Last time I looked, backup filenames look like "foobar.jpg.original". An unfortunate consequence of that is that many programs do not believe such a file to be a jpeg file or indeed any kind of image file. It would be useful if instead the original extension were also appended to the backup file to fix that problem, so that the above backup would end up as "foobar.jpg.original.jpg".
An additional enhancement would be to add a timestamp to the filename to make it easier to differentiate multiple backups of the same file. While this might seem to be redundant with information the filesystem already stores, it is not hard to end up with a changed filesystem timestamp, for example with a mistaken or even innocuous exiftool operation. For example, "foobar.jpg.original_20110804.jpg".
Naming of backup files is done by ExifTool (not GUI). I have no opinion about it, because I don't use backup option.
Ok, thanks. Any idea on how to move the post to the exiftool forum?
This is done on purpose. If the backup files ended in .jpg, it would be far too easy to process them again accidentally. After a few passes:
test.jpg
test_original.jpg
test_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original_original_original.jpg
...
- Phil
Ah well, I have to disagree with you on which is worse, accidental reprocessing or inappropriate extension. So, I guess my next position is maybe it could be a user option if someone has different taste. Alternately, they don't necessarily have to go into the original directory; they could go into an "originals" subdirectory of it. (Yeah, user would have to have permission to create subdirectory.)
Anyway, I wouldn't classify it as high priority for me. I'm just listing issues as I come across them using exiftool and exiftoolgui more heavily.
Quote from: Phil Harvey on August 04, 2011, 08:49:17 PM
This is done on purpose. If the backup files ended in .jpg, it would be far too easy to process them again accidentally. After a few passes:
test.jpg
test_original.jpg
test_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original_original.jpg
test_original_original_original_original_original_original.jpg
...
- Phil