Sorting Software Suggestion

corel aftershot has this feature and is generally sold for under 50 USD

Take a look at Fast Raw Viewer. Awesome stuff, the very best even if you use Lr already. Works very well with it. And VERY fast.

You can 3 quickly assign numeric to photos, when done screening them it will move the photos to subfolders it creates for you with whatever folder names you want, i.e. LR, trash, etc. A license costs $25.


Cheers,
Doug

I am going to defend Lightroom!

Funke910 said:

I've used Nikon ViewNX for years as my first initial way to look at my photos. Its easy to do a quick sort through the photos and decide which ones I want to move to lightroom. I also keep some photos that I don't want in lightroom and like the tagging/sorting system that the program had.

Click to expand...

You do NOT "move photos to Lightroom". You do NOT "keep... photos in Lightroom"

Lightroom is a catalog indexing program that can make a catalog reference to your photos no matter where they are in your computer (and I mean ALL your photos). Your photos are NOT "in" Lightroom. Lightroom's strength is its primary design ie. to be a digital (photo) asset manager. If you make full use of Flagging, Star Rating, Keywording, Collections, Compare view, Survey View, Reference View, Loupe view, etc, you have all the tools necessary to 'Sort' your photos. I do admit that the 'Import' process may be initially slow for large numbers of photos, but that is a 'once only' event after which sorting and culling can be very fast.

Funke910 said:

I was trying to load a batch of about 1k shots to sort through and the program just kept crashing. I got online to see if there was an update and ended up downloading ViewNX-1. That program is shows all my photos for one second and then turns them black. So - not very helpful.

I'm looking for a program, preferably free, that I can quickly sort through photos or assign tags or flags to them before I sent them to light room.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you so much!

Click to expand...

You have Lightroom, you do not need ViewNX, or any other software (free or paid) to do your sorting. Lightroom has 95% of everything you need (Except for advanced editing eg. Photoshop). Learn to use its best features to the full extent!

Probably one of the fastest rubbish finder/killers, especially if you want to apply a quick preset to a bunch of Raws to help the job.
I generally download from the card with C1 which enables me to create custom folders and rename files almost at the click of a button. Too easy with presets.

I then open Aftershot, sharpen the lot a modest amount
and then rip through to kill the rubbish.
Very fast, the interface is just right.
After that, back to C1 for the survivors.
C1 completely ignores the Aftershot sidecar files.

There's free 30 day trials available for Aftershot.

Dper2016 said:

I am going to defend Lightroom!
If you make full use of Flagging, Star Rating, Keywording, Collections, Compare view, Survey View, Reference View, Loupe view, etc,

Click to expand...

That's a defense, eh ? Sounds like a life sentence, your worship.

Don't know about Windows (I guess something similiar), but on a Mac using quickview enables viewing the content of (most) files without opening them. jpegs can be quickviewed, also tagged with a label. So you could sift through then rename the ones you want to keep with something memorable and prefix the name or date, such as 2018-03-23 then sort.

Similiarly on a Mac you can use preview to open, do basic editing, and rename.

Funke910 said:

I've used Nikon ViewNX for years as my first initial way to look at my photos. Its easy to do a quick sort through the photos and decide which ones I want to move to lightroom. I also keep some photos that I don't want in lightroom and like the tagging/sorting system that the program had.

I was trying to load a batch of about 1k shots to sort through and the program just kept crashing. I got online to see if there was an update and ended up downloading ViewNX-1. That program is shows all my photos for one second and then turns them black. So - not very helpful.

I'm looking for a program, preferably free, that I can quickly sort through photos or assign tags or flags to them before I sent them to light room.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you so much!

Click to expand...

Adobe Bridge checks all those boxes.

Ron Poelman said:

Dper2016 said:

I am going to defend Lightroom!

If you make full use of Flagging, Star Rating, Keywording, Collections, Compare view, Survey View, Reference View, Loupe view, etc,

Click to expand...

That's a defense, eh ? Sounds like a life sentence, your worship.

Click to expand...

It's not, though.

Lightroom is the only program on the market AFAIK with any exit strategy at all which maintains live parametric edits fully... besides the partial option, say, of translating Adobe edits into CaptureOne.

And your LR Catalog remains usable in perpetuity so far as the work you've already done - e.g., for output - until some future update to the OS no longer allows that to run.

Sure, the "full compatibility" route is into another Adobe product: Photoshop / ACR (this might remain in use anyway, even after someone has switched from LR to something else for Raw conversion going forward). And this may happen in the context of Bridge or of any 3rd party DAM of choice; because they all understand how to talk to PS and ACR.

And it would take little time to save out TIFFs if it came to that - for use in a different image editor maybe - which you can still do from LR after ending Adobe subscription.

