photo management

[fgnoel]

I hope this is the appropriate place to ask this question. I am a satisfied user of P2E, but after reading some of the posts in this forum I can see that I need some kind of photo management software. Right now all my scanned photos are simply in files and folders on my windows 98SE system. I would like a tool to manage them more efficiently with thumbnails, a good search capability etc. nothing too complicated. What software do you recommend?

Frank

[alrobin]

Hi, Frank,

I use a neat little freeware program called "Easy Thumbnails", found at www.fookes.com, to convert the images to thumbnails once I have them organized in a particular folder. Then I can even use them in the "Adjustor" model, for sorting on the "dark-table", in place of the larger images. Someday I'll add a feature in "Adjustor" for pulling in images from a folder like "Easy Thumbnails" does, and then be able to manipulate the sequence, saving them out in a format convenient for PTE to use.

I also find "Irfan View", another freeware program, useful for manipulating images. Apparently Thumbs-Plus is also useful, but I find it too expensive for all I need it for.

As far as searching for images is concerned, Windows XP has some handy thumbnail preview features, too, and you can always do a "Search" by title to find the image you want. And if you're handy with MS Access, you can always whip up a database to help you do more sophisticated searches and even display thumbnails, etc.

Nothing like being organized on a large hard drive, or on CD's though. That's my ultimate goal, now that I'm getting more deeply involved in digital.

[Ken Cox]

Frank you will be better off when starting to put a show together, to copy and paste all material -- picts, icons muscic etc to a new appropritely named folder -- this will make your job much easier.

ken

[LumenLux]

Looks like this is a good place to ask for other oppinions or philosphies of organizing our exponentially growing collections of photos. Not just for PTE, but for all uses.

I personally "name" very few of the many photos I take. Most are on the computer only as numbers. Yes, some are named when they are refined or used in PTE in a manner where a name will be helpful. I think if I entered a name for every digital photo file I now have, I would never have time to snap another photo. The most obvious weakness of numbers only is that a "search" is not very feasible. Does anyone here make use of sophisticated programs that search by actuall photo content, rather than an arbitrary title? I have never really thought that was justified for my needs, but I might change my mind if someone has a great success story to tell. Up til now, I find the most reliable method of sorting and keeping track of the bulk of my images is by date. Of course I often can't remember the year of a particular photo, but most often (so far) I can remember when the photo was taken relative to other photos. This method works better for things like vacations, trips etc. than it does for say still life or soccer pictures from one year to the next. And I fear any approach that relies on human memory is bound to become less and less dependable. Lets hear some helpful ideas from everyone.

[JRR]

I use a database to track my images. I use APPROACH 97 in the LOTSU SMARTSUITE.

I have 25,000, plus or minus, slides that are indexed by number, but the database has 20-25 fields that are fully searchable.

Now that I have many of the slides scanned, I wish I had started with a database that allows thumbnails, but they did not exist when I started. But I search for images using any keywords I want, and then I can check on the database to see if they are scanned or not. Then I know to look in the computer for the image, or my slide books.

I am not sure if EXCEL (MS's database program) will accept thumbnails. I am also not sure it is as flexible in searching as APPROACH is. From a quick look I had at it did not seem to be as flexible

I have a friend who uses MULTIMEDIA XPLORER which is a database using thumbnails. (http://www.moonsoftware.com) Looks like they are giving it away now !!!

Hope that helps

[pushu]

have you tried using the file browser within photoshop 7? you would have to sort images by folders but within each folder you can assign a prefrence to the images - "a" being most important , and then "B" ect

[jimlarkey]

I use separate subdirectory(s) to put the various logical pieces of the show, as Ken has recommended. Ususally the original images from my Canon G1 are enhanced and resized for the PTE presentation. It is these modified image files that I keep in the PTE presentation folders.

I do not renumber my original slides for archival storage. I change nothing on the originals.

