Software to manage your photo library?

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add1ct3dd

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So, what do you people use?

I've just got my 550D and am somewhat unorganized with my photos but hope to change this now I'll be taking some serious photos :)

I've got Zoner Photo Studio Pro which is pretty nice, and can also get Adobe products due to work, so wondering what people recommend? I'm looking for something that I can tag photos with and keep them in an organized library!

I did try searching before people ask but wasn't too sure what to search!

Hope you can help :)
 
For simple, basic photo management - as opposed to editing - for free there's Faststone Image Viewer. Or for a bit of money ACDSee Photo Manager. Both have some editing capabilities. All the basics of image management done simply and without drama.

But I'll give it until the end of the day before somebody comes along and recommends Lightroom. Yes, it's great for processing and editing. But for management, particularly for a beginner, it's absolutely crap. And costs a fair bit.
 
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I don't use anything, just keep your picture folders organised as soon as you upload them with correct name and date. All computers have a search facility built in to help you locate a missing file should you not remember where you placed it. Organisation really is key in this area of photography.
 
MisterE said:
But I'll give it until the end of the day before somebody comes along and recommends Lightroom. Yes, it's great for processing and editing. But for management, particularly for a beginner, it's absolutely crap. And costs a fair bit.
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Lightroom ;) and I find it perfectly fine for organising (assuming you spend the effort to tag photos properly).
 
Michael, I'm curious as to why you consider Lightroom crap for image management? I tried version 1 when it came out and even with version 2 I would have agreed with you, but since version 3 I have been impressed with it and now run version 4 and find it easy to use and locating images is a doddle once you've gone through the basic learning curve. The price is now very good at £99 (Amazon) and the new processing is excellent.
 
MisterE said:
For simple, basic photo management - as opposed to editing - for free there's Faststone Image Viewer. Or for a bit of money ACDSee Photo Manager. Both have some editing capabilities. All the basics of image management done simply and without drama.

But I'll give it until the end of the day before somebody comes along and recommends Lightroom. Yes, it's great for processing and editing. But for management, particularly for a beginner, it's absolutely crap. And costs a fair bit.
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LOL
Lightroom. Once you bother to learn how to use it you'll wonder how you managed without it. There's some great tutorials on the adobe website that are 5-10mins long videos. Really worth watching those and spending 30-45 mins just getting behind the mindset, but it's a brilliant workflow tool. Those that say it's crap generally haven't bothered reading/watching the tutorials.

Expensive - really? Lightroom 3 is currentl;y £60 at PC world - that's walk in today and buy it - or you can pay £105 for lightroom 4 from Adobe. Personally I'd say 4 is worth it. Best of all you can use it for 30 days for free whilst you try it out.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom


The editing is great in it and I tend to only use photoshop if I need layers, but it's real strength is it's cataloguing. Really easy to find items, by storage location, keywords, metadata (such as lens, camera, focal length etc), by category you create yourself and now with lightroom 4 by location.

be very interesting to see why MrE thinks it's crap.
 
I'm with Trevor on this. I'm a Lightroom user from the first Beta way back when, and to me it answered the major problem of filing and finding images. OK you have to put a little bit of effort into it, but this can be as much or as little as you need.

I would agree that for some people the price tag of £99 may be more than they want to pay, but to say it's crap for for image management just isn't true. Yes it can take a little time to learn , but there are books and video's available, plus like anything that's worthwhile you have to spend time with it.

Is it worthwhile for some one who only has a few thousand images , probably not. But when you have tens or even hundreds of thousands of images it's almost indispensable.
 
MisterE said:
For simple, basic photo management - as opposed to editing - for free there's Faststone Image Viewer. Or for a bit of money ACDSee Photo Manager. Both have some editing capabilities. All the basics of image management done simply and without drama.

But I'll give it until the end of the day before somebody comes along and recommends Lightroom. Yes, it's great for processing and editing. But for management, particularly for a beginner, it's absolutely crap. And costs a fair bit.
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I'd have to assume, that you haven't taken the 10 or 15 minutes it would take to watch a tutorial video, on how to use Lightroom's extensive photo management tools :suspect:

As mentioned add1ct3dd, download a fully functioning trial version, I'll be surprised if you are not won over.
 
Another vote here for using Lightroom, once you get into the mindset that it is a database of your images it's by far the best tool for image management. The processing part of it isn't too shabby either ;)
 
I have used LR since it came out and am on LR4, it's not crap but it is not there yet as decent Digital Asset Management Tool (DAM) But the LR Fanboys will not believe that.;)

Even ACDSee does it better for quickness and easy use when searching the database.

