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

[tomos]

I love the idea of exifPro, and bought a license. However, as I've noted elsewhere, it generates HUGE index files (almost 2GB) and two deal breakers for me:

-Darwin (April 07, 2010, 11:32 AM)

just in case you missed my response on last page

Re Exif-pro:
AFAICT it's cataloging [indexing] features are really intended for keeping track of stuff on external drives/discs
- there's no other advantage to cataloging that I can see

-tomos (April 05, 2010, 01:53 PM)

of course,
this may well be what you were using it for . . . (I've never used that feature after the first attempt; but I did use the programme just last week to sort a batch of 400 photos of a wedding & it worked very well for that.)

[superboyac]

Dormouse owns this topic.  You're the man, man! 

[J-Mac]

Dormouse. I was just kidding you. Look at the sentence I was talking about - I know what you meant but to anyone not reading through the thread it probably looks bewildering! No better way you could have put it though.

Personally I'm not using RAW images - like I mentioned I don’t get to take many meaningful shots anymore and mostly work with older photos; though that presents its own challenges. Have you ever tried to digitize and them repair/optimize old, old tin and silver pics?

Thanks!

Jim

[cmpm]

A simple organizer - write up on gHacks.

http://www.ghacks.ne...adebis-photo-sorter/

Seems like it may be something I would use when needed.

[zevel]

A cataloger stores details of all your photos, allowing very fast searches, allows you to keep lots of different virtual collections, keep track of different versions of the same thing.

A browser, sorter, tagger is like a file explorer taking in details of all the files, allowing you to browse them and add tags, ratings etc. It allows you to sort them rapidly, so that you can decide what to keep or not etc. PM allows you to add tags to the photo itself as well as to a sidecar (not many progs did that at the beginning though a number do now). Most cataloging products allow you to do all of these as well as being catalogers, but they won't (usually at least) be so fast.

You need to realise that this market is full of very, very specialised programs mostly at high prices. Adobe Bridge is another example of the same sort of product. Some progs specialise purely in downloading images from cards and cameras (eg Breeze Downloader).

-Dormouse (April 06, 2010, 05:16 PM)

Fair enough.

Let me tell you what I am looking for in a photo organizer/cataloger. I appreciate your suggestions.
I currently have about 250K images, disorganized into some 4K folders that people lumped them into, taking over 100GB with more coming once in a while.  By and large they are JPEGs with a handful of GIFs and PNGs, no RAWs.
I need to assign multiple tags to them so that I can say, for example, "give me the images tagged as sports, kids, outdoors" or be more specific and request "soccer", "baseball" or "tennis" instead of "sports.
I want the tags to be hierarchical, so that tagging an image as "dolphin" will implicitly return it when searching for "mammals" or "animals".  Ideally, it would be possible for tags to participate in multiple hierarchies so that the "dolphin" tag above will also match "marine", etc.  I expect to have lots of tags and categories, including cross-category tags.  This should probably be a feature of the search, see below.
I also need the program to be flexible: allow adding/removing/changing tags on single images, folders, folder trees or just groups of selected images; changing the tag/category structure and having the changes automatically applied; moving images between folders; etc.
And last but not least, I want it to be FAST, both when indexing and when searching.

Does such application exist?

[Dormouse]

I currently have about 250K images, disorganized into some 4K folders that people lumped them into, taking over 100GB with more coming once in a while.  By and large they are JPEGs with a handful of GIFs and PNGs, no RAWs.

And last but not least, I want it to be FAST, both when indexing and when searching.

Does such application exist?

-zevel (April 11, 2010, 07:02 PM)

The answer should be yes, depending on precisely what you mean by FAST. Especially for indexing. And depending on what you want indexed and what else you want it to do. Complex changing of tags and hierarchies of tags could also take a while across a huge number of images if the tags are attached to the file rather than simply living in the database; with images most info is usually kept with the image so that tagging etc is independent of the program that created them - but it will have an impact on speed if you want to do a lot of complex changes.

There's nothing in your post to suggest that the program needs specific image cataloging abilities. Does that mean that a general cataloging program/database would be fine? Or is there something else you need it to do (such as read/index the EXIF)?

All the programs mentioned in this thread are specifically intended for photos and photographers. They are looking for a lot of specific features that you may or may not need - with an overhead in speed that you appear not to want - and permit changes of tagging structures, but do not expect that this will happen very often.

