Software for organizing images-what to use!

[caustin]

Dear Fellow photograhers,

I have been burning my digital images to CD and DVD for years to back them up. The images are in boxes in my storage area.
I would like to create collages with the images, and have decided to buy a 500 gig drive to put them all on there.
My question what software to get to keep track of all these images. I know of Cumulus, Portofolio from extensis, and Shoebox. Any other ideas.
2nd question; How can one type in keywords for the 1000 and 1000's of images I have?

Any suggestions....I thought even hiring a highschool photographer or somebody to do the keyword entries.
Therefore the question is what software and how to manage tracking all these images. I Figure I must have plus 20K images or more. One more important thing...I am on MAC OS- 10.2.8
Thank you,
caustin

[swanny338]

you might look into iView media pro as well... I have a little experience with it and I know there is a mac version... It works well and is really easy to use, you can download the demo to see if you like it.

http://www.iview-multimedia.com/index.php

edit: btw, instead of hiring the highschool photog to enter keywords... hire him to shoot for you while you spend hours on end typing keywords.... *cough* me *cough* :lol:

edit1: btw, just noticed its your first post.... Welcome to the forums!!!!

[Sheldon]

Ive never used iView, but Ive read where many wedding photographers use it to organized their pictures. Might be worth checking out!

[srwatters]

I'm on OS X also and have downloaded a demo version of Photo Mechanic. It seems really nice and has all of the features that I would need. It's a little pricy at $150, but you get what you pay for...

Check out this thread http://lifeatf8.com/phpBB/viewtopic....amp;highlight=

Welcome from another Mac user! (20" G5 iMac)

[LoungeLizard]

I use Adobe Photoshop Album (no integrated into Photoshop Elements 3.0 - though I don't use that!)

ACDSee has some tagging capabilities also.

[caustin]

Thanks to all of you for the welcome to the forum and the suggestions. I have used iView...a very excellent written piece of software. In fact I use it to sort my images and edit. Not sure it is the best for managing thousands of images.
But...still have the problem of typing all the keywords. Maybe contact Corbis or Getty and see if they can help.
In addition the way the industry is challenged by companies that come and go, the risk is always a factor in deciding what software to get that will be around in the future and that works on MAC OS. I actually use both PC and MAC and find they both have their place in my work flow.

I will continue to do research.

Thank you for your input. Have a great weekend.

Caustin

Originally Posted by caustin

Dear Fellow photograhers,

I have been burning my digital images to CD and DVD for years to back them up. The images are in boxes in my storage area.
I would like to create collages with the images, and have decided to buy a 500 gig drive to put them all on there.
My question what software to get to keep track of all these images. I know of Cumulus, Portofolio from extensis, and Shoebox. Any other ideas.
2nd question; How can one type in keywords for the 1000 and 1000's of images I have?

Any suggestions....I thought even hiring a highschool photographer or somebody to do the keyword entries.
Therefore the question is what software and how to manage tracking all these images. I Figure I must have plus 20K images or more. One more important thing...I am on MAC OS- 10.2.8
Thank you,
caustin

:) :) :)

[Jim]

I know I'm a little late in this discussion, but I use picasa. It's a free program from the Google gurus and it will organize the pics and lets you mark the ones you'd like to look at later. Check it out: http://www.picasa.com/index.php?tid=Y2NpZD0zNzY3

[ctp93]

I have used several, but finally settled on iMatch. It thumbnails everythign I have and knows which DVD they are burned to. I like it very much. Mine is very detailed because I add lots of keywords and content to each shot in the databse, but you don't have to do all that to get benefit from it.

[danphoto]

I'm on OS X also and have downloaded a demo version of Photo Mechanic. It seems really nice and has all of the features that I would need. It's a little pricy at $150, but you get what you pay for...

Photo Mechanic is very good as an image browser (just wish Kodak would give them the SDK so they it would work with DCS images) but I don't think it is intended to serve as a cataloging program that can keep track of images that are archived on CDROM, DVD or hard drive not on the network.

Several have suggested iViewMedia Pro and I'd second that. It was a Mac-first application so it doesn't have that klutzy ported-from-PC feel that some programs do.

Oh, you mentioned saving to a 500GB drive. Be aware that some of the 500GB drives are actually RAID units (they have more than one hard drive in the enclosure) that are actually MORE likely to fail than a single drive unit. Be sure you have backups on something else.

Hope this helps!

Dan

[caustin]

As of followup to those of you kind of enough to reply with your suggestions to software for getting digital negatives organized.

I went with Cumulus...a company in Germany called Canto.com
The day after I posted this message, I found out that Canto was going to be in town less then a mile away at one of the local hotels. I signed up, and went over to check it out. Spoke with some of the people that had been using Cumulus for a while, and it came very high recomended. Also I was lucky to get a free copy from a drawing they had.
The app runs on both PC and Mac and sells for about $115. for single user.
I have yet to get it going...but will.

Thanks,
Happy shooting,

Caustin

Originally Posted by caustin

Dear Fellow photograhers,

I have been burning my digital images to CD and DVD for years to back them up. The images are in boxes in my storage area.
I would like to create collages with the images, and have decided to buy a 500 gig drive to put them all on there.
My question what software to get to keep track of all these images. I know of Cumulus, Portofolio from extensis, and Shoebox. Any other ideas.
2nd question; How can one type in keywords for the 1000 and 1000's of images I have?

Any suggestions....I thought even hiring a highschool photographer or somebody to do the keyword entries.
Therefore the question is what software and how to manage tracking all these images. I Figure I must have plus 20K images or more. One more important thing...I am on MAC OS- 10.2.8
Thank you,
caustin

:)

[dbphotos]

ACDSee cost about $79 at Frys Electronics or similar store. Allows you to sort by date, search words, etc. Very good at organizing.