What software combinations do you use........?

AdamSC · Oct 6, 2003

Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Sky Walker · Oct 6, 2003

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Download - Downloader Pro http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/
(I NEVER download from the camera, only from a cardreader)

Image Management - IMatch http://www.photools.com (iView Media Pro 2 - Widows version due later this year - looks very good, but expensive)
Editing - Photoshop Elements
Noise - NeatImage http://www.neatimage.com/
Printing - Qimage http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/
Misc. - Lightbox http://www.conceiva.com/

Sky

Gimpy00Wang · Oct 6, 2003

AdamSC said:
What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.

Lexar firewire CF reader. Just pop the CF card in the reader and drag the files to a directory. Fast...simple...

AdamSC said:
2 Store, catalogue etc

I use EOS Image Manager ( http://eosim.sourceforge.net/index.html ) for browsing my images and viewing slideshows. It's OK in terms of features, but great in terms of price. I also use Gallery (gallery.sourceforge.net) to make my images viewable from the web. It's written in PHP and is absolutely great.

xv is a great app that I use on FreeBSD for viewing images too.

AdamSC said:
3 Manipulate the images etc.

GraphicConverter, Gimp, and dcraw. As you can see, I'm a big fan of OSS. GraphicConverter is pretty good. Gimp is great and dcraw is invaluable. I've used Photoshop quite extensively in the past, but can't justify the cost for personal use. I'm considering picking up PS Elements though...possibly for Christmas!

AdamSC said:
4 Anything else.

jhead and dcraw for viewing EXIF info and converting RAW images. There's tons of command-line tools for nix that I use from time to time as needed. Gallery is really a slick package that's worth a look.

G!mpy

Col Winfield · Oct 6, 2003

Hi AdanSC.
My preferences are.
1. Downloader pro-rename with string and date stamp, cam or reader.
2. Breezebrowser-view thumbs and exif.
3. Corel Photopaint-all manipulation and enhancements.
4. Recordnow Max-burn to CD or DVD 108chr filenames.
Nero 5.x-Simple high compatibility slide shows on standalone DVD players.

Currently looking into Qimage for printing flexibility and several slideshow suites recomended in the PC Tools forum.
Col.

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

VegasSil · Oct 6, 2003

Download: Card reader and windows explorer.
Cataloging & managing: zoombrowser(also like it for slideshows)
editing: PaintshopPro7(general) Photolimpression(for red-eye)
Batch resizing: Irfanview

Col Winfield said:
AdamSC said:

Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Click to expand...

--
Canon A70

Glen Barrington · Oct 6, 2003

Mostly I use ACDSee Powerpack.

This includes:

ACDSee proper - for Organizing, cataloging. In spite of all the complaining I've been doing about v6, I still don't want to do without it. I can't imagine doing without it, actually.

ACDSee fotoSlate - for printing (yes, you can print from your editor and generally from your organizer, but a specialized printing program gives you MANY options not found in editors/organizers)

ACDSee fotoCanvas - a great little editor for "quick & dirty" editing and for beginners. More powerful than the simple editing tools found in ACDSee proper, but not as powerful or as complicated as Photoshop.

The great thing about PowerPack is that though they are stand alone apps, all 3 programs integrate so well that you scarcely notice the transition from one to the other. It's like MS Office for Photos.

I also use Corel Graphics Suite V9 for the WONDERFUL Photo editor named PhotoPaint. It can do anything - ANYTHING - Photoshop can do. Version 11 costs around $500 USD but legal versions of V9 can be had many places for less than $50 USD.

I've been looking for a powerful slideshow application. I've been thru several icluding ACDsee fotoAngelo and PhotoShow2. They all have their faullts. I've just ordered CyberLink's MediaShow for real cheap at SoftwareOutlet.com. I'll have to let you know later if I like it.

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

--
G. Barrington
Teradata Certified Professional

Hai Huynh · Oct 6, 2003

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

For photo album, I am using Picasa software: http://www.lifescapeinc.com/picasa/
It is very flexible and intuitive.

--
THKB

AdamSC · Oct 7, 2003

When I first asked this question I was sort of hoping for and half expecting some form of consensus on the "best" way to do these things. In fact, there seems to be almost no consensus at all!

Price obviously seems to be a determining factor and I'm interested that not many people seem to use Photoshop - which I had expected to be among the most popular!

Thanks to all for your input so far - still very interested to see what else turns up - and also people's stratergies for naming and storing shots - perhaps I will ask a seperate question about that.

Cheers

Adam

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Claude Prinsloo · Oct 7, 2003

What I find even more interesting is that (except for PhotoImpression (for Red eye)) noone seems to be using the software that Canon bundles with the camera. Couldn't they just save us a couple of bucks and ship the camera without software?

My 2c. I use ACDSee for viewing, JPegCrops for cropping and PainShopPro for editing.

