What tool do you use to edit IPTC metadata?

I'm still searching for photo organisation nirvana and wondered if anyone else had found it. I should emphasise at this point that I'm not a photography pro so don't deal with the volume of photos that many of you guys probably deal with

My current "workflow" (playflow?) is as follows:

• Download photos from camera using Image Capture to a Download folder
• Go through all photos in the download folder rotating/deleting/renaming them using Xee ( http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/xee.html ). It's incredibly fast and as you can set different folders on your computer to have different keyboard shortcuts once you've decided to keep a photo you can file it away wherever you want very quickly.
• Add keywords using Adobe Photoshop CS image browser.

I do things like this because I like to have my photos stored in a human-readable folder structure rather than in folders organised by date etc automatically created by iPhoto etc. The reason I like it this way is that I can find photos even when my hard drive is being shared across a network and I'm viewing it from another computer.

I use PS to tag for two reasons:

1. It stores the keywords in the IPTC fields so that they'll always travel with the photo and they're accessible by Spotlight

2. It allows you to store a list of keywords and just click a checkbox beside each one that you want to add

3. You can sort the various keywords into (user-defined) categories so all the names of people, places etc are kept together

Ideally I'd like one lightweight app to do it all - something with the renaming/moving goodness of Xee with the tagging of PS. Failing that just a lightweight tagging app would be good as PS can sometimes be a little slow when tagging multiple files. (My trusty G4 Powerbook isn't quite the speed demon it once was and can do with all the help it can get!) Does anyone know of a tagging app that uses a similar methodology to CS and doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

I use Lightroom and Bridge (CS3).

I actually prefer Bridge for initial IPTC editing because I think it does some things better. For one thing, the File Info window in Bridge is the same one as Photoshop, so it's much bigger, and easier to work in (IMO) than Lightroom's. For another, in Bridge/Photoshop you can create, save and delete IPTC templates on the fly from the File Info window. Creating and saving in Lightroom is reasonably easy, but deleting templates you don't need anymore is more complicated.

jack

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A few of my photos:
http://web.mac.com/kurtzjack/ or
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=4177

Guys, I am moving from a Canon to a Samsung camera, and discovered that Image Browser actually works with the Samsung. I use Image Browser instead of iPhoto as I like to store my photos in separate folders according to occasion (kind of the ultimate keyword back up). For the long haul, however, I am not sure if ImageBrowser is the way to go. I have CS 1 and I think image browser lacks the keyword editing feature.

I am interested in IView Media Pro again, especially if I have have a catalog of thumbnails for off-line media. My hard drive is shrinking fast.

So my question, I guess, is what you recommend and if what I am doing sounds sane.

BTW, the download software is not Image Browser, it is the DVC utility and that is what works with the Samsung. Samsung just lets Mac users deal using iPhoto, but the Canon mechanism is better, as it allows you to select what you want and delete in the camera on an individual basis.

THanks,

Jamie