I'll put the same question I always put and have yet to get a good answer to.

You have three family members (could be any subject) Dick, John and Paul.

Now you want to view all the images containing only Dick and John together and not any where only one of them is present, also you do not want to see any images where Paul is present in them. How do you do this quickly in LR?

In ACDsee you simply type in the search box Dick+John -Paul, takes three seconds to type and even less to get the search results.:)
 
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I do it the easy way.

each year i make up a new folder "2010, 2011, 2012 and so on" in my photos hard drive & put everything i take that year into that folder..
if i do anything special like on Holiday or weddings or days out i just make a new folder within the year folder with the name holiday (or what ever) & put all taken photos into that...

it dont get much simpler than that LOL.
 
craftysnapper said:
You have three family members (could be any subject) Dick, John and Paul.

Now you want to view all the images containing only Dick and John together and not any where only one of them is present, also you do not want to see any images where Paul is present in them. How do you do this quickly in LR?
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You create a smart collection.

Maybe not as quick as other tools, but it is possible :)
 
craftysnapper said:
I have used LR since it came out and am on LR4, it's not crap but it is not there yet as decent Digital Asset Management Tool (DAM) But the LR Fanboys will not believe that.;)

Even ACDSee does it better for quickness and easy use when searching the database.

I'll put the same question I always put and have yet to get a good answer to.

You have three family members (could be any subject) Dick, John and Paul.

Now you want to view all the images containing only Dick and John together and not any where only one of them is present, also you do not want to see any images where Paul is present in them. How do you do this quickly in LR?

In ACDsee you simply type in the search box Dick+John -Paul, takes three seconds to type and even less to get the search results.:)
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Metadata search:

Column 1 keyword: Dick
Column 2 keyword: John

Text Search (does not contain): Paul

Slightly longer to do, maybe by 3 seconds?
 
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DemiLion said:
Metadata search:

Column 1 keyword: Dick
Column 2 keyword: John

Text Search (does not contain): Paul

Slightly longer to do, maybe by 3 seconds?
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So set up your columns (there never how you need them) then scroll through a thousand keyword in each column , then type in a name,.

Yep it works but three seconds, your having a laugh aren't you.;)
 
craftysnapper said:
So set up your columns (there never how you need them) then scroll through a thousand keyword in each column , then type in a name,.

Yep it works but three seconds, your having a laugh aren't you.;)
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You asked how to do it. You said that you've asked frequently and never had the answer before. Now you have.

If you want to use LR as a DCM then you lock your meta columns into place as you want them.

Perhaps it takes a fraction longer, but not much if you know what you're doing....
 
We seem to have gotten away from the OP's original question.

Yes Lightroom is one option, but then also is ACDSee. The latter is cheaper than Lightroom, but doesn't have all the same functions.

I'd suggest you download a trail of ACDSee from the web site and see if it does what you want. You could also download a trial of Lightroom but it may be over the top for what you want. Try them both and see what you prefer

Here's a link to both product trial site

http://www.acdsee.com/en/products

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom&promoid&promoid=DTEML

Make sure you select the correct platform ( Mac /PC) for Lightroom

If you decide to opt for a Lightroom trial, go to the Adobe site which has a number of Video tutorials which will help with Lightroom
 
craftysnapper said:
So set up your columns (there never how you need them) then scroll through a thousand keyword in each column , then type in a name,.

Yep it works but three seconds, your having a laugh aren't you.;)
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1 sec - depends on how fast you are

Library module, text attribute
Use any searchable field, contains all (which are the default settings) enter tom,dick,harry
Really quick, no drop downs needed.

As I said above, if you bother with the tutorials....

Depends on how you keyword, but yes I've done this for rugby photos. At the end of season I gave each parent the chance to buy photos with their son in. It does mean keywording each photo carefully but it's doable.
 
Pure text searches wont allow for boolean-like results though, you need to filter with both metadata and text to achieve that.
 
