Digital photo archiving software?

[Mike Meyerson]

Need recommendations for software to help me keep my thousands of digital pictures organized on my computer (windows XP).

Freeware would be great, but I don't mind paying for something that works.

[John C. Chu]

Check out Google's Picasa program.

It's free and only for the PC.

http://picasa.google.com/

It is better than iPhoto---and I'm a Mac guy.

[Keith Loh]

Yeah, I use Picasa2. I works fairly fast and I like the way the interface works. Also, bonus, you can drag from it right onto the Flickr uploadr program.

Don't tell the Photoshop Gods but occasionally I will also use the Picasa editing tools.

[Emre Safak]

If you have tens of thousands, you might consider iMatch, which supposedly scales better than the rest.

[Mike Meyerson]

Picasa is the one I did try (a few months back)...but it kept on freezing on my computer. Any onthers?

[David Tamés]

Originally Posted by Mike Meyerson

Need recommendations for software to help me keep my thousands of digital pictures organized on my computer (windows XP) [...]

I've been using iView Media Pro (available for both Mac OS X and Windows XP computers) for three years now, with 39,372 images in the catalog. I use it to manage all of my images, tag them with metadata, create slide shows, and to create web galleries. The program has consistently been improved with a number of updates over the years, so it has gotten better and better over time.

iView maintains a catalog and images as completely separate documents, you can store images in any file hierarchy you want. The program allows you to embed the metadata you create in the catalog right into the image headers using both the IPTC and Adobe XMP schemes. The interface for adding metadata is much nicer than Photoshop’s in my opinion, and for this alone I’d get this program.

For HTML slide galleries on the web, you simply select the images you want in the slide show, and choose “Make HTML Gallery” from a menu and choose the size of thumbnails and images and off you go. The software also supports creating custom templates so the photo pages on the web can look the way you want. One nice thing I’ve taken advantage of is annotating images with captions and then when I make a web side show the captions can be automatically included with each image. iView is a well thought out program.

Another bonus is that since standard metadata is stored in the images themselves (you have to explicitly sync iView with the files to have the metadata embedded in the files themselves) you’re not dependent on iView, you can switch to another photo organizing program in the future, and since the metadata can be embedded in the images themselves, you can simply import into a database or other image organization and viewing program. iView also has nice metatada export capability. It’s an open tool, it does not try to lock you in like some other programs in a similar category.

Other programs that are competitive with iView Media Pro includes Portfolio from Extensis and Cumulus from Canto. Portfolio has the advantage of expanding into a workgroup solution, and Cumulus has the advantage of expanding into either a workgroup or enterprise-wide solution. But for a single photographer, iView is a very strong contender. I personally use iView Media Pro on a Mac, but I'm sure the PC version is just as wonderful as what I use. iView is a very responsive vendor who's really been upgrading their program regularly.

[David Tamés]

I wrote a while back,

Originally Posted by David Tames

I've been using iView Media Pro (available for both Mac OS X and Windows XP computers) for three years now, with 39,372 images in the catalog. I use it to manage all of my images, tag them with metadata, create slide shows, and to create web galleries. The program has consistently been improved with a number of updates over the years, so it has gotten better and better over time.

I was very sad to learn that Microsoft has acquired iView Media Pro. I don't like using Microsoft software for many reasons, Microsoft's objectively documented violation of the Sherman Anti Trust Act among them.

Now I have to go looking for a replacement. Good thing iView has allowed me to embed all of the metadata into the JPEG files themselves, as I'm not stuck with a proprietary approach. That's one reason I chose them. My metadata and images are mine and I shall not allow them to be trapped in a proprietary format. I would not be surprized if Microsoft works things into iView to make sure you say stuck with them. One thing, no matter what digital asset management software you use, make sure you are not trapped by it, that your metadata and images are always in an open and accessible non-proprietary form of storage. I guess this is an opportunity to consider new options, and find a vendor that will remain independent (I hope).

[John C. Chu]

Another program I really recommend [especially if you have an extra computer laying around with some decent speed] is the open source software "Gallery2". It works on PC's and Macs.

http://gallery.menalto.com/

This thing is really robust---but it is a challenging to set up[and I know nothing about MySQL or creating databases]..but once this thing is configured correctly, you can upload, download, organize, find, search and store your photos. It works with a web front end, so if you ever decide to open it up to world, you can do that, otherwise, you can just keep it inside you local network].

The software is painfully slow on an old iMac G3 but I would imagine with a G4 or faster...it should be much faster.

At work, I installed it in Dell Server with Dual Xenon Processors and the thing performs blazingly fast.

[Keith Loh]

Adobe's Lightroom is still on some kind of extended beta. I tried it out this morning. Some interesting stuff but it performed rather slowly on my XP versus the software they just bought out (and killed): RawShooter which I use all the time.

Also by coincidence I tried out Apple Aperature and boy is that one sweet program. The Aperature GUI effectively trounces Lightroom. Of course, I don't have a Mac.

[Jeff Miller]

I've been trying Lightroom as well. It's up to Beta 4 on windows platforms now. Still some obvious problems, I have yet to hit the highly acclaimed speed problems though. (don't forget people, none of the code is optimized yet) But once it gets going, I can see it solving some real problems with my workflow.

There are a couple in-action video on labs.adobe.com and umpteen web tutorials. It looks really rad but I'd avoid using it for archive purposes or anything super-serious until it reaches v1.0