What software do you use to organize your photos ?

[vitomalpi]

Thanks all for your replies.... I thought that majority had a common software but almost all of you have different preferences.. I guess i have to find my own the hard way.. research...

[Chuck Lee]

What software do you use to organize your photos ?

Picasa 3.6 to organize. Why?


1) It's free. Google it. It's by Google.


2) Non destructive editing. It never alters the original jpeg.


3) Great GUI interface.


4) Very straightforward tools that are made for photos.


5) Geo tagging and other tagging features.


6) Supports a lot of image file formats including CR2 RAW and psd. I personally use it only for processed jpegs.


I shoot in raw and use Silkypix Pro and ACR 4.4 for raw development and post processing.


I keep all my image files and raws with the original camera assigned name. I will use postfixes like "IMG2140_800.jpg" to differentiate reduced resolution images.


Each group I shoot gets a foldernamed by date-subject. Ex. 021609-Sunset on York River. All the raw files get moved from the CF card to that folder. I then process the raws with Silkypix and even sometimes ACR in photoshop and save the developed jpegs to that folder. I then create a folder with the same name in myPhotoBackup directory on my backup drive and move the CR2s and development support filesthere for storage. I then move my jpegs and parent folder to C:\photos. I tell Picasa to only scan C:\Photos for changes and my folders and jpegs are setup in descending chronologicalorder in Picasa for my management, last minute crops and/or tweaks and viewing pleasure. Picasa can great collages, do slideshows, reduce images for e-mail, and even build a library of faces pulled from all of your photos. It makes a multitude of tasks extremely easy and convenient.


I've been managing my photos forover 5years like this with zero problems. My wife has 63,311 in her photo directory on her computer and I have 16,229 on my laptop. Picasa never skips a beat.


It's nice, because when I want to upload photos to zenfolio.com I just select the ones I want in the picasa interface and drag them into the java based zenfolio uplodader. A virtual piece of cake!!

[peterborough_photography]

acdsee pro great for sorting lots of photos

[Wes]

PSE 7 fo me.

[jcrowe87]

Lightroom for me, I also use it to do the majority of minor tweaks on images. It has the majority of the tools that photoshop uses, and allows for a more streamlined workflow in my opinion.

[Keith B]

I have never used Lightroom, but as Adobe becomes the new Microsoft I care not to use anymore of there products than I need.


With that said, I'm a Mac user and Aperture is GREAT! Version 3 is available for a 30 day try out and it is great. It is substantially faster tan version 2. That was my only complaint about Aperture before, speed. But it is 64 bit with Snow Leopard.


Unfortunately being a graphic designer also, I doubt I'll ever be free of Adobe. It's a shame I was a huge advocate and an early adopter of InDesign. I even took a lot of flack for it.

[Sheiky]

I love my lightroom! na-na-nana![:P]I use it for importing all my pictures and quickly make some adjustments. When I really want to adjust a photo I open it in photoshop. Works great for me!





Keith you could also look at Corel Software like paint shop etc.

[Lars]

I have aperture version 2 (through my job, so I didn't pay for it [], but have not yet managed to decide which program to use for the first editing of my pictures, DPP or Aperture. What I like with DPP is that it recognises the settings I have done with my camera, and the possibility to perform lens aberration correction (I havent figured out if this is possible with Aperture, though). However, Aperture is superb for making books and for cataloging pictures. I do advanced adjusting in photoshop, but very rarely. Most often, the camera does its job well enough.


Is the result of editing the same in DPP and Aperture? Does anyone have convincing arguments for either of these two? I would like to manage with one.

[Keith B]

Keith you could also look at Corel Software like paint shop etc.

Yeah, I don't think I hate Adobe that much yet.


Aperture 3:


I loaded 147 21MP images into it tonight and this would cripple Aperture 2 on my MBP 2.4 SR, but Aperture 3 cut right through it with flying colors. I guess the 64 bit really does the trick. I'm going to upgrade just for the performance increase.


For CA correction go to Photo menu and choose Add Adjustment and Chromatic Aberrations should be there.

[Sheiky]

Keith you could also look at Corel Software like paint shop etc.

Yeah, I don't think I hate Adobe that much yet.

Haha perspective viewing changes a lot huh? []