From the suggestions I'll give both of these solutions a go and will reply back when I've decided which I preferred and why :)

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm glad there's only two suggestions to be honest, saves me a bit of time finding trials etc.
 
arad85 said:
Lightroom ;) and I find it perfectly fine for organising (assuming you spend the effort to tag photos properly).
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Byker28i said:
There's some great tutorials on the adobe website that are 5-10mins long videos. Really worth watching those and spending 30-45 mins just getting behind the mindset. Those that say it's crap generally haven't bothered reading/watching the tutorials.
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johnnypanic said:
I'd have to assume, that you haven't taken the 10 or 15 minutes it would take to watch a tutorial video, on how to use Lightroom's extensive photo management tools :suspect:
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You have answered your own questions as to why I think it's crap. You've all missed the point that the OP is a beginner. Why should a beginner have to go off in search of video tutorials just to learn how to do basic things like create folders on various drives, move photos around, rename them -all simple stuff that one can accomplish immediately with programs like Faststone and ACDSee? Why should a beginner have to "tag photos properly"?

Then there's the fact that it uses catalogues. One has to import photos. There's no browsing through all your various drives permanently installed, let alone USB drives plugged in, just for a casual browse through what you have. Then you all know what happens when you do something to a folder outside of LR, like move or rename it. It goes missing in LR and we have yet another question on this forum, added to the thousands or more around the world - "LR is saying the folder is missing. What do I do? Help!"

Shall we go on to catalogue maintenance now? "I've accidentally deleted/lost/corrupted/whatever the catalogue and lost everything. I didn't make a backup. What do I do? Help please!" How many times has this question been asked?

Then there are the thousands of other questions on forums around the world - How do I create a folder on another drive? How do I move them? How do I rename them? All things that can be done by anybody with basic computer skills using progs like Faststone and ACDSee, yet strangely takes a question on a forum or trawling for video tutorials to get an answer for countless thousands of beginners.

To be fair on you all, having not tried LR's basic management facilities since its early incarnation, I've just spent [wasted actually] more than a few minutes with LR4 trying a few things. Creating a new folder on another drive unknown to LR then copy a few photos in to it, rename them then go to another folder unknown to LR. Something I can do in a few seconds with the other progs. But - because I haven't searched for and watched the video tutorials - I sit here shaking my head in despair. Now before all you whizz kids say "Easy - do this, this and that job done" sit somebody else that you know, who has reasonable pc skills but has never seen LR before, and see how they get on with it. Yes, it can be done. I did it. But nowhere near as quick and easily as with Faststone and ACDSee.

I'm not getting in to a war of words here. After having just tried with LR again, I stand by what I have said. Even more so now. Just like some people love their iPads, I would never have one and mine is an Android type. Each to his own. I'm just balancing the equation here.
 
MisterE said:
Why should a beginner have to "tag photos properly"?
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Because a database search is only as good as the data put into it. Don't tell me ACDSee can auto tag objects of interest in your photo. To do your search, you'd need the photos tagged properly in the first place.

Ms arad85 has hundreds of untagged photos in her library. It'll be a nightmare to find anything unless she can remember the dates. But that's her problem, not mine, or the software in use.
 
Going back to the original post the OP ask for software to organise his images in a library. He also stated he can get Adobe products through work. Lightroom is the big player in image library software, it is made by Adobe.

Of course, another option is if the OP uses Photoshop, he can try Bridge which is bundled with Photoshop, but in my view not as powerful as Lightroom.
 
I've got the Lightroom trial up and running, and I must say it is a bit weird how they've done the UI, some of it just seems completely illogical, but we shall see how it goes :)

I'm yet to install the other piece of software but will be doing that soon!
 
I also recommend Lightroom for organising photos. I keep my collection in a hierarchy of named folders, depending on the subject. Lightroom mirrors that structure, plus I add keywords to everything so I can search easily. If you stick with Lightroom, you'll probably end up using it to do over 90% of your image processing.

And Elements 10 is about the best pixel-based editor around, bar the full CS itself. Almost all of the useful features of CS are in Elements, and what's missing are things only dedicated pros need, IMO.
 
MisterE said:
Why should a beginner have to "tag photos properly"?
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arad85 said:
Because a database search is only as good as the data put into it. Don't tell me ACDSee can auto tag objects of interest in your photo. To do your search, you'd need the photos tagged properly in the first place.

Ms arad85 has hundreds of untagged photos in her library. It'll be a nightmare to find anything unless she can remember the dates. But that's her problem, not mine, or the software in use.
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Sorry. What I meant was that a beginner with relatively few photos wouldn't be feeling the need to tag any photos. Not until he was sure of the software and even more importantly, that he was sure that his hobby would stand the test of time.

