photo "organizer" software (database management?)

[arghman]

Okay, I thought I had all my software needs taken care of with Irfanview. (I rarely do more than crop/resize.)

But now I feel like I need to make my jpeg files into a database, as they are piling up left and right, and a filename no longer seems to suffice to keep track of them. Ability to edit/search/export/batch process EXIF data is an absolute minimum.

Anybody aware of a good "organizer" software, either free/shareware or inexpensive (<US$30)? (or do you know of a reputable review of one)

[kgosden]

I am not certain if Photoshop Album can do all that, but it might meet some of your needs. Personally I end up sorting stuff into a directory structure that seems to be better for me than any organizer program. Maybe I need to have a few thousand more images to find my personal problem limits. I would guess I have at least 10k images saved over the last few years and still I can usually find what I want.

[jaykinghorn]

You might have a look at IView Media. It is a very powerful (and very fast) program for organizing, editing and storing images. The Pro version gives you additional features, but I would guess that the standard would cover everything you need.

Best regards,
Jay Kinghorn
RGB Imaging

[kdmunro]

AcdSee come in a version you can try then license, it creates a Database of all your pictures but will alos allow you to keep them anywhere on your hard drive.

Hope that helps

cya

Keith

[arghman]

I looked at IView briefly, unfortunately I'm already at about 5,000 photos & they have an 8,000 photo limit for the standard version; you need to pay $200 for the full version & that's outside my budget.

I went with IMatch, I got sucked into it really quickly after trying it for only a day or two. (though on the day I went to buy a licensed version the price increased from US$50 to US$60, my bad luck. :( ) I've never used any software program before that has had that quick of a learning/enjoying curve.

I'm not quite sure how it compares in detail w/ the other programs, but I really like it. It has fairly powerful scripting facilities so if you can't do something w/ a built in feature you can write your own. I've been categorizing my images & building up a plants/flowers database organized by family/genus/species -- it wasn't too hard to write a macro which finds all the plants images that I've marked as exemplary, copies them as smaller resized images in an output directory, and spits out a text-database file I can use to generate a webpage. Imatch has a nice mix of both easy-to-use basic features & techie features.

I tried AcdSee about 3 years ago, went to buy it and they had "upgraded" & changed their user interface dramatically to the point where it really felt dumbed down or limiting in some way. I'm sure it has improved over the past 3 years, but I got burnt by their company's stupid marketroid-design-choices at the time so I didn't even consider it.

[bryanbendo]

i use photoshop album 2.0, here is a alternative though....

http://www.primasoft.com/deluxeprg/photo_organizer_deluxe.htm

[mischivo]

I looked at IView briefly, unfortunately I'm already at about 5,000 photos & they have an 8,000 photo limit for the standard version; you need to pay $200 for the full version & that's outside my budget.

Not that it really matters not, but I hope you knew that with iView Media 2.6, the 8000 file limit was limited to a single catalogue only? Right? Nothing in the basic version prevents you from creating multiple catalogues...

However, if you're happy with your choice, good job.

[calvin]

Hi there --

I faced the same situation a while back and investigated many programs available on the market today.

I have created a summary of all the major products that seem to be targeted at this area:

Digital Photography Organizing Software (http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/)
... click on Cataloging then Comparison of Catalog Products

There are quite a few that are reasonably cheap and a some that are actually free. Most of them can easily batch process EXIF information (either into filenames, searching or just modification). As you begin to work with a program, you'll eventually discover other features that also become critical to your workflow. My page outlines a few of those issues (eg. versioning, offline images, exporting of catalog tags, etc.).

Good luck!
Cal.

[arghman]

Digital Photography Organizing Software (http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/)
... click on Cataloging then Comparison of Catalog Products
excellent website!

[calvin]

excellent website!

Thanks very much! :) As I spent a lot of effort investigating these issues for myself, I figured it would make sense to put together a website with this information for others...

Thx,
Cal.

[kingkangtazhou]

i know an excellent photo organizer - ACDSee 8 Photo Manager

ACDSee 8 Photo Manager's powerful browse and search tools help you sift through thousands of pictures effortlessly, find the best ones, and organize them into common sense categories that make your photos easy to find later.

Find your pictures in a snap with the Quick Search Bar. Touch up your pictures using editing features like the Photo Repair tool. Create inspiring Flash slideshows set to your favorite music. Burn your images to CD or VCD. Share your photo albums with friends and family online or by e-mail. Plus, with a range of failsafe storage features, you'll never lose a single photograph. :confused:

http://www.yaodownload.com/video-design/photoorganizers/acdsee8-photo-manager_photoorganizers.htm

[Vich]

Anyone know if some of these handle pdf files?

While I need to sort out my 25K photos personally, at work we receive about 100 faxes a day. As of 2 weeks ago they get automatically stored as PDF on the network for later reference (optionally I can store as JPG). It'll quickly grow to be unmanagable.

I need for about 15 people to search them and organize. Photo management software should be ideal. It's for a fair sized Corp so $2000 wouldn't be unreasonable to pay (for 15 licenses).

PDF format offers some advantages if I can get equal organization and search speed.

However; the most important feature will be a quick zoom capabilty and ability to pre-sort.

Suggestions? I know this isn't exactly a photo related question, but all help would be greatly appreciated.

[ryanbrancel]

Digital Photography Organizing Software (http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/)
... click on Cataloging then Comparison of Catalog Products

Cal.

Calvin - on the site you mention if the software can do "IPTC" I've never heard this acronym before. Are you talking about EXIF data?

[Magg]

I suggest you to take a look at PicaJet Photo Manager (http://picajet.com). This software covers the most of the photographer needs, plus inexpensive. If you are looking for a something more more serious tasks take a look at IMatch.

[nrbelex]

Google's free Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) is excellent. Period. It does all the basics really well and has a great UI.

~ Brett

P.S. - Vich, file types supported include:

Images: jpg, bmp, gif, png, psd, tif
Movies: avi, mpg, wmv, asf, mov (QuickTime)
RAW data files, including cameras from Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Minolta and Pentax.

... but it's probably not what you're looking for.

[Magg]

Google's free Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/) is excellent. Period. It does all the basics really well and has a great UI.

~ Brett

P.S. - Vich, file types supported include:

Images: jpg, bmp, gif, png, psd, tif
Movies: avi, mpg, wmv, asf, mov (QuickTime)
RAW data files, including cameras from Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Minolta and Pentax.

... but it's probably not what you're looking for.

Just a little problem: Picasa doesn't store picture infomation into the files like PicaJet so in one nice day when Picasa can be reinstalled you loss all of your image captions, tags, etc, etc...