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Last post Author Topic: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?  (Read 213167 times)

ivanv

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #25 on: February 23, 2007, 06:40 PM »
Portfolio supports everything under the sun (well, not quite), has advanced handling of metadata, searches are very, very fast. It's designed for professionals that work with thousands of images. You really have to explore the program to see everything it can do.

MrCrispy, you may want to take a look at the "Master Keyword List" window to do what you want. You can also use Smart Galleries to do the filtering, albeit it's not as quick as you want it.

dcm

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #26 on: February 23, 2007, 10:29 PM »
Check out Smart Pix Manager.  It costs $39.50 US.

I use it and like the way I can index my pictures on multiple names.

http://www.xequte.co.../smartpix/index.html

Smart Pix Manager is a powerful, but easy-to-use solution for the management and viewing of all common images, documents, sound (WMA, MP3, etc) and video files (AVI, MPEG, etc).  Quickly browse the folders of your computer, or search your files using keywords, descriptions and file content.  Click any file to view it immediately or display a sequence of images, sounds and videos as a slideshow.

 

Key Features
View over one hundred image, video, sound, Office, document and other formats
Quickly categorize and search your files by keyword, description and file content
Automatically generate keywords from sound and digital photo fields and file and folder names
Display Image and Multimedia Slideshows with transition effects (including random playback of all your MP3 music files)
Edit your photos with our powerful tools, including red-eye removal, lossless rotation and cropping
Rapidly convert, edit and rename your pictures with automatic batch processing
One-click retrieval of photos from digital cameras and scanners
Secure your critical files using encrypted storage and password protection
Create auto-playing Slideshow CD/DVD disks with full support for background music, captions and transition effects
Archive images to CD or DVD with thumbnail browsing and searching of offline disks
Automatically detect duplicate files on your computer
Search and share your files with other users over a network
Email photos with automatic resizing and conversion for faster sending
Print images at standard photo sizes (4x6", 5x7", etc), thumbnails or posters (up to ten feet high)
Create stylish image indexes for your web site with our wizard


Good luck, David.

patteo

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #27 on: February 28, 2007, 11:13 PM »
This could prove useful to some

PC World - Great Graphics for Free
"Great Graphics for Free
These four free programs can help you wrangle your digital media.
Preston Gralla
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 01:00 AM PST"
http://www.pcworld.c...le.html?tk=nl_hdxcol

A couple of the tools mentioned seems to refer to managing image files.

Personally I prefer and use Thumbsplus 7.

Does anyone know of a good organizer for flash files ie .swf so that you can view it and organize and add comments to it so they can be found when you want it.

Thumbsplus has no capabilities to view flash files but it has very good viewers for a lot of graphics format.

superboyac

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #28 on: March 01, 2007, 12:40 AM »
I didn't see anyone mention Photo Collector.  I haven't tried it but it seems to have a somewhat different approach to managing photos than the norm, so it might be worth a look.  I don't know if it does tags or not, I'm assuming it does, or has something similar.

MrCrispy

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #29 on: March 01, 2007, 01:03 AM »
I found a new program - FotoAlbum Pro from www.fototime.com.

It lacks some of the more power user features but ts very fast and handles metadata and queries very nicely. I emailed the developers with some suggestions and received a prompt reply which is a good sign.

nudone

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #30 on: March 01, 2007, 02:19 AM »
Does anyone know of a good organizer for flash files ie .swf so that you can view it and organize and add comments to it so they can be found when you want it.

ACDSee can create thumbnails from .swf and preview them - and add comments.

KD7LRJ

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #31 on: March 01, 2007, 08:55 PM »
I found a new program - FotoAlbum Pro from www.fototime.com.

It lacks some of the more power user features but ts very fast and handles metadata and queries very nicely. I emailed the developers with some suggestions and received a prompt reply which is a good sign.

I've been using FotoAlbum for a couple of years now and I've loved it!  I've made suggestions, and they've implemented them - many times.  Most recently, I exchanged 20 e-mails with the head developer in order to fix a minor issue they had with the display of thumbnails in Firefox on their companion website (www.fototime.com).

