Best photo organizer?

I keep going around and around with photo organizers and can't settle on one as being clearly the best. I have iMatch and PS Elements 3.0, and have tried out ACD See 8.0, iView, and Portfolio over the last several months. I just find the user interface on iMatch to be too annoying, and it won't display thumbnails for my video files. Elements is too slow. I wasn't able to learn iView and Portfolio well enough in the trial period to get a good impression of them, but they are expensive. Picasa doesn't have enough features. That leaves me with ACD See, which was pretty good, although I find all the add-on, plug-ins, etc. annoying and they seem to issue upgrades that you have to pay for before fixing the bugs in the old version.

I don't care about IPTC support since this is just a hobby, but I have over 10,000 photographs and videos, and need a program to organize and categorize them well, email pics, batch convert files, etc. Photo browsers without organizational abilities won't work for me. User interface and ease of use is important.

Are there any programs I should seriously consider before getting ACDSee? Are iView and Portfolio so much better for a non-pro?

Thanks,

Peter

The problem is, there aren't many program titles that fit the EXACT niche that you are looking for and that ACDSee fills. I too am disenchanted with ACDSee, but I still haven't found a new title that I like better, so I keep putting off my overdue upgrade of ACDSee V6.

You might also try Thumbsplus by Cerious and Compupic by Photodex (the proshow gold people). Each has strong points, but just because they didn't ring my bell doesn't mean they won't be right for you.
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Stop the Insanity!
Diet and Exercise Kills!

Thanks - I tried Thumbsplus but it didn't seem to have the organizational features I was looking for.

I am willing to pay more for iView, etc., but don't see what they have to offer over ACDSee (for me, at least).

Peter

If I were you, I would think again about IPTC support. With it you can place keywords etc in the actual image file and therefore search on them, even when these files are copied, edited or moved to another disk. Without IPTC support you are usually left to the vagaries of a database system used by the organiser software - although such software may have both capabilities, some don't. I used Imatch's database system but "forgot" about its IPTC support until I lost the database. Now I use IPTC support, which also makes the images searchable in a whole variety of software.

FWIW, I use FastOne, Picasa, Irfanview and Imatch - a real dog's breakfast you might think but because I now have IPTC keywords, the latter three can find stuff easily (FastOne doesn't have IPTC support yet but I guess it might in future).

Chris

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Try IdImager.

http://www.idimager.nl/English/index.htm

hi

same problem, went through over a dozen trying to find one that was fast viewing / good ui / good organisation and had a least half decent adjustments (ie adequate for 50% of photos) and was fast in finding those options. Ended up with acdsee 7 - a very long way from perfect, but for me was the best I could find.

Phil

I want reinforce Chris Knight's message. I am definite amateur, but I want my notations in the images. There is NO feature more important to me than IPTC support.

There are lots of other important features, though, so finding the right tools for you takes a lot of research. Like Chris, I use the dog's breakfast approach with FastStone, BreezeBrowser, and iView Media Pro for viewing annotating. PS Elements does most of my editing, but I sometimes use other things too. Each tool has its uses and all are very good products. It's too bad, perhaps, but I don't see any one tool that does everything.

Because it IS the open standard.

Many "organizers" have you painstakingly enter lots of information which they then store in their own proprietary database format. So what happens when you want to change programs for organizing? How are you going to transfer the data you entered? Even worse, what happens if their database gets corrupted? Some will let you store your data both as IPTC and internally in their database - that's often done for reasons of optimizing searches speed-wise. I can deal with that as long as there's an option to automatically save as IPTC, but no way am I going to go to the effort of entering data when I may be required to enter it all again due to closed standards!

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

only thing it don't do and ACDSee does is .psp
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adder

I have used many of the aforementioned programs and they all have shortcomings. Picasa is the one I have found to have the least compromises. The relatively intelligent fixer-upper tools are great and for the majority of photos it is enough. Other programs have poor touch up tools so you are forced to use an external program for every fix. This is very time consuming for large portfolios. Check out some ideas here.

http://ojlise.blogspot.com/

I use FastStone myself and love it. Its a great viewer/file browser and light editor/touchup of photos, but it doesn't organize or tag (other than simple annotation of JPEG comment). And tagging/organizing is what he needs.

