Photo Management?

aFlabbyPanda

Just wondering what people are using for managing their pics? I was using a mac up till recently but now I find any of the windows apps I've used lacking in what I want.

I'm looking for something to create folders based on the shot date of the pic. Does anyone know of anything that does this?

cheers.

(ps I've already tried iview, picasa, adobe, picajet and none of them do it)

n0mad

well if you were using the mac still i would recommend aperture

otherwise have you tried rawshooter 2006? they have a free version of it at the moment

i dont think it'll create dirs depending on the exif date though.

Valentia

I use ACDC. It has a calendar function which will show thumbnails of all photos with an EXIF of a particular date. It easy then to select tham all and copy or paste them into any folder you want.

aFlabbyPanda

I tried acdc and didnt like it. I'm looking for something that will automate the process for me. with 2000 pics I'm not really looking forward to doing it myself.

I'll rawshooter later today.

MyStuffForSale

Try out PhotoMechanic

Great for downloading, adding filename structure, editing, captioning and general browsing.

When you download images ( Under File/Ingest) you can choose to copy into dated folder. Also allows you to rename, make a backup copy and add IPTC details at this stage or whilst editing.

With a good cataloguing package such as Extensis Portfolio or iViewMedia , to keep track of everything your laughing.

Another one worth looking at is Downloader Pro
Purely for downloading although you can upgrade for browser as well.

Some of these options are fairly pricey, but very professional.

Valentia

Dont bother downloading Rawshooter. It's not a file manager. In fact it wont even see your jpegs.

Photomechanic sounds interesting though I've been using ACDC for years and use it instinctively now.

Progen

I was about to post more or less the same question last night..

I have a simple setup at the mo:


+ Canon 300d DSLR photos: (all photos took with this camera)
- 800x600 Keepers (all my best shots in here resized to 800-600)
- Landscape/scenic (full res untouched)
- Macro / Close ups (full res untouched)
- Animal / Wildlife (full res untuoched)
- Portrait / People (full res untouched)
- Effective shots (anything original, untouched)
- Random night/day shots (full res untouched)

Simple enough setup, but wondering there could be way more than the basic categorys I have listed there.

aFlabbyPanda

download pro did the job perfectly. cheers.

Valentia

The above (or below) link to Photo Mechanic is not working correctly even though the link seems to have been entered correctly. It brings me to another site. You will find it here.

MyStuffForSale

Thanks Valentia. Weird that link didn't work. Sorted now.

I'd be interested to know how people are backing up their data. I presently have a second Seagate 400 GB hard drive installed, onto which I copy final keepers and edited. Also backing up onto DVD. Anyone using a Raid system ? or any other suggestions ?

aFlabbyPanda

I have a raid 5 system (3 SATA drives) and I backup to DAT tape too. I have loads of movies/mp3's too that if I lost I would cry.

leinsterman

If you want something simple and user freindly then google Picasa is quite good for organising you pix ...

it is free from google ... It is perhaps too simple for some applications ... but works fine for everyday use and slide shows ... when you need to look at Exif data etc then I use Canon EOS Viewer Utility or other similar apps.

For back up I am using DVD ... but I am considering changing my current Raid 0 performace based system to RAID 1 as another level of protection ... I would not use this as my only protection but it gives you resiliance on a disk level ...

The other option is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) ... try http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/storage.php

Simon

Progen

I use a freecom external harddrive to backup, aswell as them being on my 80gig hd

JackKelly

just lost all my photo's the other day when the hardrive decided to format itself. Ah well. Thankfully i havent been out to much lately so i didn't lose to much. Usually i backup on DVD.

Brian Griffin

Googles one,Pasca, i think its called is nice and handy,

donncha

You're obviously not using Linux but here's my two cents for Linux users. I wrote a script to copy files from my card reader into a yyyy-mm-dd directory and launch gthumb image viewer. I'll usually rename the directory and add a description to it.
I don't bother tagging individual photos because I take too many photos and life's too short. The description is usually good enough for finding photos of any particular occasion.
I wrote a bit more about it on my blog: http://inphotos.org/starting-photography-digital-workflow-orphans-and-amazing-zooming-images/

Fenster

I have a similar setup to Donncha.

I import my photos via shell script to a Day, Date, Time of Day named folder (say Tuesday_06-03_13-46), makes a dir inside that folder where I keep my editing work and then opens the pictures folder in rox. My preview program of choice is gqview as its light (hihi gwenview) and customizable. gqview has a completely customizable (Edit with...) menu, so I can say add anything from opening the program in ufraw all the way to launching a script that resizes it for the web and uploads it to a ftp server I use.

As far as editing work goes, The Gimp is grand for 90% of my work. I can just copy it over to my laptop, which has Photoshop CS, for the fine work.