[Dormouse]

Dormouse. I was just kidding you. Look at the sentence I was talking about - I know what you meant but to anyone not reading through the thread it probably looks bewildering!

-J-Mac (April 07, 2010, 09:37 PM)

I realised that you were (almost) certainly kidding me - and that you would have read the thread - but then realised that for anyone without the patience to read the detailed info in the thread everything I said was virtually meaningless. I hope people will at least understand what I was trying to get at now and only have to read the thread if they are interested.

Personally I'm not using RAW images - like I mentioned I don’t get to take many meaningful shots anymore and mostly work with older photos; though that presents its own challenges. Have you ever tried to digitize and them repair/optimize old, old tin and silver pics?

-J-Mac (April 07, 2010, 09:37 PM)

I've done a bit of this but not much. Played a little is probably a better way of putting it. Looking to see what happens when I do, but putting off the job of doing my best with them until I have time. And hoping that the technology will be better/easier then.

Did you ever get any response from IDI support about the problems?

Having now gone through the forums in a bit of detail, it strikes me as possible that a number (probably a small number) of users have found aspects of v5 working very slowly on their machines. And much more slowly than v4. Although there was an extended beta period, the final release is still in relatively early stages and I would expect that a lot of improvements will emerge as time goes on. It's always a problem to tie down when speed is the issue because what the program does is so complex that some things (like the original indexing) will take a long time and so users get stuck in not knowing whether it is taking longer than it ought - as originally happened with you; so maybe not everything is reported.

[zevel]

The answer should be yes, depending on precisely what you mean by FAST. Especially for indexing.

-Dormouse (April 12, 2010, 07:13 PM)

When the colection was somewhat smaller, I tried Adobe Lightroom.  It took 4 or 5 days to index the collection on my (admittedly underpowered) machine.  That is *not* fast.

And depending on what you want indexed and what else you want it to do.

-Dormouse (April 12, 2010, 07:13 PM)

I don't know yet. I'm new at this.

Complex changing of tags and hierarchies of tags could also take a while across a huge number of images if the tags are attached to the file rather than simply living in the database; with images most info is usually kept with the image so that tagging etc is independent of the program that created them - but it will have an impact on speed if you want to do a lot of complex changes.

-Dormouse (April 12, 2010, 07:13 PM)

Firstly, I'm OK with everything residing in the DB, provided that I can:
- Export the DB into the EXIF/IPTC if I want to switch programs.
- Move the images around between folders and have the changes reflected in the DB (I'm OK doing it within the program).

Secondly, changing the tag structure can be handled on the query level, without having to retag anything.  That may complicate and slow down the queries though.

There's nothing in your post to suggest that the program needs specific image cataloging abilities. Does that mean that a general cataloging program/database would be fine? Or is there something else you need it to do (such as read/index the EXIF)?

-Dormouse (April 12, 2010, 07:13 PM)

I'd like to view the files as thumbnails when I operate on them or see the results of a query.  Additional image-related functionality can be detecting similar images (although I have VisiPics and Similar Images to do that).  I probably would not need photo-specific functionality though.

All the programs mentioned in this thread are specifically intended for photos and photographers. They are looking for a lot of specific features that you may or may not need - with an overhead in speed that you appear not to want - and permit changes of tagging structures, but do not expect that this will happen very often.

-Dormouse (April 12, 2010, 07:13 PM)

Well, I have somewhat atypical requirements.  Maybe one of the programs will fit the bill, even if I end up not using 90% of its capabilities, or maybe you could recommend something else (or another place to ask the question).

Thanks for your help!

[Dormouse]

If you are going to look at image cataloging programs, my inclination would be to suggest iMatch as your 1st port of call. It will handle the numbers and is very scriptable and is a relatively pure cataloging program. I haven't looked at it recently though, and really couldn't say whether it will do everything you listed in the way you want - though I think it ought to, and would think Mario might well code it if the need were pointed out.

But I can't help but feel that you really, really don't want the loss of speed that will go along with the features you don't want - all the reading of info you have no interest in (assuming it is there in the jpgs), all the writing of info into each image. I'd expect image catalogers to read the images in less than 5 days - but 100GB across 250,000 images is not likely to be quick. And you will need to keep your anti-virus away from your catalog and image collection.

My suggestion would be to look at one of the tagging programs that works through a database. They should have relatively light overheads for your needs (though you would have to look into how you'd write the info into the images at some stage). It would help if the underlying database were one in wide usage. I don't have much experience or expertise in these, but other people here might.