It handles the meta information quite well for me.  I will NEVER again use something that uses a separate database to save meta information about my images without also maintaining the information in the images themselves - I've lost information that way too many times.

I have about 25,000 images in it now and it hasn't slowed down at all since I had 10,000 when I first started using it.

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #32 on: March 15, 2007, 01:24 AM »
We must be using a different program.  I found FotoAlbum Pro very slow.  Maybe there is something amiss with my computer.

Jeff

MrCrispy

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #33 on: March 15, 2007, 02:23 PM »
This guy has a pretty detailed writeup about the ideal image organizer. Its a wishlist for Picasa 3 but is a good read. And his mockup for the UI looks really good.

http://picasamusings...st-for-picasa-3.html



Darwin

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #34 on: March 15, 2007, 03:00 PM »
Superboyac - I've been wondering about Photo Collector too. If it's as good as Book Collector and MP3 Collector it'll be awesome! I've not tried it myself but might just give it a go. The screen shots and featureset are impressive. This screenshot (from the author's website) suggests that some form of tagging is possible:

batchedit.gifWhy is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

Right, I'm downloading the trial as I write this...

Darwin

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #35 on: March 15, 2007, 06:28 PM »
I've been playing with the trial of Photo Collector and really like it. It's way more responsive and less resource hungry than Corel Snapfire Plus (which I have a license for but really don't use) and searches reasonably quickly (I have 12k pictures for it to wade through...). Only niggle so far is that it took almost (didn't time it) an hour to load my "My Pictures" folder and its subfolders and then another 59 minutes (displays a timer, so I know) to generate thumbnails. Once that's done, though, you're set. I really like the "tagging" system, which is quite flexible (see screenshot above for an idea), and the fact that the developer is promising support for digital camera video formats in a future release.

I'll keep playing around with it. So far, it is the first Photo Organizer that I can actually see using. The others that I've tried have not made a lot of sense to me and/or I have simply not used due to the learning curve/cluttered interface, etc. Photo Organizer looks to be different.

I'm going to go through MrCrispy's wishlist and see how much correspondence there is between it and Photo Commander... I'll post back today or tomorrow with the results.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2007, 09:49 AM by Darwin »

Darwin

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #36 on: March 15, 2007, 07:38 PM »
Well, that went more quickly than I thought it would, though I don't know if I've adequately checked out each of Mr Crispy's points (love that username!) with respect to Collectorz Photo Collector . However, here goes:

1. Fast and reposnsive. I'm working with over 10k pictures. I have over 12k pictures in the database that I generated using Photo Collector. I tagged some obscure pics from a few years ago, shut down the program and then searched for part of the tag. The results were returned in about 10 seconds, which I don't consider too bad at all.
2. Ability to select a folder in the tree view and see all pics in that and its subfolders - not currently. Views are independent of the folder structure in Explorer. However, looking at the users' forum, an Explorer view is in the works. I have and use mp3 Collector which already has the Explorer view implemented and it works really well.
3. Tagging support for XMP and IPTC. Import and export. Definitely supports IPTC but I can't find anything about XMP from within the program or on the website. I also have no idea where to look for this in my own files, so I can't check it out.
4. A proper way to organize/filter views based on tags. Yes, this is one of its strongest points.
5. File monitoring for new folders/pics. Not that I can tell. However, if they get Explorer view up and running (see above) this will be a non-issue as you simply navigate to the new folder and/or file and from the context menu select "add to database". This is how it works in mp3 Collector, anyway. Also, the scanning for photos on your harddrive feature includes a number of options for dealing with a photo that is already in the database including update the database entry (if the photo has changed), ignore it altogether or replace it.
6. A nice UI with support for multiple zoom levels. The first half is subjective, but I would argue that the answer is yes to both.

Two issues worth noting are that donationcoder still has a 50% discount running on Collectorz.com software and that the licenses are for life - ie come with lifetime upgrades. So far, I am impressed. It's a heck of a lot more responsive and less resource intensive than anything else that I've tried.