As an aside, my photo collection amounts to something well over 6 figures and I've never tagged anything. I can find just about any photo in a few seconds. Maybe putting details in to the ACDSee database might be useful on the odd occasion, but the time spent manually locating something for me far outweighs the time spent filling up a database. And protecting it for the rest of my life.
 
MisterE said:
Sorry. What I meant was that a beginner with relatively few photos wouldn't be feeling the need to tag any photos.
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So this has now moved to a theoretical discussion and not the one from the OP where he clearly states:

add1ct3dd said:
I'm looking for something that I can tag photos with and keep them in an organized library!
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MisterE said:
As an aside, my photo collection amounts to something well over 6 figures and I've never tagged anything. I can find just about any photo in a few seconds.
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So your search was theoretical as well then? If you haven't tagged anything how would you find photos (and only those photos) that were taken between 2010 and 2011, during winter time in The New Forest containing deer but not phil?
 
add1ct3dd said:
I've got the Lightroom trial up and running, and I must say it is a bit weird how they've done the UI, some of it just seems completely illogical, but we shall see how it goes :)

I'm yet to install the other piece of software but will be doing that soon!
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Do go to the Adobe site and see some of the video's on how to use Lightroom. I found the UI quite intuitive, but then that's me :)

One useful option is the ability to batch rename. For example if you've just come back from the New Forest, It would be useful to rename the images you have New Forest 2012 for instance. The batch rename will allow you to change the name and ad sequential numbers NewForest 2012 001, NewForest 2012 002 etc. That way you could search for images of the New Forest, taken at any date or all images you took in 2012.

The other thing I would suggest, is that whilst you are getting used to Lightroom, you only commit a small number of images (100-200 )and treat the data base as an experimental one. As after a bit of use you may want to change the way you work, and may need to start again. It can be a real pain to have to start all over again with loads of images. ( been there done that )
 
arad85 said:
So this has now moved to a theoretical discussion and not the one from the OP where he clearly states:



So your search was theoretical as well then? If you haven't tagged anything how would you find photos (and only those photos) that were taken between 2010 and 2011, during winter time in The New Forest containing deer but not phil?
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Sorry, I overlooked that bit. I apologise unreservedly. However both ACDSee and Faststone both allow image tagging, with ACDSee being far superior in this respect.

As for finding the above photos, because all my folders are correctly dated and identified it takes me but a few seconds to locate them. I know the contents of all the folders. Yes, almost 2TBs worth. Again, just a few more seconds to pinpoint the photos. Some people cannot do this, but I can. I can go straight to the folder containing the old 1950s yellow Ford pickup in Nebraska taken in 2007, and the diner in Albuquerque with the neon lit Wurlitzer jukebox taken in 2011. And the deer [without Phil] taken in New Zealand in 2008. As I have said, the total time spent over the years tagging and inputting data on to every individual photo is immensely greater than the time I spend searching and locating manually individual photos as and when required.

However, we are digressing.
 
One of the best things about LR for me is that I can edit most of my RAW images without the need to create PSD/Tiff files. Only when I need to push pixels, (HDR panos) do I need to create extra files.
I agree there is a learning curve, but isn't that the case with any new software?
Wise words above. Try the various options and go with what suits you best. :)
 
happy haggis said:
One of the best things about LR for me is that I can edit most of my RAW images without the need to create PSD/Tiff files.
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+1. For me, the benefit, and the reason I finally caved and paid for it, is the non-destructive raw editing. I got used to the ease of editing (non-canon) jpegs with DPP, but couldn't use it for pentax raw files.

Personally I find my pre-LR system with folders and Faststone much faster. Lightroom is not at all intuitive for a beginner.

Having said that, I know it's a lot more powerful, so I will put in the effort to learn LR's DAM functions as I think it will pay off later.

But I have around 10000 pre-lightroom images and I'm not going to go back and manually tag them. Anyone know how well the face recognition works?
 
Another vote for LR, i also wish i had started adding tags from the start but i can find most things i want pretty easily :)
 
Ok so I've been using Lightroom while playing about and getting to grips with the camera and learning as I go, and I've gotta say it does look like a nice bit of kit - it's simple (though a somewhat strange layout at times), but it does seem like the software I'm looking for!

I'm still yet to give the other one you guys suggested a go, but that will happen this week or next depending on work load! I haven't started tagging yet but just so far the organising of the collection itself is nice and of course as you've said the ability to adjust photos as required without any additional apps is a bonus when in a rush etc.

Good choice, thanks guys! I'll let you know how I get on with the other software soon!
 
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