[JavaJones]

OK, I'm giving Lightroom a serious try now, and dammit it's not making it easy to love!  I'll spare the details for now until I get some more experience with it (and maybe do a proper write-up). For the moment all I want to know is whether it's possible to have it auto-import new photos. I see there is an auto-import function but all it does is import photos that I save to 1 specific directory (which must be empty when I first setup the auto-import function), and then it moves them to some other folder, etc. What I'm looking for is something very simple like Picasa has. I save a new image to one of the (100s of) watched folders and it detects this within a few seconds or at most a minute and then adds it to its catalog (without interrupting my workflow).

Here's my scenario: I use an image cataloger and "developer" to organize, rate, tag, and ultimately "develop" most of my photos. However there are several significant functions that - while not needed all the time - do come up occasionally, and require external programs. I tend to want to edit and save to separate files rather than save over an original (no surprise there), so when I'm done with these external tasks I end up with new images, usually saved to the same folder as the source. Here are a few examples: Photomatix HDR processing, Autopano panorama creation, Photoshop collage creation, etc. I use each of these apps to create new images based on other images so naturally I want to save them with similar names back to the original folder.

Picasa handles this beautifully. Can LR really not? So far all I've found is a plugin which isn't free (though it's very cheap). I'm willing to go the plugin route, but even the plugin seems more laborious than Picasa's approach. I'm off to do some more Google searching. *sigh*

- Oshyan

[J-Mac]

Oshyan,

I had the same problem with Elements 6 when I had it installed a couple of years ago. I found I could not just set up a directory as my "library". It didn't offer any "import library" or "monitor folders" options. You had to import individual files or folders whenever you wanted to work on them. I have difficulty working like that since every photo program I have used before allows a database or library to be set up.

Jim

[JavaJones]

There's definitely a database and library in LR, you just basically need to update them manually/semi-manually. I've been spoiled by Picasa basically. It does many things so very well, but some things rather poorly unfortunately. The thing is it's not as if I expect a free product like Picasa to do with LR does, rather I expect a several hundred dollar high-end app like LR to do the simple and/or cool things that Picasa does. Like, oh I dunno, *face recognition*! Hehe. Oh and auto-scanning and updating a folder tree of images. The latter seems very simple.

- Oshyan

[K.Murat]

Sorry for reviving an old thread. Does the Topicstarter found a solution?

May I suggest you to check out our Daminion?: http://daminion.net

The single-user Daminion version is free. It supports hierarchical tags and optimized to work with huge photo archives.
Each tag assignment can be automatically maps into the file metadata (XMP, IPTC) (if the auto-sync feature is turned on)

You can create multiple catalogs for different purposes, and open them simultaneously as web-pages of the web-browsers.
Files are imported with relative links, so you can store your media archive on a removable drive or easily move latest them to a new location.

PS. I work on Daminion Software, and will be glad to answer for any questions here or on our forum.

[superboyac]

Sorry for reviving an old thread. Does the Topicstarter found a solution?

May I suggest you to check out our Daminion?: http://daminion.net

The single-user Daminion version is free. It supports hierarchical tags and optimized to work with huge photo archives.
Each tag assignment can be automatically maps into the file metadata (XMP, IPTC) (if the auto-sync feature is turned on)

You can create multiple catalogs for different purposes, and open them simultaneously as web-pages of the web-browsers.
Files are imported with relative links, so you can store your media archive on a removable drive or easily move latest them to a new location.

PS. I work on Daminion Software, and will be glad to answer for any questions here or on our forum.

-K.Murat (February 29, 2012, 02:28 AM)

Welcome!  Can the software handle directories with thousands of eps and ai files?  Including showing the thumbnails?

[K.Murat]

Daminion can import EPS and AI formats, and can read/write to XMP in both formats.

A few minutes ago a customer has sent us a screenshot with 257k imported images.
Our test databases contains 500k medium sized images.

Daminion can display preview for those EPS and AI files that contains thumbnails in their XMP metadata, otherwise it shows a default thumbs.
EPS is a complicated format,  but probably we'll add a better rendering options for EPS and AI in the future.

This is the latest Daminion update:

[40hz]

@K.Murat - let me also welcome you to the DonationCoder forums. It's always good when a developer, or someone who works for one, joins in.