FastStone - Features

Support of common image formats:

Loading of BMP, CRW, CUR, GIF, ICO, JPEG, JPEG2000, NEF, PCX, PNG, PSD, PXM, TGA, TIFF, WBMP, WMF
Saving to BMP, DCX, GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, PCX, PNG, PXM, TGA, TIFF

Support of Canon and Nikon RAW formats (CRW, NEF)

Full Screen viewer with select-zoom support and slide-out menu panels

Crystal-clear and customizable image magnifier

Resizing/resampling, rotating/flipping, cropping, sharpening, color adjusting, etc tools

11 resampling algorithms to choose from when resizing

Special effects: drop shadow, frame marks, edge detection, negative, bump map, lens, morph, waves

Remove red-eye effect

Best fit/actual size image display support

Histogram display

Compare images side-by-side (up to 4 at a time)

Image EXIF metadata support (plus comment editing for JPEG)

Convert/rename images in Batch Mode

Slideshow with 150+ transition effects plus background music

Multi-level Undo/Redo

Mouse wheel support

Image Copy To/Move To Folder support

Email selected images with reduced size

Print selected images

Set wallpaper

Acquire images from a scanner

Screen capture capability

Select External Programs to run on demand

Supports multiple program skins

And much more...

In answer(?) to a post explaining why IPTC support is essential, here are post that have nothing to say relevant to the post, but instead advocate apps that don't support IPTC at all. Huh?

I don't like the fields in IPTC but I like the fields in EXIF. Isn't EXIF another open format that allows me to enter keywords and categories that can be searched by other software's? Not sure on this so I would like to hear from someone who knows for sure.

As for editing a big problem with ACDSee is that you must enter IPTC information image by image, no batch entry. I really wish there was a way that I could transfer my ACDSee database info to the IPTC, or EXIF, and save myself a lot of extra work. Maybe the next ACDSee update.

Tom

Tom Matty said:

Isn't EXIF another open format that allows me to enter keywords and
categories that can be searched by other software's? Not sure on
this so I would like to hear from someone who knows for sure.

Click to expand...

The answer is "NO". EXIF is where camera stores info and should be used as READ only info. On the other hand, IPTC was created for adding additional info like keywords and categories.
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-caba-

caba is essentially right about EXIF, although the format does include a comment field that some programs use for simple annotation. A lot of programs can also update the EXIF date field in order to correct an incorrect camera clock, time zone problems, etc. Anything else needs to be stored in IPTC.

There is also the XMP standard, but that's another subject.

FotoTime ( http://www.fototime.com/ ) is a picture sharing site that offers storage for a monthly fee. I don't use these types of services because I have email and my own web space that I can use to share pictures. This particular site offers software that integrates with the paid service or works as a standalone application. I like the program better than any other I have used.

What I like about this program:

It can import and export EXIF and IPTC, data and you get to choose the order that the program searches these fields for data. This means you only have to enter information one time to have it embedded in the picture and in the program's XML database.



You can also search based on multiple fields of file information or info that has been imported from EXIF or IPTC.



You can save one of these searches as a "smart album" and have new pictures matching this criteria automatically added.

• Supports RAW files
• You can specify multiple external editors and access them with a right-click.
• It has a nice print / multiple print option
• You can use the same search feature listed above to archive or backup to CD or DVD
• With 6,000 pictures totaling 8 GB, the program performs well
• Because albums are logical and not physical, pictures can be added to multiple albums without using extra space.
• If your database is ever corrupted, you don't have to worry about rebuilding because of the EXIF / IPTC import and smart album features.
• Basic image editing features are included
• Images can automatically be resized before emailing
• Can move from your main picture folder to explore hard drive through a Windows Explorer type interface
• Can read directly from camera or memory card

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Mark-B

Someone above started recommending FastStone viewer and I explained that FastStone is a nice piece of software but its NOT what he is looking for. I underlined that by listing its features, which do NOT incldude Organizing and Tagging.

Why would you find that confusing? Or are you not reading the thread?

Sorry, I thought it was clear that I wasn't responding to your post. Your post is right on the mark.

The indentation indicating replies was a bit screwed up, and that was what I was REALLY commenting on, but I must have added to the confusion.

This is a good thread. I thought I would put a pitch in for Elements 3 Organizer. I've been using it almost since it was released. I looked at a lot of things including some of what was mentioned here. I also have some media organizing software called Cumulus (v6 did an ok job of exif data).

I'm not sure why, but I bit the bullet and learned how to use the organizer in Elements. I would have to say I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect but all in all I'm happy and don't find it that slow. I just checked and I'm up to something over 10,000 photos (haven't taken a film shot since Oct 99).

So, there you have it a pitch for Elements. There is a way to add IPTC info to the files through elements organizer. I don't use it so if you do be sure the files are updated as you wish. I remember thinking it was awkward.

One of my protections is that I periodically make a copy of the database just in case. I've never had it happen but Murphy lives.

Good luck with your decision. My name is messed up in the forums so if want send me an email at [email protected] if you have any specific questions.

Andy

Is PSE a compromise between IMatch and IViewMediaPro in terms of value for money, EXIF and IPTC support and general functionality as an organizer/cataloger ?