Starter templates

Every account, Free or Pro, ships with three ready-to-apply templates. They exist for two reasons: (1) give new users a working example the first time they touch the template picker, and (2) document the most common real-world format strings in running code.

The three starters span the full skill range: Manual Groups is the simplest viable workflow for users with no SKU or PIM, ISO 8601 Deliverables is the photographer's CSV-driven shoot delivery shape, and SEO Attribute Chain is the catalog-driven e-commerce shape.

Photography · Manual Groups

The simplest path. Bucket your images into named groups (hero-shots, lifestyle, detail-shots) and rename each one to a humanized Bucket Descriptor 001.jpg.

• Format: {group}-{descriptor}-{seq:3}{ext}
• Sample: Hero Shots Front 001.jpg (humanized — the slug hero-shots-front-001.jpg runs through the Readable Names post-processor)
• Group by: [group]
• Required metadata: group, descriptor
• Alt text voice: "narrative, scene-setting, one short caption focused on subject and mood".

When to use it

You have a folder of images and you want a clean, readable filename without setting up a SKU pattern, a PIM export, or a CSV. The flow is:

1. Drop your folder.
2. Apply this template — humanReadable is on by default.
3. Select the images that belong together, click Group, type a bucket name like hero-shots.
4. Open each row's metadata panel and type a descriptor (front, back, detail).
5. Export.

This is the starter referenced in Quick start step 5 — the rest of the docs assume you've already met {group} here.

Photographer · ISO 8601 Deliverables

A date-prefixed shoot delivery format with client/phase tags and zero-padded per-shoot sequence.

• Format: {date|src=exif|fmt=YYYY-MM-DD}_{val:client}_{val:phase}_{seq:3}{ext}
• Sample: 2026-04-15_smithwedding_prep_001.jpg
• Group by: [client, phase]
• Required metadata: client, phase
• Alt text voice: "editorial, neutral, one short caption per image".

When to use it

Photographer delivering a wedding, event, or real-estate shoot where the client and phase (prep / ceremony / reception / exterior / interior) drive file organization. The {val:client} and {val:phase} tokens resolve from the per-image metadata bag populated by CSV Import, so the flow is:

1. Drop the shoot folder.
2. Apply this template.
3. Import a one-row CSV mapping filenames to client and phase keys.
4. Export.

E-commerce · SEO Attribute Chain

Brand → product → style → color → view, with a two-digit sequence per SKU.

• Format: {val:brand}-{val:product}-{val:style}-{val:color}-{val:view}-{seq:2}{ext}
• Sample: nike-airmax-90-black-red-sideview-01.jpg
• Group by: [brand, product]
• Required metadata: brand, product, color, view
• Alt text voice: "product-focused, keyword-friendly, 1 sentence emphasizing material + use case".

When to use it

You have a PIM or a spreadsheet listing every image's brand, product handle, style, color, and view angle. The {val:...} tokens read straight from the CSV Import metadata, so you never have to type any of those attributes into the workspace manually.

For simpler e-commerce shoots without a PIM, the Manual Groups starter above is one click away — bucket images by SKU as a manual group instead of a PIM-driven {val:product} token.

Why only three

We deliberately ship a small built-in set. The value of a starter template is "works immediately on a persona I recognize," not "covers every persona we can think of." More starters would dilute the picker on every user's first visit. If you maintain a format string you want other users to adopt, tweet it at us and we'll consider promoting it to the starter set.