The specs on your product are very impressive. I'm downloading the single-user version as we speak. More out of curiosity than anything else since I'm not too involved in dealing with large photo collections. But I know two people who are, so I'll be giving them a heads up on your product. I'll also be sure to pass back anything they have to say about it if they do end up trying it.

Suggestion: there's an area on this forum where people and companies are invited to announce their software/product/service and share whatever information they think we should know about it. Link to it is here.

You might want to start a new topic about your products under that heading since there's a better chance it will be seen by more people who frequent this site than if you just mention them in an existing thread on a more general topic. Just be sure to read the rules for that section first.

So again, welcome. And thanks for bringing your product to our attention.

[superboyac]

Daminion can import EPS and AI formats, and can read/write to XMP in both formats.

A few minutes ago a customer has sent us a screenshot with 257k imported images.
Our test databases contains 500k medium sized images.

Daminion can display preview for those EPS and AI files that contains thumbnails in their XMP metadata, otherwise it shows a default thumbs.
EPS is a complicated format,  but probably we'll add a better rendering options for EPS and AI in the future.

This is the latest Daminion update:

-K.Murat (February 29, 2012, 09:02 AM)

I have an enormous collection of clipart and icons that I never use because it's impossible to browse through them.  The only software that ever worked right were: Extensis portfolio, Adobe Bridge, and this weird one called ExifPro Image viewer.  And when I say "worked right" I mean it was able to get thumbnails for most of the eps/ai files.  So i always keep an eye out for software that can do that because it so hard for me to find.

[Jibz]

Looks like an interesting piece of software .

Just in case anyone is moving to the free edition, it is probably worth noting this:

1. Will the final/official/non-beta version of Daminion Standalone be freeware or commercial? If it will need purchase can you say any price range for it currently?

-polarbeer

All Daminion Standalone 0.xx versions will be free. Starting from 1.0 version we'll issue two Daminion Standalone versions: Free and Pro ($149)

Any details yet what will be differences between free/pro?

-polarbeer

Not decided yet. Because we didn't implement yet most of the Pro functionality.

-Daminion user forum

[K.Murat]

40hz, Jibz thanks for your input and your support I appreciate it! I'll publish a small announcement as you suggested me, thank you.

superboyac, we continuously add support for new media formats. Daminion has the Media Processor API that allows to add new media formats. I've added a request to support for rendering EPS and AI thumbnails in our feature list (we also have some requests for CDR format support). The major issue here is to find a good, stable image library that will be used as a core part of the EPS/AI Media Processor.

Active beta testers will receive the Daminion Pro version for free (or people who will publish an article about Daminion on their blogs or online press/media)

Murat

[superboyac]

40hz, Jibz thanks for your input and your support I appreciate it! I'll publish a small announcement as you suggested me, thank you.

superboyac, we continuously add support for new media formats. Daminion has the Media Processor API that allows to add new media formats. I've added a request to support for rendering EPS and AI thumbnails in our feature list (we also have some requests for CDR format support). The major issue here is to find a good, stable image library that will be used as a core part of the EPS/AI Media Processor.

Active beta testers will receive the Daminion Pro version for free (or people who will publish an article about Daminion on their blogs or online press/media)

Murat

-K.Murat (February 29, 2012, 01:04 PM)

Then count me in for the beta test (do you want my email?)!  I'll make a deal: if it can handle eps/ai well, then I'll write a short review and include it on my webpage's recommended software list (that nobody read anyway!).

[K.Murat]

Then count me in for the beta test (do you want my email?)!  I'll make a deal: if it can handle eps/ai well, then I'll write a short review and include it on my webpage's recommended software list (that nobody read anyway!).

-superboyac (February 29, 2012, 01:07 PM)

Good. You can subscribe to our newsletter on our download page.

[rgdot]

I'll do a review on my popular review site

Disclaimer: The "popular" part is not true  

Edit: Trying to subscribe to your newsletter get a feedburner error

The feed does not have subscriptions by email enabled

[K.Murat]

The feed does not have subscriptions by email enabled

-rgdot (February 29, 2012, 01:49 PM)

Sorry, could please try again.

[rgdot]

Done, thanks

[zevel]

Hi K.Murat,

Our test databases contains 500k medium sized images.

-K.Murat (February 29, 2012, 09:02 AM)

Sounds like a good fit for my needs.
I'd like to apply as a beta tester.