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Photo Organizer Software

DRB

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
I know that I saw a thread about this in the past but can't seem to find it.

I'd like to organize our bazillion photos a little better than they are now. Does anyone know of any free or relatively inexpensive software to help accomplish that task.

I have a PC not an apple.
 
B

blue

boob hater
Jan 24, 2004
10,160
2
california
I kinda like picasa, but I tend to just organize my pics in explorer...It would just be a pain to organize them in a program all over again.
 
stinkyboy

stinkyboy

Plastic Santa
Jan 6, 2005
15,187
1
¡Phoenix!
blue said:
I kinda like picasa, but I tend to just organize my pics in explorer...It would just be a pain to organize them in a program all over again.
Click to expand...
I prolly have 30 CD's of stock photography images in Portfolio. Drag and drop, works like a charmsky.
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
blue said:
I kinda like picasa, but I tend to just organize my pics in explorer...It would just be a pain to organize them in a program all over again.
Click to expand...
Try doing it with 40 000+ images. Databases are king. Keyword, location, people, activity search etc.
 
B

blue

boob hater
Jan 24, 2004
10,160
2
california
Transcend said:
Try doing it with 40 000+ images. Databases are king. Keyword, location, people, activity search etc.
Click to expand...
And I thought my 5000 were a pain in the ass.

I have about half sorted by date. The rest are a beautiful jumbalaya of poop.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,151
1,253
NC
DRB said:
4000 photos and growing as fast as Willow is.
Click to expand...
I imported over 7000 photos into Picasa and it could easily handle the collection. I decided not to go with it since I'm happy with the way I currently handle it through folders. But that size of a collection shouldn't be a problem.
 
Changleen

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,543
2,623
Pōneke
I use explorer for music and photos. I hate the rigidity of all these 'organiser' apps. Oh and I have 100ish GB all neatly catagorised and labelled. (And mostly backed up :think:) :D
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
Changleen said:
I use explorer for music and photos. I hate the rigidity of all these 'organiser' apps. Oh and I have 100ish GB all neatly catagorised and labelled. (And mostly backed up :think:) :D
Click to expand...
How is it rigid? Iview for example is a relational DB. I copy my photos into dated folders. I then drop them into Iview, and delete what i don't want and categorize the rest by event name, and then rider name and keywords if it's stock race stuff. (ie: Ste Anne World Cup 2006, Greg Minnaar, Honda, Oakley, akibono, Showa, whip).

I can then search by any combination of those terms. So if Oakley needs a picture of minnaar at worlds doing a whip that clearly shows his O shoes, I can dig it out in about 2 mins instead of 3 hours.
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
I've used all 3 moni.

Aperture is annoyingly slow, even with the new updates. You really need a powerhouse to run it, and even then it's a tad slow and jumpy. Takes forever to add photos to the DB, and it's a centralized DB so it is limited by HDD size.

Bridge is beyond slow and is basically at the bottom of the list. It also does stupid things like automatically try and adjust photos, even in the preview. Pain in the ass to switch off as well.

Lightroom has great potential, but still feels like a toy right now. Quick but the interface is a tad odd. But hey, it's beta.

My preference right now is Iview for organization and C1 for processing.
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
65
behind the viewfinder
Transcend said:
Bridge is beyond slow and is basically at the bottom of the list. It also does stupid things like automatically try and adjust photos, even in the preview. Pain in the ass to switch off as well.
Click to expand...
how do you switch it off?

i played around w/ Bibble tonight, and that was pretty promising (but i don't know jack about RAW imaging and just fiddled around). check out my mogwai thread for the results.
 
dump

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,421
4,993
interesting... when I get into photos again, I'll need something for sure. I like what i saw of the UI in lightroom & apature... it seemed a goal of both was to really improve the workflow... and it's about damn time - the workflow in photoshop just sucks for pro photo editing & management.

btw, i heard some rumor about the apature team being laid off @ apple... doesn't sound right, but heard it somewhere (engadget? can't remember)
 
Transcend

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
dump said:
interesting... when I get into photos again, I'll need something for sure. I like what i saw of the UI in lightroom & apature... it seemed a goal of both was to really improve the workflow... and it's about damn time - the workflow in photoshop just sucks for pro photo editing & management.

btw, i heard some rumor about the apature team being laid off @ apple... doesn't sound right, but heard it somewhere (engadget? can't remember)
Click to expand...
I was really hoping aperture would be "the software" for digital workflow. They got lots of it right, but a ton of crap was way way off the mark. The closed database is the most glaring problem, along with the huge issues it had with bad output and being downright sluggish to use. I tried to add 1000 photos to the Db, let it go all night, it crashed. Tried it again, and it took over 6 hours. I added 25 000 photos to Iview, and it took about 3 minutes.

The dual monitor setup in it absolutely rules, as does the stacks and cloning of changes. But when it makes you want to pull out your hair due to being so slow...well you get the picture. When was the last time you saw apple giving people credits because the software was so buggy?

Lightroom is on the right track speed wise, but seems more like a program a soccer mom would want to use at this point, vs a professional. The massive ADOBE branding in the program windows doesn't help either. It doesn't seem like they used enough of the available space, while it seems that the Ap boys tried to cam in TOO much.

Also, that rumour was shotdown. The crew was mostly sent back to teams they were working with before they were canibalized to work on the ap team. I did read a report saying that V 2 was going to be re written from the ground up though.

As for workflow, this is what mine looks like:

For web:

-Ingest cards to a folder labeled with the event and date (using an automator script). I leave the original file name, automator could sequentially rename these if i wanted.
- Immediately copy to external backup drive if possible (also automator script).
- Drop folder into Iview database of my choice, give 2 mins to populate.
- batch tag all photos for the event name
- delete all the junk, then second run through to tag the hot shots, and maybes.
- delete the leftover junk.

Jump to C1
- go through my shots that i selected in Iview (it is MUCH faster than c1 for previewing). Adjust exposure, contrast, saturation. Set output file size (jpg), colorspace (srgb) and sharpening. Batch adjust if possible and output.

Back to Iview
- catalog shots by rider name and then add keywords for sponsors and the like if its an event.

For print
- when i go to C1 i adjust exposure and contrast, set 0 sharpening.
- export as 16 bit TIFF

Go to photoshop
- sharpen and adjust colors in PS and output in appropriate format and color space (argb, cmyk srgb etc as needed).
 
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