Viewing/Organizing Photos

I take a lot of photos and I find the Windows Explorer photo interface clunky.

My Canon SX 50 came with the Zoom Browser EX software and it seems to work faster with some better filtering options.

Anyone else using the Zoom Browser EX software or are there better alternatives have others found useful for Windows photo management?

What exactly are you trying to do? Do you need a program for organizing? Viewing? Editing?

Lightroom is fantastic if you are willing to pay for it. I would imagine LR4 is cheap right now since LR5 came out, and is still very capable.

Picasa is a good free option, extremely easy to use, but doesn't have a ton of power features.

For viewing straight from the windows interface, I use FastStone viewer.

I would highly recommend Lightroom. Even for a hobbyist, it has huge benefits. The ability to organize, view, and edit your photos with that program are amazing. I've been a fan since LR3. Haven't upgraded to 5 yet, but probably will in the near future.

Lightroom is mine, both for organization and for 90% of my editing. LR4 is amazing, and LR5 is just expanding on that. If I have to do more than LR can do, then I have PS Elements 11.

I'm another LR fan.

davidmtml wrote in post #16022014
What exactly are you trying to do? Do you need a program for organizing? Viewing? Editing?

Lightroom is fantastic if you are willing to pay for it. I would imagine LR4 is cheap right now since LR5 came out, and is still very capable.

Picasa is a good free option, extremely easy to use, but doesn't have a ton of power features.

For viewing straight from the windows interface, I use FastStone viewer.

Primarily I am using it for organizing and viewing with some light editing. I am quite new to photo editing but am realizing that I need to learn how as most great pictures I see posted have had at least some post editing.

Lightroom 4 seems to sell for about $85 to $100 on eBay so this isn't outrageous but LIghtbox 5 is $149 which is a little more than I would like to spend.

But I think I would like to work with a free editing program for a bit while I learn.

After playing with Zoom EX for a bit, I like its speed but not its editing. I did install the Windows Live Photo Gallery and it seems to work well and its editing features aren't bad. So I will try that for a while.

Download the free trial of Lightroom from Adobe's website. It's the full up version, and I think you have something like 30 days to play around with it. What you've described is exactly what Lightroom was built for. There's a little bit of a learning curve, since it uses a different methodology for organizing and working with photos than what you're going to be used to. Once you come to understand it, though, it's extremely versatile and effective. There are a ton of training videos right on the Adobe website that should get you going, and once you get the basics down, it's pretty easy to figure out the rest.

I use Picasa for my organization. It's quick and can't beat it for the price -- free. I've got ZoomBrowser and the organizer in Elements but still only use Picasa now. It does have some editing capability and will even do a collage or slideshow.

Bite the bullet and get Lightroom. You'll use something else for awhile, you'll eventually outgrow it, and you'll move to Lightroom anyway only at that point toll have more photos and more work to do. Just get Lightroom now and be done with it.

CincyTriGuy wrote in post #16025365
Bite the bullet and get Lightroom. You'll use something else for awhile, you'll eventually outgrow it, and you'll move to Lightroom anyway only at that point toll have more photos and more work to do. Just get Lightroom now and be done with it.

Ah, but by the time I outgrow it, Lightroom 6 might be out!

The Windows Photo Gallery editing is helping me learn by playing with exposure, contrast, highlights, etc. Already, I am seeing an improvement in the photos.

I don't get any income from my photography and the camera is a recent purchase so want to wait a bit to let the hobby budget recover before buying $150 software.

Try Faststone, it's free and good.

From the OPs remarks, I gather that ebusinesstutor is shooting jpegs, in which case, well, there are loads of free jpeg editors out there, you can try ones that have been mentioned, like Picasa, you can do a quick Internet search for "free photo editor" and see a ton more.

Something to realize is that as your photo workflow needs progress, you will need to look at more powerful and useful software apps, ones that will start to cost you...

For jpegs, a very useful "starter app" once you go beyond the basics found in Picasa is Photoshop Elements, quite powerful, although you do pay, though less than $100!

As I said before, not ready to spend $150 on photo editing software yet.

I have settled on Windows Photo Gallery for organizing and Pixlr Editor (online software) for editing. I used Photo Gallery for the editing for a while, bit Pixlr seems to have more options and more control over the results.

ebusinesstutor wrote in post #16026310
Ah, but by the time I outgrow it, Lightroom 6 might be out!

I keep reading and hearing that the next version after Lightroom 5 will be subscription. Not sure if thats good or not.

A lot of companies are going to subscription-based so they can get money every month instead of a one time fee. I use a lot of subscription software in my business. It makes sense there because I am using the software for generating income.

Not sure I want to be paying that way for a hobby. Although most people pay over $100 per month for cable tv.