Writing the filename into the IPTC title field is a really useful practice. It preserves the name in a place that’s accessible, and likely to survive any kind of renaming I typically use it for one of three reasons.
I like to write the name in the title field of all my images after they get their permanent name in the ingestion process. That way, if a client renames the file and asks for the original, I have a breadcrumb trail back tp the original. All I need to do is look in the metadata of the renamed file.
Another reason to do this is that you are using a service of some kind that needs the files renamed. Pictage is a popular wedding print service that requires files to be renamed or upload.
And finally (and the real reason I made the script), you might want to rename files if your file renaming convention changes. When I started in digital, I used several different naming conventions before I settled on the one I use and promote now (Krogh_YYMMDD_####.ext). I’ve been working on the deep archive for a project, and decided it was time to rename the older files. But I wanted to keep the old name, in case someone might refer to the file this way.
I wanted to do this work in Expression Media 2, since that’s the program that manages my legacy archive. There is an existing script for iView, and I’ve made one available free for Bridge here.
This movie shows how the script works. If you are interested, it sells for $9.99. Available here.