When the PTE project is complete, I burn what I call a master CD that is created by simply moving all the subdirectories and their contents (such as the MP3s, PTE data files, JPEGS, etc) to the CD. If several months later I need to examine the PTE project, I simply copy the CD's root directory (and associated subdirectories) to my PC. The CD that I distribute only contains the EXEs and the INF files, in the root directory of the CD.....not the MP3s, PTE data files, JPEGS, etc.

Regarding LumenLux's comment on photo managers, I use Mario Westphal's "industrial strength" IMatch photo manager.

http://www.photools.com/

WHile my collection is not as extensive as JRR's 35,000, I have currently 10 CDs or approx. 3500 slides in my database. IMatch is probably overkill. I think IMatch has a steep learning curve, only because of all the flexibilty and power of the program. My database is very simple and IMatch does a good job of managing my small collection. IMatch, like PTE is a well-supported piece of software. I hope to grow with it, as my number of slides grow.

I've heard that Adobe has a new PhotoAlbum which I hear doesn't have all the features of IMatch, but probably most will not need all the features and associated learning curve.

I also use Chris Breeze's BreezeBrowser quite a bit as a viewer and image manipulator.

http://www.breezesys.com/

BreezeBrowser has a slide table that will rename files, based on the order in the slide table. Chris has used Canon digitals, so his software general favors the features of Canon cameras. BreezeBrowser is also a well supported piece of software....free upgrades for life.

There are many other features of BreezeBrowser that PTE might find useful. You can find a summary at:

http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/index.html#new

Thanks for the opportunity to offer comments on file management techniques. I think this is a useful subject that as our slide files grow in size, something should be used to manage the collection.

I look forward to learning what other techniques/software PTE people are using.

Cheers,

Jim

[JRR]

I am not sure if EXCEL (MS's database program) will accept thumbnails.

see my reply a few spots above

I meant to say:

"I am not sure if ACCESS (MS's database program) will accept thumbnails."

Sorry about that.

ACCESS does, I am told accept thumbnails.

[LumenLux]

Thank you all for the very useful information. I think this kind of personal input is really valuable.

[fgnoel]

Thanks for all the replies. It has been very helpful.

Right now I put my slides for each year in a main directory for the year ie "2002". Then I have subdirectories for each event in that year, ie "Ed's birthday", "Fourth of July", "Mother's day" etc. (Mostly family stuff) But it would be very helpful if, when I open a sub directory I could see thumbnails of all the slides in that directory.

Frank

[anthrodoc]

Access does accept images and/or other multimedia files. The caution, however is that by storing the actual images within the database itself, it can quickly grow to an enormous size. It is often recommended that images not be stored as objects in a database, but instead that their names go there, to be linked to their corresponding files.

Of course then, this could be accomplished not only with commercial db's like Access, but also with opensource such as mysql (a very highpowered db in itself).

Brian

[LumenLux]

Frank, Irfanview, as mentioned, can be setup to "browse" your photo file directories quite nicely. You can access it by right-click on the Windows Start button. Maybe someone else can also supply you the name of a program I tried for a while, that actually showed an icon-sized thumbnail of each specific photo when you used the regular Windows Explorer. Personally, I did not like it because of the slow down when Explorer hit a folder with lots of photos and therefor icons to draw.

[HaroldB]

Right now I put my slides for each year in a main directory for the year ie "2002".  Then I have subdirectories for each event in that year, ie "Ed's birthday", "Fourth of July", "Mother's day" etc.  (Mostly family stuff) But it would be very helpful if, when I open a sub directory I could see thumbnails of all the slides in that directory.

Frank,

That's exactly the way I work it for my original pictures, too. I then have a separate directory for each PTE slideshow, and put the PaintShopPro-modified slides there.

If you are running Windows/ME or XP, the built-in File Manager has the ability to display thumbnails.

Harold

[Jim]

I found a new image app a few months back called IMAGEWALKER...I think it's the handiest thing since sliced bread..very easy to use,has all kinds of features.Costs $20 to register but it does not have a time-out on the fully functional trial version. A great tool to have for anyone who uses graphics and I guess that would be most of us here at PTE! Well worth checking out at:

www.ImageWalker.com