Film and Digital Photography

Hi all,
My hard drives at home are getting boggggged down and filled up with Lots of photo's. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what software they like to manage photos on home computers/networks. I would love a way to organize them all. A friend told me about Picasa, but I am skeptical to go to the first one I hear of.

I am by no means a computer expert, just a long time user. But it really sounds to me like software is not your answer. I say that, with the caveat that I don't use and never have used photo management tools. I simply use file explorer in Windows to manage them. My feeling is why pay for something that is already there.

Bogging down of your computer really shouldn't be a function of how many photos you have on a drive. Bogging down is more of a memory issue. For instance, when I have a bunch of stuff in the recycle bin, it bogs down my computer since memory resources are used instead of file storage. Emptying that, even if there are only a few photos in there, usually solves the problem.

Secondly, the way I have my computer set up, I devote my C drive to strictly programs. All file storage, including word documents, photos, CAD drawings, etc. are stored on a devoted F drive. This has worked very well for me. I used to use anything available on C for file storage but your computer often needs empty room there for cache and temporary memory storage.

As for storage space, I use a series of add-on external drives. This serves as both a back-up for what is on F (but I've become lax lately and haven't performed a back-up) but it is also a good way to move photos from lap top to desk top.

I'm saying this without knowledge of your computer ability and understanding so if I am talking well below your knowledge level, forgive me.

Dave

The Windows explorer is how I am doing it now... And saying bogging down is probably the wrong term.. My biggest issue is organization, labeling etc. Is there a way to do Batch naming using explorer?
I think I would concsiously try to continue using explorer if I could get my arms around labeling and naming my folders and Pics in a way that won't take days (looking for an easy way :))

Of course, you can change file names through explorer (quite a number of people don't know how) but it cannot be in bulk. That would be the advantage to using a software for photo managing. I don't care to typically change my file names until I edit a photo and always leave the original named photo in storage.

My camera download software gives me the option of saving all photos in a folder for date taken. I strictly use this option and as long as my memory holds up, I only need to remember a date range to find a particular shoot. Though I do sort specialty photos (such as work photos) to a folder specifically for that.

I don't know what camera you have but many cameras include a bundle of software that does include management software. The other thing you can do is check download.com and see if they have any trial programs (or even free) that they offer.

Dave

Hi Nate, Photoshop Elements 4 is the editing program I use.
Now, I haven't actually started to do this yet (keep meaning to though, really I do!), but it contains an organizing tool using tags.
After you have loaded your images, you can attach 'tags' to them using key words.
Using the example given in the book:

You can create a tag called Anna and attach it to every image featuring your sister Anna. You can then instantly find all of the images of Anna by selecting the Anna tag in the 'tags palette', regardless of where they are stored in your computer.
You can attach multiple tags to one image also.
When photos have multiple tags, you can select a combination of tags to find a particular person at a particular place or event.
For example, you can search for for all the Anna tags and all the Marie tags to find all of the pictures of Anna with her daughter Marie.
(Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 instruction manual)

It seems to be a good way to locate images, and when I get a spare couple of hours I will actually begin using this process.
I think it would be easier and more time effective to have done this from the beginning, and once I have caught up with my already loaded images, should take no time to tag images when they are being loaded for the first time to my pc.

Hope I haven't rambled on too much,
cheers, Beks

Find a good scheme to find your files and store them on DVD (or CD, but those are a bit small if you shoot a lot and especially if you want to save RAW and TIFF versions as well as JPEG which I would recommend).
Write on each disc (or in a catalogue at least) where and when the photos on that disc were were taken, and store them in an easy to search way.

The orgainiser of PSE is indeed nice, but sometimes gets on my nerve.

	Sign Up Now! \| Log In \| Help
	Film and Digital Photography