Picture management software?

[DocFrankenstein]

I've been shooting digital for... since april. I have 8000+ pics and growing.

Most of the aren't worth anything. Quite a lot of them I'd want to archive and a dozen or two I'd want to print/display.

Other than by going through them manually and deleting... is there a way to label them and separate them "automatically"

I've read an article about sports photogs. When the pics were dloaded on the server, the main guy would look at 2 pics a sec and label the keepers/in focus

I'd like to have a program which would give me "step by step" selection of the pics...

1) Kill the obviously bad ones... Misplaced focus... Animals with their heads turned around... mothers in law... All "bad ones" are deleted

2) C quality pics...
You go through them again and select the ones you'd want to put on the net... or save to a CD/archive... etc...

3) B quality pics...
The ones you'd print at 4*6. The ones that you go to your "best 2%" or something. Definite keepers.

4) A quality. You just want to print it at 13*19 and brag about it.


Any software that does something like that? I know you can do it manually, but it takes too much time.

[samdring]

I suspect that most of the image management suites would do just what you want (if I have your requirements correct)

ACD See 6, which I use and am happy with, allows you to scroll through thumbs and allocate a rating of 1 to 5. You can then search on any rating and do whatever file handling routines you wish (delete, move to new folder, send to grandma etc)

[droosan]

I'd like to have a program which would give me "step by step" selection of the pics...



I use Graphic Converter for this but I am imagine many programs do something similar. In Graphic Converter I can set up keys which put the picture currently displayed in the slideshow, in a specific folder, and displays the next picture in this folder.

I set up my folders something like:
Awesome
Keep
NeedsFixing
NotDecidedYet
Trash

I open up a slideshow and I can go through 100 pictures in a few minutes.

[fwhitesides]

Have you tried Picasa? It's the closest thing on Windows to Mac's iPhoto program. And more importantly, it's free! I recently downloaded it to help sort through some vactions pics from Germany and Austria and it was invaluable. It's not a pro-level app, but it gets the job done for mundane tasks like sorting and batch resizing, and it has a pretty easy to use interface. It also has slide show capabilities. Check it out:

http://www.picasa.com/picasa/

FYI: Picasa was recently purchased by Google.

[DReb-MO]

ThumbsPlus!

you can checkout the trial version before you buy. It's actively developed and has a relatively strong support base. It uses an Access type database to create thumbnails from your pics, allows assignment of keywords, groups, colors, events etc. Search and find functions, very powerful stuff. You can check it out at the link below:

http:\\www.cerious.com

Good luck.

[Olegis]

I second the ACDSee software recommendation. When I get back from a photo-shoot, I copy the CF cards to a new folder on the PC and then scroll through the images at full-screen view. This lets me see the pictures, delete the ones I don't wand and copy (or move) the ones I like to whatever directory I want. The interface is pretty convenient - while viewing the picture at full screen, just press "Delete", "Copy" or "Move" buttons on the toolbar.

[Jussuff]

Hi,
have a look at IMatch under www.photools.com
It's a great and very versatile piece of sowftware!


Best
J.

[RinkRat]

I just recieved an email from Jasc software for "Paint Shop Photo Album 5"

Looks pretty good for $25.

Anyone use this?

Forgot the link: http://deals.jasc.com/photoalbum5/ppafeature1.asp

[evilenglishman]

just curious, do any of theose progs work with raw files?

[PacAce]

If you are using PS, especially PS CS, then you can use it to manage your images. You have the ability to rank the images, to categorized them by whatever keywords you choose and display or delete them by categories and ranks, etc. Of course, the files will need to be online and accessible by PS and not really achived off somewhere.

[scsmith10D]

I use iView Media Pro, which is awesome.

www.iview-multimedia.com

also, Photomechanic is the gold standard for pro photogs, according to SportShooter.com.