AdamSC said:
Price obviously seems to be a determining factor and I'm interested
that not many people seem to use Photoshop - which I had expected
to be among the most popular!

Thanks to all for your input so far - still very interested to see
what else turns up - and also people's stratergies for naming and
storing shots - perhaps I will ask a seperate question about that.

Cheers

Adam

AdamSC said:

Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Click to expand...

thefly · Oct 7, 2003

AdamSC said:
Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.

cam2pc (also renaming)

AdamSC said:
2 Store, catalogue etc

Adobe Album 1

AdamSC said:
3 Manipulate the images etc.

Adobe Album, Irfanview and Photoshop

AdamSC said:
4 Anything else.

Print Shop to but together scrapbook pages

AdamSC said:
A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

--
Lee
http://fotofly.flyfamily.org

AdamSC · Oct 14, 2003

Why something different just for cropping?

Thanks

Adam

Claude Prinsloo said:
My 2c. I use ACDSee for viewing, JPegCrops for cropping and
PainShopPro for editing.

AdamSC said:

Price obviously seems to be a determining factor and I'm interested
that not many people seem to use Photoshop - which I had expected
to be among the most popular!

Thanks to all for your input so far - still very interested to see
what else turns up - and also people's stratergies for naming and
storing shots - perhaps I will ask a seperate question about that.

Cheers

Adam

AdamSC said:

Hi all

Having used my G3 since they first arrived in the UK I have now
built up a fair sized collection of photos and am now looking to do
something about organising and printing them etc.

My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.
2 Store, catalogue etc
3 Manipulate the images etc.
4 Anything else.

A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Many thanks

Adam

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Toke Eskildsen · Oct 15, 2003

AdamSC said:
Why something different just for cropping?

With images for printing, it makes sense to separate image enhancement (color correction, sharpening and such) from cropping: You might want to print the image at different sizes or aspects after all.

If you produce a folder with images ready for printing, except that they need cropping, then there's no particular reason to stick with the same program for cropping, except for the familiarity.

I, no surprise here, feel that none of the general programs I've tried (PhotoShop, Paint Shop pro, QImage, Gimp and others) works well for batch cropping, but I' also in the habit of sending 50-100 different images to printing at a time. Your Mileage May Vary.

Mika Y. · Oct 15, 2003

Hi, I'm somewhat a latecomer to this thread because I've missed it the first time, but here goes anyway:

AdamSC said:
My question is:

What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.

Gphoto2

AdamSC said:
2 Store, catalogue etc

Nothing really; so far I've just saved the stuff first under directory corresponding to the year, the create additional subdirectories for the months. When I've taken a large amount of pictures in a single occasion, I create a separate subdirectory for them under the previous hierarchy. This is not very optimal, but has been OK so far. I guess I'll think about something more sophisticated someday... For viewing the directories, I use GQview.

AdamSC said:
3 Manipulate the images etc.

GIMP, ImageMagick, occasionally jpegtran.

AdamSC said:
4 Anything else.

Dcraw to convert RAW images. Iris and Registax under Wine to perform image stacking.

AdamSC said:
A few obvious contenders are Photoshop, Photoshop Album, Thumbs
Plus, ACD See etc. But what combination have you found works best
for you and why?

My choices are largely result of using Linux; obviously the common Windows solutions are not available (except perhaps under Wine or such).

Chris Beney · Oct 15, 2003

Gimpy00Wang wrote:
...

Gimpy00Wang said:
Lexar firewire CF reader. Just pop the CF card in the reader and
drag the files to a directory. Fast...simple...

Do you use the firewire reader with Windows XP? I had heard they were somehow incompatible.
Chris Beney

Gimpy00Wang · Oct 15, 2003

Chris Beney said:
Chris Beney said:

Lexar firewire CF reader. Just pop the CF card in the reader and
drag the files to a directory. Fast...simple...

Click to expand...

Do you use the firewire reader with Windows XP? I had heard they
were somehow incompatible.
Chris Beney

WinXP...ick

I use my firewire CF reader in OS X and FreeBSD. I have used a Sandisk USB 2.0 CF reader in XP once or twice, but that's all...

G!mpy

Chris Beney · Oct 15, 2003

Gimpy00Wang said:
WinXP...ick I use my firewire CF reader in OS X and FreeBSD. I
have used a Sandisk USB 2.0 CF reader in XP once or twice, but
that's all...

Thanks

S Chastain · Oct 15, 2003

Hi Adam,

I look at a LOT of graphics software--it's my job. These are the programs I happen to use myself:

AdamSC said:
1 Download pictures from the camera.

Windows XP's "wizard" that pops up when I instert a CF card.

AdamSC said:
2 Store, catalogue etc

Adobe Photoshop Album

AdamSC said:
3 Manipulate the images etc.

Quick fixes in Album, more elaborate editing in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, mainly.

AdamSC said:
4 Anything else.

For printing, I like ACD FotoCanvas.
For creating fun, artsy prints from photos, I LOVE PhotoArtMaster.

