Well, i'm back again with the same code. I took all your ideas to heart, but i was faced with an EVEN larger problem. My file names don't match up!!!! My program works perfectly. It renames and creates the txt files i want. but what it doesn't do, is organize the files so the screen res and the thumbnail shots don't match up. Here is my current code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

# specify the full path to the image files in $base_dir
# do not use \ on win32 use / Perl will convert like magic!
# \ is the escape char. Just *don't use it* for paths
# use / and let Perl take care of the conversion.
  
my $base_dir = 'e:/rgw2/cofsrjpg';

# first let's just read all the files in the dir
# and print them out, this is how we do it:

opendir (DIR, $base_dir) or die "Unable to open dir: $base_dir Perl sa
+ys: $!\n";
while (my $file = readdir DIR) {
    print "found file $file\n";
}
close DIR;

# OK so now we can read all the files in a dir
# we can look at doing stuff with them.
# What we do is to stuff the files into the
# arrays you wanted using "push"
# we push them into the array if they match
# the criteria you seem to want
# Note that within a match m/ / the . char has a special
# meaning (it matches any single char) so to match a 
# literal . we "escape" it with a backslash (backwhack)

my (%screenres, %thumbnail, @image4by6, @screenres, @thumbnail, @renam
+edscreenres, @renamedthumbnail); # pacify strict
opendir (DIR, $base_dir) or die "Unable to open dir: $base_dir Perl sa
+ys: $!\n";
while (my $file = readdir DIR) {
    push @image4by6, $file if $file =~ m/4 by 6\.tif/;
    push @screenres, $file if $file =~ m/screen res\.jpg/;

    push @thumbnail, $file if $file =~ m/thumbnail\.jpg/;


}
    @renamedscreenres = @screenres;
    foreach (@renamedscreenres)
    {
        s/ screen res.jpg$//

    }
    @renamedthumbnail = @thumbnail;
    foreach(@renamedthumbnail)
    {
        s/ thumbnail.jpg$//
    } 
    %screenres{@renamedscreenres} = @screenres;
    %thumbnail{@renamedthumbnail} = @thumbnail;
close DIR;

# now lets print out our sorted arrays
# via a function that we define (a subroutine)

print "\n\nImage4by4 array contains:\n";
print_sorted( @image4by6 );

print "\n\nScreenres array contains:\n";
print_sorted( @screenres );

print "\n\nThumbnail array contains:\n";
print_sorted( @thumbnail );

print "\n\nRenamedScreenres array contains:\n";
print_sorted( @renamedscreenres );

print "\n\nRenamedThumbnail array contains:\n";
print_sorted( @renamedthumbnail );

exit;

# this sub takes one argument - an array
# the array is passed to the sub in the 
# magical @_ array. We sort this array
# storing the result in @sorted
# we then use a loop to iterate over
# each element assigning it to $file
# we print each file in turn plus a newline \n
##my $i = 1;
sub print_sorted {
    my @sorted = sort @_;
    foreach my $file (@sorted) {
       print "$file\n";}



   ## for (local *IT; $screenres[$i]; ++$i)
    ##{
      ##  rename $screenres[$i], "${i}_sc.jpg";
       ## rename $thumbnail[$i], "${i}_tn.jpg";
       ## open IT, ">${i}_db.txt"; close IT;
        
    ## }
}
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Update Masem - changed title from "Seeking Wisdom...Again"