What OTHER parametric editor's adjustments, are NOT "locked in" and proprietary to that particular application? Say you start using some other product, and find you want to continue using its particular environment and tools for the moment, because you find them effective and productive - is THAT a "life sentence" too?

I'm not defending Adobe in particular here BTW - just pointing out the double-standard logic of criticising one company for daring to offer a proprietary solution for sale, while by implication APPROVING its competitors for offering their own alternatives - when those alternatives are themselves just as proprietary.

You can cull (eliminate from import) right in the Lightroom import screen, referring to the images on camera card. So you don't then copy any files into the computer unnecessarily, and then LR won't be generating any previews for those images, and then you won't need to delete them from the computer.

the way I think of this is: there will be all kinds of moments where I could have pressed the shutter and didn't. It's no different if you did press the shutter at that moment but now wish that you hadn't. There is no compulsion to physically preserve every exposure captured, no matter what.

It's pretty quick and efficient to step through images. You can zoom in (to the extent the camera embedded JPG preview, which is what you see here, contains that higher res detail). Arrow keys, X key to reject as needed.

Then go on to import and rate, tag etc just those images which have passed this triage.

richardplondon said:

What OTHER parametric editor's adjustments, are NOT "locked in" and proprietary to that particular application? Say you start using some other product, and find you want to continue using its particular environment and tools for the moment, because you find them effective and productive - is THAT a "life sentence" too?

Click to expand...

The OP's need could be easily met with any of a dozen lightweight packages.
By the sound of it, FastStone is all that would be required.
This was never a discussion about Professional needs and software.

However, seeing you've gone that way, I'll ask the question;
Does all that tagging and typing actually repay all those hours of data entry ?


It's not like it's an easy thing like Picasa's hands-off face search.
How often do photogs really go back into history for a pink flower shot ?
Even if they could remember taking such a shot,
it's likely to be a couple of years old and not a pale imitation of what they could shoot with their camera de jour; so of course they'ld reshoot.
Normal, well named DOS directories and file naming should do it for 99% of shooters,
and leave them free of anything proprietary.
Those that can justify more, can afford to hire a clerk.

Ron Poelman said:

richardplondon said:

What OTHER parametric editor's adjustments, are NOT "locked in" and proprietary to that particular application? Say you start using some other product, and find you want to continue using its particular environment and tools for the moment, because you find them effective and productive - is THAT a "life sentence" too?

Click to expand...

The OP's need could be easily met with any of a dozen lightweight packages.
By the sound of it, FastStone is all that would be required.
This was never a discussion about Professional needs and software.
However, seeing you've gone that way, I'll ask the question;
Does all that tagging and typing actually repay all those hours of data entry ?

Click to expand...

Well I personally do very little tagging and hardly any typing. If a new Collection needs a name I have to type that, true. Mostly it's batch keywords applied across a given import, generally picked from a list. And because keywords applied in LR translate into the exported JPGs, the images arrive in Flickr already well classified as to location etc. Flickr is perfectly capable of then auto-assigning "pink" and "flower" etc all by itself, just by analysing the photo (it seldom applies something inappropriate, so far as I have noticed, except for e.g. sometimes mistaking bright sunlit sand for snow...)

I'll turn that around, and ask whether the use of separate file ingest / renaming / review / whatever apps, and all the associated fiddling around with folder and files etc, and navigating to stuff at each stage, repays all the hours that involves over a year.

The sum total of my own image file management is as follows: put card in reader, click Import, click to reset and load import preset, type in a few keywords for this batch, done. No creating folders (it all auto happens by date). No renaming files. No reorganising things when you've changed your mind about what constitutes a sensible filing scheme for some arguable notion of a subject based classification. Oh there is a tedious technicality in LR: each January, I need to expend ten painful seconds updating my metadata preset's copyright statement, for the new year.

Ron Poelman said:

It's not like it's an easy thing like Picasa's hands-off face search.
How often do photogs really go back into history for a pink flower shot ?
Even if they could remember taking such a shot,
it's likely to be a couple of years old and not a pale imitation of what they could shoot with their camera de jour; so of course they'ld reshoot.

Click to expand...

Not me. Whatever for?

Ron Poelman said:

Normal, well named DOS directories and file naming should do it for 99% of shooters,
and leave them free of anything proprietary.

Click to expand...

That does sound like an awful lot of constant typing, though .

And a digitally edited image including a Raw conversion only becomes not proprietary, once you nail everything down into a flat TIFF.

Ron Poelman said:

Those that can justify more, can afford to hire a clerk.

Click to expand...

I don't want to expend anything like that much time myself, either. I mainly enjoy the fun bits - working on the appearance of photos - so that's, mainly, all I do. Finding stuff and managing stuff the old way: never miss it.

richardplondon said:

I'll turn that around, and ask whether the use of separate file ingest / renaming / review / whatever apps, and all the associated fiddling around with folder and files etc, and navigating to stuff at each stage, repays all the hours that involves over a year.

