Photo organizer?

[Matetes 0]

Hi,

By now, thousands of scanned slides and digital pics are scattered somewhere in my computer....

It's time to put some order.... I wonder which is the best software for that...

Imatch? ACDSee? Iview media Pro? Fotostation Pro?.......

Any ideas? Any opinions?

Thanks

[Matetes 0]

No answers? Anybody around with thousands of pics properly classifieds?

No opinions?

Thanks

Matetes

[bmyates 3]

Extensis Portfolio is the one I got, based on it being highly recommended by the instructors at a recent Nikon school course on digital workflow. It is a very powerful program that should do anything you want it to, including keeping track of photo files on multiple computers. See http://www.extensis.com/en/products/produc...US&id=prod60005

 

To get an idea of what it can do, click on the tutorials button at the above link, and you'll be able to get a good feel for what Portfolio can do.

I'm not yet an expert in use of the program, but am sure impressed with what I've done so far!

Hope that helps!

[cor 0]

I use Iview Media Pro. It does a pretty good job, and I like the ability to merge databases so I can already organise my images during a trip. I also like that you can tell Iview to find your images after you have moved them from their original location. It then searches whatever disks you give it for those same images.

 

The one main drawback is that you cant search on EXIF fields, which really baffles me.

 

Cor

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

I'm also looks for a solution to the mess I have.

I checked the Extensis Portfolio & Iview and found that I need a combination of them

My problem is that I remove old files from the computer to a CD & DVD disks, in the Extensis Portfolio I can see the name of that disk so I can take it out of the safe and find the needed shot, In the Iview its only gives me the path where the image is store (in my case g:\) and not the name of it so I can't know witch CD I have to upload.

Cor, do you know of an option like this in the Iview?

[cor 0]

It is relatively easy if you have iView 2.6.x. I had to look for it a bit, but if you use the "List" view, then right-click on the top bar (the one with the +/- buttons on it) , you see a column named "Volume Name". Mark it, and from now on there will be a column with the name of the Volume the file is on. Drag the column all the way to the left if you want to see that as the first item.

 

Cor

[Giles 1]

I am in the process of trialin iView and Fotostation.

 

I love both, I have friends that use Fotostation professionally as Motorsport Photographers for Sutton-Images.com and crash.net

 

I believe its greatest power for them is it combines with fotoweb.

[Lndr 0]

I love my IMatch,

 

I find the categories very flexible and useful, and the ability to maintain them elsewhere and import them to other databases / PCs is great.

 

It handles metadata well, and some of the scripts are really great.

 

The only thing I find limiting is the static thumbnail size.

 

cheers

Lndr

[cor 0]

After using IView for a while im not so sure this is what I want to use. Especially the lack of EXIF search capability annoys me. It's also a little slow at times. (15000 images).

 

Ive been looking at Extensis Portfolio and it seems quite nice. But also IMatch looks pretty interesting. Has anyone used both and has an opinion on the strenghts and weaknesses?

 

Cor

[TimG 62]

Maybe I'm being a bit of a wuss, but I've been using Photoshop Album since v1.0. I've got just over 10,000 pics sorted and organised. Its simple to use and backs up pretty easily to DVDs, CDs or my external hard disk. No real problems so far; and I can locate an eg, wrasse, blue-head variety shot in err, Bonaire.

[Giles 1]

iView didnt work out for me .. way too slow and dramatic ... it's like a big old yank tank in action (muscle car) lots of noise and looks like it will get the job done .. but in actual fact it's too heavy to compete and gets bogged down by all the stuff under the bonnet.

 

I am now back to ACDSee ... and now they have IPTC info in there too .. i believe it is now getting to be the ultimate browser / manager ... they can read RAW files .. and convert them .. but you have no control to edit raw files yet .. i bet you it will soon come.

[DeNovell 0]

Hello,

 

You can look at PicaJet FX. Photo organizer which can easily works with huge image collections. Here some of his features:

 

- Unlimited nested categories

- Ability to store descriptions and categories durectly into the IPTC fields.

- Built-in EXIF/IPTC/XMP Viewer/Editor

- Sorting inside EXIF fields

- RAW files support (Including Adobe DNG format)

- Burning, Creating HTML photo galleries, Powerful Printing

- 2 free plug-in which allows quickly shares the photos using Fotki.com or Flickr.com.

- Their also have free version.

- And of course one of the best interfaces I have ever seen

 

-

BR

Dave

[DeNovell 0]

Sorry, I forgot to put a link

 

www.picajet.com

[Giles 1]

I was wondering if Eric would have something to add about all these so called browsers now becoming true photo managers.

 

I remember a year ago I replied to a similar topic to this and said I used ACDSee (and still haven't found anything I like better) and Eric informed me my images were not managed I could just see them.

 

well he was right .. but in the last year I have been slowly going through ALL my photos not only underweater ones .. and sifting out rubbish I dont need to keep and then organising and categorising and key wording sometimes captioning all the ones I am keeping .. my underwater photos alone were cut down to 20% of what I used to have stored just as I had duplicates and crap images all hiding around the place I didn't need.

 

So Eric .. what do you think of these browsers becoming image managers .. any opionion .. or is it still not quite up to par of proffessional management tools ?