Today’s Question: If one were not interested in developing a methodical template-based renaming system, why not just simply add the desired text in the File Name box in the Metadata section of the Library module?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The only reason I prefer to use the template-based renaming feature in Lightroom is that it provides a consistent workflow regardless of whether you want to rename a single image or multiple images. But if you want to rename a single image without using the template-based approach, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that as long as you rename that image from within Lightroom.
More Detail: This question was a follow-up to a question last week about appending text to the file name of a photo in Lightroom. I provided a workflow for creating a template that can be used with the “Rename Photos” command. With this approach, you would be using the same workflow regardless of whether you wanted to append text to the file name for one photo or multiple selected photos.
It is possible to rename a single photo by simply changing the text in the “File Name” field of the Metadata section of the right panel in the Library module in Lightroom. If you don’t see the “File Name” field near the top of the Metadata section, choose “Default” from the popup to the left of the Metadata header and you’ll see that field.
If you click the mouse into the File Name field, you can update the actual file name and the change will be reflected on your hard drive as well as within Lightroom. Simply press Enter/Return on the keyboard once you’ve typed the updates to the file name, and the change will be applied.