The sum total of my own image file management is as follows: put card in reader, click Import, click to reset and load import preset, type in a few keywords for this batch, done. No creating folders (it all auto happens by date). No renaming files.
That does sound like an awful lot of constant typing, though .

Click to expand...

Which is why I use C1's excellent preset tool, pausing only to update the subject info; with all that nasty DOS stuff like Date and Camera taken care of automatically.
Never touched the "Tokens". Who dreams these names up ?

richardplondon said:

And a digitally edited image including a Raw conversion only becomes not proprietary, once you nail everything down into a flat TIFF.

Click to expand...

What's a TIFF ?
--
Ron.
Volunteer, what could possibly go wrong ?

brightncheerful said:

Don't know about Windows (I guess something similiar), but on a Mac using quickview enables viewing the content of (most) files without opening them. jpegs can be quickviewed, also tagged with a label. So you could sift through then rename the ones you want to keep with something memorable and prefix the name or date, such as 2018-03-23 then sort.

Similiarly on a Mac you can use preview to open, do basic editing, and rename.

Click to expand...

Exactly - no need for additional software.

I simply use Windows Photo Viewer to do a quick cull of my photos - it can handle RAW.

The ones I want to keep, I simply move/copy to an appropriately named "keep" directory, and it is this directory that I point Lightroom at when I import.

KeithOwen said:

Exactly - no need for additional software.

I simply use Windows Photo Viewer to do a quick cull of my photos - it can handle RAW.

The ones I want to keep, I simply move/copy to an appropriately named "keep" directory, and it is this directory that I point Lightroom at when I import.

Click to expand...

"Exactly" really? But if you use Windows Photo Viewer, isn't that "additional Software".

Lightroom does it all. I have never opened Windows Photo Viewer, and rarely look at directories of images with File Explorer. And why waste time moving files to a 'keep' directory when again Lightroom can Flag images as 'keepers'.

Ron Poelman said:

How often do photogs really go back into history for a pink flower shot ?
Even if they could remember taking such a shot,

Click to expand...

Just today- my wife wanted flowers on a gift card printed. I typed 'Flowers' and within 1 second see 68 images dated back to 2012 (53,000 in my catalog). I do not have to remember taking such a shot, Lightroom does that for me.

Dper2016 said:

KeithOwen said:

Exactly - no need for additional software.

I simply use Windows Photo Viewer to do a quick cull of my photos - it can handle RAW.

The ones I want to keep, I simply move/copy to an appropriately named "keep" directory, and it is this directory that I point Lightroom at when I import.

Click to expand...

"Exactly" really? But if you use Windows Photo Viewer, isn't that "additional Software".

Lightroom does it all. I have never opened Windows Photo Viewer, and rarely look at directories of images with File Explorer. And why waste time moving files to a 'keep' directory when again Lightroom can Flag images as 'keepers'.

Click to expand...

I mean no need for any additional software other that what comes pre-installed with Windows.

Sure Lightroom does it all. I just don't like the way Lightroom does it.

Funke910 said:

I've used Nikon ViewNX for years as my first initial way to look at my photos. Its easy to do a quick sort through the photos and decide which ones I want to move to lightroom. I also keep some photos that I don't want in lightroom and like the tagging/sorting system that the program had.

I was trying to load a batch of about 1k shots to sort through and the program just kept crashing. I got online to see if there was an update and ended up downloading ViewNX-1. That program is shows all my photos for one second and then turns them black. So - not very helpful.

I'm looking for a program, preferably free, that I can quickly sort through photos or assign tags or flags to them before I sent them to light room.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you so much!

Click to expand...

Fast Raw Viewer if you are a RAW shooter.

Very fast at rendering images on the screen and has great review tools to help you decide which photos to keep / delete. Ratings can also be applied and are preserved on import to LR.

KeithOwen said:

Dper2016 said:

KeithOwen said:

Exactly - no need for additional software.

I simply use Windows Photo Viewer to do a quick cull of my photos - it can handle RAW.

The ones I want to keep, I simply move/copy to an appropriately named "keep" directory, and it is this directory that I point Lightroom at when I import.

Click to expand...

"Exactly" really? But if you use Windows Photo Viewer, isn't that "additional Software".

Lightroom does it all. I have never opened Windows Photo Viewer, and rarely look at directories of images with File Explorer. And why waste time moving files to a 'keep' directory when again Lightroom can Flag images as 'keepers'.

Click to expand...

I mean no need for any additional software other that what comes pre-installed with Windows.

Sure Lightroom does it all. I just don't like the way Lightroom does it.

Click to expand...

Plenty of other suggestions, thanks to other posts.

"To each his own" and "Love it or leave it"