Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Given that I roll over the odometer on my camera three or four times a year, I would normally end up with three or four identically named “IMG_0001″, “IMG_0002″, “IMG_0003″ flies every year. Wouldn’t this be a good reason to always rename photos?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, it would be reasonable to rename photos to avoid filename repetition. However, this isn’t generally a significant issue unless you would potentially have repetitive filenames within a single folder.

More Detail: Today’s question is a follow-up to my answer in Friday’s edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter. In my answer I explained that it is indeed good to rename photos to have more meaningful filenames than those generated by the camera, but that I don’t find it necessary to rename photos in my own workflow.

Admittedly, there is the potential for repeated filenames in your photo library to create confusion. However, that isn’t necessarily a significant issue for all photographers. For example, my Lightroom Classic catalog contains almost 400,000 images, and I’ve never had any issues arise due to duplicate filenames.

The only time duplicate filenames would be a real problem is in the context of a single folder, since you can’t have two files with the exact same filename within the same folder. Lightroom Classic deals with this issue by appending a number (such as “-2” to the end of the base filename if you import photos with the same name into a folder.

I would never argue against the practice of renaming photos. I simply wanted to provide some context for photographers such as myself who don’t find it all that important in their workflow. In other words, if you rename your photos, I encourage you to do so. But if you don’t rename your photos, there might not be a particularly important reason for you to start doing so.

For those who do want to rename their photos, I do recommend making sure you’re using an approach that will ensure unique and hopefully meaningful filenames. For example, using a format like “Tim Grey Photo 12345678.cr3” would provide something more meaningful than the filenames generated by the camera, but isn’t necessarily all that useful.

Instead, I would suggest including numbers representing the date of capture and perhaps custom text providing context for the photos, such as “Tim Grey – Palouse -2026-06 – 001234.cr3”. The key is to create a filename structure that not only looks more random than the filenames generated by the camera, but that also provides other helpful information or context.

Today’s Question: In your recent presentation I noticed you seem to use the default file names for your photos from the camera. What are your thoughts on keeping those names instead of something more meaningful? If the original file name is required, it can be appended to the end.

Tim’s Quick Answer: I think renaming your photos to something more meaningful than what comes out of the camera can be very helpful. I just don’t tend to rename my own photos in large part because I don’t have the need to send copies of images to others very often, and I don’t find renaming to be all that helpful in my normal workflow.

More Detail: To be clear, the filenames that are generated by most cameras aren’t exactly helpful. The filenames generally consist of a base filename that is only eight characters long, often with additional characters that further reduce the value of the filename. For example, a common structure uses a filename along the lines of IMG_1234.CR3, meaning there are only four characters used for the sequence number. This, in turn, means that after 9,999 photos the filename rolls back to something like IMG_0001.CR3.

So, I certainly think it is a good idea for photographers to rename their photos upon download or import, so that they can use a filename structure that is more meaningful and helpful. That might include, for example, the photographer’s name or initials, the year, month, and day of capture, as well as a sequence number to ensure unique filenames for all images.

However, while I consider renaming to more meaningful filenames, I simply don’t find the improved filenames to be particularly helpful in my own workflow. I almost always sort photos by capture time, so having a better filename structure won’t help with sorting my images in a meaningful way. I don’t send photos to others very often where I need to be able to reference the original filename, so I can simply rename the derivative copy of photos when sending them to others.

Ultimately, what this all boils down to is that I do think renaming photos to have more meaningful filenames is a good thing. It is just something I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing. In other words, I have myself in a situation of, “Do as I say not as I do”!

Today’s Question: Suppose that I deleted some xmp/acr sidecar files. Is there a way to regenerated or recreate them? Just hypothetically, of course.

Tim’s Quick Answer: If you’re using Lightroom Classic deleting sidecar files wouldn’t be a problem because the information is in the catalog. If you’re using Camera Raw you would lose your adjustments.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw (and other software) use sidecar files to store metadata updates, primarily as a way of saving metadata to the source file without altering the proprietary raw capture. For example, with non-raw file formats most metadata that would otherwise be saved to a sidecar file would instead be written directly into the source image file.

In the context of Lightroom Classic, the sidecar files can be thought of as a backup to the information in the Lightroom Classic catalog. In fact, sidecar files aren’t created by default in Lightroom Classic. But if you do save the metadata to the source files, either using the Metadata > Save Metadata to Files command or by enabling the automatic option in Catalog Settings, those sidecar files contain information that is also stored in the catalog.

So, with Lightroom Classic if you had deleted the sidecar files for an image you could simply use the Metadata > Save Metadata to Files command to recreate the sidecar files.

With Adobe Camera Raw the situation is different, because the sidecar files are the only place that metadata is saved. Deleting the XMP sidecar file would cause general metadata such as star ratings and keywords, along with adjustment settings from Camera Raw, to be lost. Deleting the ACR sidecar file would cause pixel metadata such as masks from targeted adjustments to be lost. So if you’re using Camera Raw, in general you want to protect the sidecar files almost as much as you protect the original photos.