But, it's great that we have so many choices because everyone has their own preferences. By the way, I have reviews of all the titles I mentioned on my site if you want more info. I'll be posting updated reviews of the new versions of Photoshop Album, ACDSee, and PhotoArtMaster very soon. http://graphicssoft.about.com/
--
Sue

walken · Oct 16, 2003

Another latecomer to the thread, but this is a topic that stays relevant however long it's up...

AdamSC said:
What combination of software do you use to:

1 Download pictures from the camera.

Nothing - drag and drop directly from the camera. Why don't people want to connect directly to the camera? I suppose a Firewire reader would be faster, but as flimsy as the little CF door is on my A70 I'd prefer to touch it as little as possible.

AdamSC said:
2 Store, catalogue etc

I haven't decided whether I like ACDSee or Canon's own PhotoBrowser thing better yet. I use ACDSee at work so I'm comfortable with it, but I'm always open to new things and I do sort of like Canon's own app. I'll eventually try Adobe's Photo Album thing as well.

AdamSC said:
3 Manipulate the images etc.

Well, here's your Photoshop vote that you were expecting. No, not Photoshop Elements, or Photoshop LE, I use full-blown Photoshop. It's part of my job at work so I've grown comfortable with it and when you're comfortable with a professional image editing app. it's very hard to change. I can never figure out how to do anything whenever I open another editing app, so I stick with Photoshop even at home for my own photos. (Though I do need to find a nice red-eye removal filter - I'm sure one exists but just haven't looked. I do it all by hand now.)

AdamSC said:
Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

I'm never organized in this area so don't feel bad if your photo folders are a mess. I seem to do something different for every set that I take, and then can never figure out which versions of photos I'm supposed to save and which I meant to discard. I also always worry after I've retouched a photo that I'll find some flaw in my work later and will want to revert back to the original anyway. So I've got probably thousands of random photos lying around on hard drives and CD's that I meant to delete and never did. I suppose the best thing is probably to just create a "retouched" folder in the root folder for each set, and just leave the originals in the root (or the reverse). I do this always at work, but only sometimes at home. It depends on how much I care about the individual photo, I think.

S Chastain · Oct 16, 2003

Walken: Photoshop Album is awesome for red eye! Give the free starter edition a try if you want to test the red-eye fixing... it does quite a lot for being free, though. You can read a bit about what the free version does and doesn't do on my site at http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/a/033117.htm

--
Sue

walken said:
walken said:

Also, does anyone have any tips for naming and cataloguing photos
and edited versions of the originals etc.?

Click to expand...

I'm never organized in this area so don't feel bad if your photo
folders are a mess. I seem to do something different for every set
that I take, and then can never figure out which versions of photos
I'm supposed to save and which I meant to discard. I also always
worry after I've retouched a photo that I'll find some flaw in my
work later and will want to revert back to the original anyway. So
I've got probably thousands of random photos lying around on hard
drives and CD's that I meant to delete and never did. I suppose
the best thing is probably to just create a "retouched" folder in
the root folder for each set, and just leave the originals in the
root (or the reverse). I do this always at work, but only
sometimes at home. It depends on how much I care about the
individual photo, I think.

Lumsmore · Oct 17, 2003

My profile of software is similar to Sue-

CF USB v2 card reader with file explorer. I save all of my photos in sub dirs like this:
2001
2002
2002
+Baby
+NC Vacation
+General
+Photo Art

I then use Adobe Album V1. It get slammed a bit by some users on the Adobe site forum, but I've had no problems with it. In fact I've got over 2500 images and I can find any of them in seconds because of the very easy tagging features. I also use the Web page builder to create albulms for my web site (although not as intuitive to use). I'm still deciding if its worth the $ to upgrade to v2.

For digital alterations, I either use Adobe Album, (simple red eye, crop) or Adobe Photoshop for more complex stuff.

That's about it.
-S

S Chastain said:
I look at a LOT of graphics software--it's my job. These are the
programs I happen to use myself:

S Chastain said:

1 Download pictures from the camera.

Click to expand...

Windows XP's "wizard" that pops up when I instert a CF card.

S Chastain said:

2 Store, catalogue etc

Click to expand...

Adobe Photoshop Album

S Chastain said:

3 Manipulate the images etc.

Click to expand...

Quick fixes in Album, more elaborate editing in Photoshop or
Photoshop Elements, mainly.

S Chastain said:

4 Anything else.

Click to expand...

For printing, I like ACD FotoCanvas.
For creating fun, artsy prints from photos, I LOVE PhotoArtMaster.

But, it's great that we have so many choices because everyone has
their own preferences. By the way, I have reviews of all the titles
I mentioned on my site if you want more info. I'll be posting
updated reviews of the new versions of Photoshop Album, ACDSee, and
PhotoArtMaster very soon. http://graphicssoft.about.com/
--
Sue

What software combinations do you use........?

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