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Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

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Darwin:
My photos are organized just by folders and files.  I'm actually amazed that nobody has recommended a clear cut favorite in this thread...it's been a while!  In my experiences, I've found that the applications that can do this well are really really slow.  Like Lightroom.
-superboyac (April 05, 2010, 08:55 AM)
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Mine as well. Just to add, not only are the apps that do this well slow, they are also EXPENSIVE. Like Lightroom... $300  :o

I loaded the trial and then uninstalled it almost immediately. I couldn't afford the possiblity of deciding that I wanted might actually want it!

Jibz:
I think what surprises me here is the distribution of prices.

There are some excellent freeware viewers, and even good freeware catalogers (Farstone seems decent, although I was a bit surprised you cannot donate less than $10 in their donate what you want form :mrgreen:). However none of these have decent support for tagging (IPTC etc. support), or the few that support it have only very rough filtering support so the tags don't do you much good.

The ones that actually do offer decent tagging and filtering capabilities all of a sudden bump to $150 and up.

It doesn't seem like the kind of functionality that is so hard to develop that it justifies that kind of cost increase, but that might just be me.

Just for reference, here is what I (think I) am looking for:


* Store thumbnails in a database or similar to provide fast browsing (i.e. must not reread image folder every time you browse)
* Support annotation and tagging using a standard method (IPTC/XMP/...) (i.e. not storing it in some proprietary file that no other program can read, and provide no export option)
* Decent searching and filtering on any metadata, including full support for multiple conditions
* Non-destructive, must not change the original image data in any way without explicitly being told to
* I don't particularly care much for editing functions (I have dedicated software for that), but if present they much be non-destructive
* Preferably a dedicated piece of software, and not an image editor with a half-hearted cataloger stapled on

JavaJones:
No RAW support in Pictomio? http://forum.pictomio.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=50 In the bin it goes!

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (April 05, 2010, 11:26 PM)
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So what do you use for raw format?
-cmpm (April 06, 2010, 04:37 AM)
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Still deciding, hence my test of Pictomio. :D I currently use Picasa because it's super easy, low maintenance, and gets me up and running very quickly. I also really like the face recognition feature and find it more than a novelty (or at the very least a *great* novelty ;)). Most significantly however I don't like Picasa's limited editing functionality and non-tunable RAW conversion. Honestly I'm good with Picasa's organizational abilities as far as tagging (basic, but fine), and I like all the other stuff it can do, e.g. resize for email or web posting or make a slide show, etc. all very easily.

Anyway I've been trying Bibble 5, DxO Optics, Capture 1, Lightroom, and a few others off and on for a little while now. I really just haven't had the time to try them all in-depth. Hence not having made a decision. I'm perfectly happy paying $300 for one of these apps if it really fulfills all my requirements, and that's probably commensurate with the size of my photo collection, some 55,000 pics and over 330GB, as well as the fact that I use RAW almost exclusively now. I certainly understand not wanting to pay that much for a tool to do this though, if your needs are significant. ;)

- Oshyan

J-Mac:
I have to go the Support route with IDimager Pro - too much $$ invested to just drop it now, though that is still a strong possibility.

IDimager Pro - if I ever get it to work here - is only an organizing solution; I still need to get a good photo editor installed again. I was using Paint Shop Pro X for that - I feel that is the best editor around for the money and also for the ease of use. The Adobe products are way more than I need and they are also appropriately complex. Long learning curve IIRC. I don’t shoot RAW images; don’t work with RAW images at all. I cannot get out and about very much unfortunately so most - virtually all - of my image work is from existing photos. A lot of them are mine but a lot more are from various family members' photo albums. I am apparently the official family history researcher and chronicler for my near and extended family and it is a big help to have access to old family photos from all branches of my family. So I beg, borrow - but not steal! - old family photo albums from family members all over and add them to the master tree as appropriate. Now, having more than 20,000 such photos, tight organization is a must! I notice that most of the heavy users of IDimager advise using fairly standardized but extremely detailed categories and keywords. An example suggested to me at their forum was:

Religion
----Religious Buildings
----------Churches & Cathedrals
----------Mosques
----------Temples
----Religious Books
----------Bible
----------Koran

BTW, none of those are my categories; just the "sample" example suggested to me for Category Label Hierarchy in general. But I really don’t need nor want that level of detail. I'll be very satisfied with labeling all photos with the family branch, generation, name, date...  That sort of organization. Currently I use folders for categorization and I did have all labeled in ACDSee, but ACDSee stopped working on Windows 7 shortly after installing it after I upgraded from XP Pro unfortunately. And categorization by folder gets tougher and tougher as you get into the tens of thousands of photos! So I need a decent image organizer and I still need a damn good image editor - lots of very old photos that often need to be optimized to varying degrees.

But IDimager has very little in the way of photo editing; it is not developed as an image editor. I was going to upgrade my Paint Shop Pro to the latest version but I discovered that their "Piracy Protection" spyware-like service it installs has been tightened up and previous hacks to disable the service and keep the program itself working are no longer working. So I continue my search!

Thanks for reading all my whining crap, if you're still here!   :P

Jim

tomos:
I think what surprises me here is the distribution of prices.
-Jibz (April 06, 2010, 09:04 AM)
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I guess they charge high prices mainly cause they can - photography has been accepted as an expensive hobby where everyone wants to get 'the best'

But maybe also because workflow is very important in these apps: hence there needs to be a lot of work done on the GUI - coders hate working on GUI's & charge triple rate for that kind of work (:p and maybe it's more labour intensive too?)

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