Today’s Question: Like most of your readers, I keep all my photos in Lightroom Classic, but I also have a lot of photos from family and friends that were taken at parties, family events, etc. and they are not in Lightroom. But I’m thinking that maybe they should be so I can use Lightroom’s organizational and search capabilities with them. Do you have any advice about doing this?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, I do think it makes sense to consolidate most (or all) photos into your Lightroom Classic workflow, even if they are from sources other than your own photography or represent categories of photos beyond your normal photography.

More Detail: In general, I prefer to have all photos consolidated with a single workflow. For example, while there tend to be very different motivations for photos I capture with my smartphone compared to my “real” cameras. However, I still keep photos from both types of cameras in a single consolidated Lightroom Classic catalog.

The same holds true for photos I didn’t capture myself. For example, when leading a photo workshop or presenting at an event, sometimes an attendee will capture a photo of me and share it with me. Similarly, old family photos such as childhood photos of myself weren’t captured by me. But I still keep all these photos (and photos in other categories) in my Lightroom Classic catalog.

The overarching goal to me is to be as streamlined and organized as possible. When I’m looking for a photo, regardless of the provenance of the photo, it is helpful to know I can always start my search in my single Lightroom Classic catalog.

Having said all that, I do think it can be helpful to distinguish these photos from your normal photo workflow in some way. For example, I don’t add my copyright and contact information to the metadata for photos I didn’t capture. Similarly, I’ll often organize these other types of photos outside my normal workflow, such as by using a distinct folder structure.

For example, for photos captured by an attendee at an event I was speaking at, I’ll create a subfolder referencing the photographer who captured and shared the images within the folder containing my own photos from the trip. For archival family photos I maintain a separate top-level folder indicating that these are a different category of photos, with organized folders (such as by date range) within that folder.

In addition, there are certainly situations where photographers may want to maintain two distinct workflows. For example, many photographers use an iPhone for casual photography and may be using iCloud synchronization to keep those photos available across all their Apple devices. In that type of situation, it might not make sense to consolidate all photos into a single workflow, since there is generally a relatively clear distinction between the photos in the two different workflows.

Today’s Question: I prefer to see photos from all subfolders when I select a parent folder in Adobe Bridge. However, when I enable this feature, as soon as I navigate to a different folder, I’m no longer seeing photos from subfolders. Is there a way to make this setting permanent?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can permanently enable the option to view photos in subfolders for the selected folder using the “Always Show Items from Subfolders” option for the Content panel in Adobe Bridge.

More Detail: In Adobe Bridge you can view images not only from the currently selected folder, but from all subfolders within that folder, by enabling the option found on the menu at View > Show Items from Subfolders. However, as noted in today’s question, when you navigate to a different folder that feature will be automatically turned off by default.

If you prefer to keep the “Show Items from Subfolder” feature enabled permanently, that is an option. Start by making sure the feature is enabled by going to the View menu and looking at the “Show Items from Subfolders” command. If there is a checkmark icon to the left of that command, it is enabled. If there isn’t a checkbox click the command to enable the feature.

Next, go to the Content panel and click the panel popup menu to the right of the label for the panel. The icon for the popup menu shows three horizontal lines, which is often referred to as the “hamburger menu” because it resembles the layers of a hamburger. On the popup menu turn on the ” Always Show Items from Subfolders” option, and the feature will remain on even when you navigate to a different folder.

Keep in mind that keeping this option enabled can make browsing a bit more sluggish, because for each folder Bridge needs to process previews for all images in all subfolders. If that performance issue becomes a problem, you can disable the feature by choosing View > Show Items from Subfolders from the menu.

Today’s Question: I have a fairly large number of photos in Lightroom Classic that show there is a metadata mismatch. I’m confident that the information in the catalog (rather than on the hard drive) is correct. Is there a way to batch process all these photos to resolve the metadata mismatch?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can fix this issue for all affected photos by selecting all images that have a metadata mismatch and then applying the update to all selected images.

More Detail: A metadata mismatch occurs in Lightroom Classic when the information in metadata for an image file on the hard drive doesn’t match the metadata in Lightroom Classic. This can occur if you make metadata changes using software other than Lightroom Classic, which is something you should not do. But it can also occur with something more innocuous, such as editing a raw capture directly in Camera Raw rather than in Lightroom Classic.

If you’re not sure why there is a mismatch and believe you may have made meaningful updates outside of Lightroom Classic, you should review the metadata mismatches more carefully to ensure you don’t lose any important updates. But if you’re confident that all meaningful metadata updates have been made in Lightroom Classic and that nothing updated outside of the catalog needs to be preserved, you can batch correct the issue for all affected photos to resolve the metadata mismatch indications.

For example, you could select the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module so you can apply the correction to all photos in the catalog. You could also select one or more folders to correct specific images.

