Image Organizing Recommendations

I use use ACR (hosted by Bridge) & PSE8 for my post processing. I've been satisfied with my workflow. However, I see that in the future I will need to re-think how I organize my images.

As a Mac user, I presently store my images in my computer's home directory in the default Pictures folder. Within that folder I use a set of sub-folders that function as albums. However, this will become unwieldy as the number of stored images grows.

In the past, I used iPhoto to store & organize images. This worked well for me. Unfortunately, there can be compatibility problems between iPhoto & PSE. So I no longer use iPhoto.

I would appreciate some recommendations of other applications for image storage/organizing. Lightroom certainly has a loyal following. But since I use ACR, it doesn't make sense for me to purchase LR simply to organize images.

Thank you.

Well, there are apps out there that do various tasks, but I've never used them. I was using Photoshop CS2 when the reports of Lightroom were coming out and I began reading about how Lightroom was being designed for a Raw workflow and much of what was said made a lot of sense. I latched onto the Beta, although I also upgraded to LR3 when I could because it was rock-solid whereas LR was new and too buggy. But, after a couple upgrades, a lot of the bugs were worked out and I jumped on it.

I was very happy with the effective/efficient ways LR handled all my organizational needs and integrated them around the same Raw processor I had in CS3, but with more integration and accessibility than I picked up from Photoshop -- in fact this was the design intent of Lightroom, all integrated with pretty much one-step output for whatever use, all designed with the working Photographer in mind.

Yeah, I had been where you are with wanting some effective organization. What LR offers is that and more.

But, maybe Aperture, maybe with some help from other stuff, don't know, don't have an Apple, but maybe looking in that direction will open up some possibilities.

One thing that is great about a Catalog app like Lightroom (and presumably you can get the same thing in Aperture or iTunes) is the way that my Library can be spread over several hard drives and it's all integrated as one catalog that I can quickly and easily go to or search using keywords, collections, etc.

Thanks, Tony. You seem to echo a lot of the enthusiasm about LR. But right now I hope to find a good app that will allow me to only organize my images. Like I mentioned, I really am pleased with ACR for my RAW processing. Thanks again.

I understand, I'm just not sure if there is anything out there that even matches the organizational capabilities of Lightroom.

Bridge does have keywording and allows for editing the Metadata, so those things can be quite helpful for "quick searches". So, if the big thing you have to deal with is a disorganized file system, start with that and, as you go, use Bridge to apply keywords and other meaningful Metadata. That's how I started -- actually I started with the Elements Organizer -- have you looked at that?

Do get me wrong, my organization system works OK since I coordinate it with Bridge. But at some point I'm going to have to make some changes.

Unfortunately, the Organizer in PSE is only in the Windows version. I'm a Mac.

Thanks, Tony, for your help.