Update on this
 

In case anyone still has not managed to figure out how to change the name of a photo in iPhoto without going to the extremes (exporting, renaming, importing, etc)

Simply choose the photo you are interested in, click View on the toolbar then select Info. Or you can simply short cut with command-I. A new window/toolbar will appear on the right-hand side of the photo(s). Above the date, you can highlight the field and rename it to whatever you would like. Hope this helps!

:) :D

Please refer back to post #19 in this thread. When you use iPhoto's info view to change the name of a photo, you're not really changing the "real" name of the photo, only what iPhoto "calls" it.

For example, let's say I imported photo DSC00091. In iPhoto I click View and select Info. I rename the photo "Me at the Beach." iPhoto will now call it Me at the Beach, but if you were clever enough to find the hidden folder showing the "real" image file, it would still be named DSC00091.

None of the versions of iPhoto with which I'm familiar can really and truly amend the image file's name.

Which is why I never use iPhoto to import the real images into the computer. I use Finder and card readers to drag the files into folders that I create for them. Then rename the files using an app such as FileBuddy or A Better Finder Rename. Then if I want to use some of iPhoto's marvelous tools, such as creating slideshows/movies, I'll make sure that iPhoto's preference for copying, found in Preferences>Advanced is unchecked or unticked. This way iPhoto imports a sort of alias of the image file. It can work its magic just as easily on this alias, including creating slideshows/movies, export to iDVD for creating DVDs. And I have avoided iPhoto's idiosyncracies while taking advantage of its many worthwhile functions.

Now, my needs may be more specialized than the average Joe using iPhoto. I had needed to be working very specifically with image files, and be moving them around. I also work extensively in Photoshop. Now in newer versions of iPhoto, you can choose Photoshop as the editing app, again in Preferences>Advanced>Edit Photos, and choose Photoshop, or Lightroom, or whichever.

I feel that iPhoto is a great image editing/managing app. I would probably use it, even importing the "real" images, allowing it to "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" if I had just been managing photos of family occasions and such.

To assure that my information isn't old, I opened my iPhoto '11, version 9.2.1 running on my MBP running OS 10.7.3.

I went to Preferences>Advanced> and checked "Copy items to the iPhoto Library."

I then imported a photo. I clicked View>Info. I changed the name from DSC_0176_2 to Julie_fabric. See the photo below circled in yellow showing the photo name Julie_fabric.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7218/7...a239ffcf_o.jpg

I closed iPhoto and opened a Finder window, clicking on Pictures.

I right-clicked on iPhoto Library and chose Show Package Contents. I drilled down clicking the flippy triangles to the Masters folder. I kept drilling down via the flippy triangles to 2012>04>and the most recent folder, which is 25, for today's date. Clicking on that flippy triangle revealed that the "real" file name hadn't changed despite my renaming the photo in iPhoto.

See the photo below showing the "real" file name is still DSC_0176_2.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5319/7...3d0ff41a_o.jpg



You can also see in folder 15, that there's no "real" file there. That's because on that date, I had the "Copy items to iPhoto Library" unchecked. So there is an event folder, but the real file is elsewhere on the hard drive. iPhoto copied an "alias" of the photo. I can see it in iPhoto, but it's not in iPhoto's hidden folder hierarchy.

I think the real question is, "Why does it matter to some of you what the Finder's name for the file is?"

In my case, I needed to be able to order the files by date and in temporal order, such as 20091004H2-0004. Telling me it was shot in 2009, October 4th, Half 2 of the game, and the fourth shot of the half. I also needed to be able to see that name in whatever app I was using to review the photos. iPhoto didn't (and maybe still doesn't) have a way to do that. So iPhoto, for that task, didn't meet my needs. And iPhoto then and now doesn't organize in a way that makes sense for the way that I think about organization. But I'm sure that it does for the way that others view organization.

iPhoto met my needs very well for later compiling into slideshows and creating quicktime movies which I could then import into iDVD and turn into end of season DVDs for the players and families.

I can't speak to the reasons that others have for wanting to amend the "real" file names of their photos. But it might be useful for folks to know that renaming in iPhoto doesn't amend that "real" file name.

Just so you know, there's an easier way to do this. In iPhoto, select an image, then use File > Reveal In Finder.

Couple of things to note here. One is that the seemingly present option to change the name of a picture in iPhoto is only allowing you to change what's referred to as the Title of the picture. That, obviously, isn't, well, obvious. But it is the case, so I'm noting it.

For the larger issue at hand, there are a few options. There's what was mentioned upthread a long time ago, to rename the files before importing them into iPhoto. What you described suggests you have lots of pictures, so it sounds like a file-renaming utility would be worth your spending a few dollars. I can provide recommendations if you'd like, or you could also poke around MacUpdate and download demo versions to try.

If you don't want to do that, there is kind of a hidden renaming method I sometimes use in the Finder. Say you've got a Finder window with all your images to be imported. This window is in list view (available from the View menu). If you press the Space Bar, you get a preview of the image. Without leaving the preview, you could press Return (putting the selected image in rename mode), type the new name, press Return again to leave rename mode, then press the Down Arrow key to preview the next one. Then you can rinse and repeat. I throw that out aware that you take a lot of pictures, so maybe that's not convenient enough, but that's a decision for you to make.

Another option to consider is Aperture since its documentation suggests renaming won't have the same issue as iPhoto.

And while not exactly ideal, I'll note there is a way to get a copy of your images with the titles you've assigned applied to the file names. Select the desired photos in iPhoto, then select File > Export. In the dialog that opens, the File Export tab has a File Name pop-up menu. You can set that to Use Title to export a copy of the images with the name you want to see. I guess you could keep these copies temporarily as a way to perform the review you want, then delete these copies.

In my case, after I import my photos, I then need to post them on a shared server. Having 1400 photos all named IMG_0001.JPG is not terribly helpful.

If you want to rename the filename of an image in iPhoto 9.4.2 click on the Info button and then simply edit the filename shown at the top of the panel opposite the stars. Tab to come out of it.

This is true, but unless things have changed from 9.2.1 rather drastically, the method you've described above only changes what iPhoto calls the image, not the image's file name.

And for a great many users, this is perfectly fine.

The original poster had wanted to know if there was a way from within iPhoto to change the 'real' file name, leading to the extensive discussion that followed.

And 5 years later the answer is still "No". I have not yet used a database-centered application that has similar functionality, simply because there's no need. iPhoto has sorting options independent of file names, dates are stored internally in EXIF data, and users aren't encouraged to touch the files after import - hence the package format rather than plain folders.

If you *really* must rename things, either do it before import or use a different photo browser, like the Finder in Icon view.

Yep.

LOL, the forum wouldn't let me leave it as "yep."