Photomechanic is sold by Lexar, or www.camerabits.com

[Chris1le]

Pixort lets you separate your images into 5 different folders. Try it out it is free.

http://www.jotto.no/pixort/

[DReb-MO]

just curious, do any of theose progs work with raw files?

ThumbsPlus reads canon raw with out a hitch.

[maderito]

I've tried a few programs (IMatch, ACDsee, Thumbsplus) and learned a few things:

1. No matter what tool you use to organize your files at a virtual level (e.g. within an image cataloguing application), there still needs to be a logical underlying structure to your files on fixed and removal storage devices. After several different tries, I finally decided and am now happy with a simple date-oriented scheme - for me: the year broken into the four seasons with subdirectories within each season for specific events as appropriate.

2. Make sure your applications manage EXIF data properly - from the original to any edited files that are subsequently created (e.g. TIFFs and JPEGs from RAW files).

3. Add personalized IPTC data (e.g. caption, keywords, etc) to the image file as early in your workflow as possible, and make sure it is preserved in later steps.

4. Trust applications that treat metadata well: e.g. preserve it, allow you to edit/add to it; create files that maintain it, etc.

5. If your important images all have EXIF and IPTC data, several file management programs can use this easily to generate searchable data (keywords, captions, dates, etc.) that can provide a basis for organizing your images into logical units (e.g. family, fall 2003, etc.)

6. Most image data management applications cannot handle image editing/processing operations (e.g. resizing, saving for web, etc) as well as Photoshop.

For me, the most important lesson was to get make sure that EXIF and IPTC data were handled properly by all steps in the image processing workflow. Image management systems come and go. It shouldn't be hard to switch to a different image management application if the pertinent into is saved as metadata within your images. Unfortunately, there are many idiosyncrasies on how different image capture devices and editing applications handle this metadata - so you learn and grow as you revise your workflow.

I mostly use BreezeBrowser to manage and edit IPTC data. I try to get this done as the first step in my workflow. I now use Thumbsplus (TP) for my image database. It’s a little quirky and needs improvement. But TP continues to improve over time – especially with its new Version 7 release and it is far less opaque than IMatch which is peerless for some types of image management operations.

I’m not obsessively organized. But I value the images I take – and I like to locate them with a minimal of hassle. If you take 10,000+ images/year, just imagine where you’ll be 10+ years from now searching for that wonderful shot of your 3 year old son. :shock:

[PeterTaylor]

Try the software that I use to manage my old Motorspot photo library.

Its called photostation and can be found at http://www.fotostation.com/

It’s very useful, its best to have a look at the software but it can do what you want.

I use it to look after some 20,000 – 30,000 images. All of which have been scanned from film or slide (pre digital days, some of the images are approximately 20 years old).

Web site is pending, as my next major project.

[htbyron]

just curious, do any of theose progs work with raw files?

Breezebrowser does -- it also can convert raws (though not as easy to use or as powerful as C1 or CS, it is leaps and bounds over the FVU software in this respect)

[PhotosGuy]

just curious, do any of theose progs work with raw files?

IMatch natively supports all major digital camera RAW formats, handles EXIF and IPTC information and is able to manage even very large collections with hundreds of thousands of images.

[ejwebb]

samdring

ACD See 6, which I use and am happy with, allows you to scroll through thumbs and allocate a rating of 1 to 5.

Are you sure about this? I downloaded the free trial and can't find ratings - in the software or help files. Am I missing something?

Thanks.

[ejwebb]

Nevermind - I finally found the ratings!!

[who10]

It has already been mentioned, but I also find iview 2.6 to be a nice product... if you need/want RAW capability the Pro version is available - but it's the same price as Extensis (which also has Raw capability).

Here's the compare list between iviewMedia 2.6 and MediaPro 2.6
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/products/compare.php

Thought this feature summary might be useful to some...

[ejwebb]

I am using the trial version of ACDSee and have also tried the Photoshop Album and Thumbs Plus trials. I like ACDSee much better than the other two and I think it does handle RAW as well.