Image comparison software?

[icetorch]

First of all I should state my purpose. Over time, I grab different images from the Internet (usually jpg/jpeg, but sometimes png or bmp formats). Often, they're similar images of the same subject, but in different sizes or qualities. I end up with them spread over various folders. When I do a tidy-up, I hunt down all the similar images, switching between folder windows, then decide which to keep. It occurs to me that my PC could maybe do the search for me far quicker - but is computing really that sophisticated yet? Does anybody know of any software that would do the task, or that they would recommend?

I also have a habit of putting images in order in a folder, so that they form a sort of progression as I look along the thumbnails. All highly subjective, of course, and a PC can't emulate that. But I name them so that they appear in alphabetical order, e.g. UK01, UK02, etc. Eventually, I squeeze too many in, and end up with say UK01Z, UK01ZAA, etc. Then I want to rename them, but if I start at the beginning, I want to rename UK01A to UK02 - but it already exists, so I can't do it without transferring that image to another folder first, and so on - so it gets complicated, and errors may ensue.

Is there a progam that could do this task for me? I would give it a target folder, and tell it to keep the images in the given order - but to rename them as follows: UKnn, where nn starts at say 02 and rises in steps of say 2, e.g. UK02, UK04, UK06, etc. Obviously it would have to temporarily rename any existing images, further ahead, that had a duplicate name - e.g. if it was renaming UK01F to UK12, but UK12 already existed, it would need to find a way around that - but there are ways for software to deal with that, of course.

Hope this all makes sense...

[Fellwanderer]

First of all I should state my purpose. Over time, I grab different images from the Internet (usually jpg/jpeg, but sometimes png or bmp formats). Often, they're similar images of the same subject, but in different sizes or qualities. I end up with them spread over various folders. When I do a tidy-up, I hunt down all the similar images, switching between folder windows, then decide which to keep. It occurs to me that my PC could maybe do the search for me far quicker - but is computing really that sophisticated yet? Does anybody know of any software that would do the task, or that they would recommend?

I also have a habit of putting images in order in a folder, so that they form a sort of progression as I look along the thumbnails. All highly subjective, of course, and a PC can't emulate that. But I name them so that they appear in alphabetical order, e.g. UK01, UK02, etc. Eventually, I squeeze too many in, and end up with say UK01Z, UK01ZAA, etc. Then I want to rename them, but if I start at the beginning, I want to rename UK01A to UK02 - but it already exists, so I can't do it without transferring that image to another folder first, and so on - so it gets complicated, and errors may ensue.

Is there a progam that could do this task for me? I would give it a target folder, and tell it to keep the images in the given order - but to rename them as follows: UKnn, where nn starts at say 02 and rises in steps of say 2, e.g. UK02, UK04, UK06, etc. Obviously it would have to temporarily rename any existing images, further ahead, that had a duplicate name - e.g. if it was renaming UK01F to UK12, but UK12 already existed, it would need to find a way around that - but there are ways for software to deal with that, of course.

Hope this all makes sense...

If I understand you correctly, then Irfanview will do that for you. It will do a batch rename according to the criteria you have set down.

It's freeware

[icetorch]

Thanks for that. I'll download it and try it out.