File comparison tools?

jimbo_wa

jimbo_wa

Suspended / Banned
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606
Name
James Cowell
Edit My Images
Yes
I have multiple copies (due to too many backups and downscaling of the same file for emailing) of my jpeg/RAW files (approx. 100,000) and want to consolidate down to a single master (full resolution) copy of each - I have used the Lightroom 'Do not import duplicates' setting before and was not that impressed as the same filename, but downscaled copies were retained IMG001/IMG001(1)/etc.

I've looked around and the following seem recommended but would like real world people to confirm!

http://www.duplicate-finder.com/photo.html

http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/

I don't mind paying for software that works (but it would be helpful if it did MP3's too!)
 
I've used the Auslogics one once and it worked OK.
 
I don't think you'll find software to do what you want. All the duplicate file finders I've ever seen look for files which have the same name and/or the same content. But the issue is that an original image and a downsized copy are *not* duplicates. They're completely different files that just happen to look quite similar if you ignore their different sizes.

If you are *totally* consistent in your approach to file naming such that (a) downsized images always have exactly the same filename as the originals from which they were created; and (b) filenames are always unique otherwise; then a program which identifies files with the same name will get you started. (You'd just need to keep the largest file with each name.) But I'd be really surprised if any human being could be that organised!
 
Thinking a bit more on this... What you want to do is identify two files as "the same" if the images contained within them look "the same", even if they have different file names, different file sizes, different pixel dimensions, etc etc.

And that's essentially what Google Image Search does. I wonder whether there's any way of using Google Image Search on your PC instead of on the Internet? Google did once make a Desktop Search gadget, but it's not supported any more...
 
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