 'name (1)' followed by 'name (2)' and so on, except for your first one which is just 'name'. I then delete this one, and my images now remain in the order in which i wish them to be.

:)