Switch to the grid view, and on the Library Filter bar at the top of the screen (choose View > Show Filter Bar if it isn’t visible) choose the Metadata tab, making sure no other criteria on other tabs are enabled unless you want to use more specific filter criteria. Click the heading popup at the top of one of the columns on the Metadata tab, go to the Develop submenu, and choose “Metadata Status”.

From the Metadata Status column, you can then select any status other than “Up to date”. The status that will most likely represent the largest number of photos with a metadata mismatch, for example, will be “Changed on disk”. Once you’ve set the filter for the status options you want to batch correct, select all the currently displayed photos.

Finally, click the metadata mismatch icon at the top-right of one of the selected thumbnails and then click the “Overwrite Settings” button. This will cause the metadata that differs in the source files compared to the catalog to be updated to match that in the catalog.

Today’s Question: I’m accustomed to seeing XMP (sidecar) files with the same (base) name as my edited images from Lightroom Classic. I just noticed a file I edited also has an ACR (Adobe Camera Raw?) file. Do I really need this one too or can I delete it?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You should retain both the XMP and ACR files, as they contain details of metadata updates and adjustments you’ve applied to the original raw captures in Lightroom Classic (or Adobe Camera Raw).

More Detail: As many photographers are probably already aware, XMP sidecar files are used by software such as Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw to store metadata that has been updated for raw captures, so that the original raw capture doesn’t need to be modified.

This approach was recently updated to include both an XMP and an ACR sidecar file, in part to help improve performance. The XMP file contains standard metadata updates, such as keywords and star ratings, while the ACR file contains raster data such as masks used for targeted adjustments.

As such, you generally want to preserve both of those files along with the original raw capture. Of course, deleting the XMP and ACR files won’t affect the original capture data in the raw capture file, so it is possible to delete those files without losing the original photo. However, in most cases you would want to retain the metadata updates and adjustments for your photos. In other words, the only reason to delete the XMP and ACR files is if you wanted to effectively reset an image to the original capture right out of the camera with no metadata updates or adjustments.

Today’s Question: After a recent update when I launch Photoshop I see a bunch of thumbnails from images I’ve worked on recently. I used to just see the empty window, and I find the new display distracting. Is there a way to go back to the old style?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can disable the Home Screen you’re seeing by turning off the “Auto show the Home Screen” checkbox in Preferences.

More Detail: The Home Screen is not a new feature in Photoshop, so if you only started seeing it recently it was probably caused by either installing a clean (without existing Preferences) version of Photoshop or from resetting the Preferences.

I also find the Home Screen to be distracting and not particularly helpful, so I prefer to turn off the “Auto show the Home Screen” checkbox, which can be found on the General tab of the Preferences dialog. You can bring up the Preferences dialog by choosing Edit > Preferences > General from the menu on Windows or Photoshop > Settings > General on Macintosh.

If you disable the Home Screen but find that you sometimes want to make use of it, you can click the house icon at the far left of the Options bar to bring it up.

I similarly find the newer New Document dialog to be cluttered and distracting, so I prefer not to use it. If you similarly prefer the older version of the New Document dialog you can turn on the “Use Legacy ‘New Document’ Interface” checkbox that is also found on the General tab of the Preferences dialog.

Today’s Question: I created a Photoshop workspace in the Beta version. Can I easily transfer that to the non-Beta version?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can copy saved workspaces from one version of Photoshop to another or from one computer to another.

More Detail: When you save a workspace for the overall layout of panels and toolbars in Photoshop, a file is created that contains the information for that saved layout. The only real challenge is navigating to the right place for those files.

The first step is to save a workspace in Photoshop. To do so, arrange the panels the way you want them, including enabling additional panels from the Window menu or closing panels you don’t need in the workspace. Then go to the menu and choose Window > Workspace > New Workspace. Enter a meaningful name for the workspace and click the Save button. You can then copy the settings file for that saved workspace.

On Macintosh go to the Finder and hold the Option key while choosing Go > Library from the menu. If you don’t hold the Option key you won’t see Library on the menu. Then navigate to the Preferences folder, then the folder named for the version of Photoshop you used to save the workspace. For example, the current version folder is called “Adobe Photoshop 2026 Settings”.

On Windows open File Explorer and navigate to the primary internal hard drive (C:). Open the Users folder, then the folder for your username. You can then navigate to AppData > Roaming > Adobe, followed by the folder for the version of Photoshop, such as “Adobe Photoshop 2026 Settings”.

You can then open the Workspaces folder and copy the files for the layouts you saved with that version of Photoshop. They can be copied to the same folder structure for a different version of Photoshop, or for Photoshop on a different computer. When you launch that version of Photoshop, you’ll find the workspaces available on the Window > Workspace menu.

Note that I demonstrated this process of copying saved workspaces in Photoshop toward the end of my presentation on “Configuring the Interface” as part of the Photoshop Ultimate Live Learning series that is available exclusively to GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle subscribers. The course for that series can be found here:

https://www.greylearning.com/courses/photoshop-ultimate-live-learning