MrCrispy

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #37 on: March 15, 2007, 08:14 PM »
I'm going to have to try Photo Collector out, thanks for the mini-review!

A bit more about XMP vs IPTC - the whole photo tagging things is a big mess and no one seems to agree on how to correctly implement it. But there's a standard called IPTC Core that seems to be thw way forward. Check out iptc4xmp.org for the gory details. I wouldn't care for it but I spent a lot of time tagging my photos in PSE before I knew that most other programs don't do XMP.

Ruffnekk

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #38 on: March 16, 2007, 06:03 AM »
On Giveaway of the Day they now have Zoner Photo Studio 9 for free. It might be worth checking out! At the time of this post, the offer to get it for free still lasts around 20 hours... so hurry ;)

Zoner Photo Studio 9 is the new way to manage your photos. Have you ever bought photo software and found it’s missing something? With Zoner Photo Studio 9, this will never happen. With Zoner Photo Studio 9 Professional you get an all-in-one photos program for every step from acquiring photos to readying them to organizing them to sharing them.

zps01.jpgWhy is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
Regards,
RuffNekk

Programming is an art form that fights back.

Darwin

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #39 on: March 16, 2007, 09:26 AM »
Thanks for the link about XMP. The developers of the Collectorz series love feedback/suggestions/requests and XMP compatibility might be something that they be willing to add. From what I can tell, Photo Collector is in heavy (if not blazingly quick) development with a lot of functionality to be added.

I just noticed the Zoner Photo Studio giveaway, too. They're giving away the Express version with a 60 day trial of the Pro version thrown in. I wonder what's missing in the Express version? I'll have to go take a look...
« Last Edit: March 16, 2007, 09:53 AM by Darwin »

Darwin

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #40 on: March 16, 2007, 09:41 AM »
Here's the developer's page comparing the various versions. Pro is $84.95 vs. Express, which is $14.95 (or free for today). Express seems to have most of the archiving features of the more expensive versions but almost none of the editing features (fair enough). Unfortunately, Express doesn't feature searching and filtering by EXIF data, which I *think* I would find frustrating (Express does feature both searching and filtering, just not by EXIF data). Anyway, might be interesting, but I am bit leery of the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach.

superboyac

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #41 on: March 17, 2007, 12:18 AM »
MrCrispy, I'd like to know your thoughts on Photo Collector.  I don't deal with my pictures as in-depth as you, but I'd like to compare the better organizers and archivers, and you sound like you'd be much more of an expert.  I tried Lightroom, and you're right, it is bulky but still really nice.

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #42 on: March 18, 2007, 02:09 AM »
Is this any good to you MrCrispy.  I know little about this but I found this reference

http://peccatte.kare...images/EN/Index.html

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #43 on: March 18, 2007, 02:12 AM »
http://www.breezesys...ezeBrowser/index.htm - bit expensive @ $90US - I didn't actually try it.

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #44 on: March 18, 2007, 03:41 AM »
Sorry, it looks like BreezeBrowser does not recurse into subfolders to show thumbnails but only when creating a HTML output.

I've tried about 20 programs in the last 24 hours and I'd have to say very few fit my requirements, let alone the IPTC/XMP compatiblity MrCrispy is looking for.  For my needs I think Smart Pix Manager and ExifPro go closest although ACDSee, ThumbsPlus, iMatch and CodedColor aren't too bad.  Most of the alternatives, including some of the sophisticated ones, are too slow.  Iwant to see what graphics files are in the folder now not after I make a cup of coffee and watch the football.  SmartPix and ExifPro do it fairly quickly whether it's the original look or the database/collection but neither have MrCrispy's tagging requirement.

Jeff

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #45 on: March 18, 2007, 03:47 AM »

masu

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #46 on: March 18, 2007, 04:32 AM »
Personally I find that Picasa is a really good image organizer.
It'S worth looking at.
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JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #47 on: March 18, 2007, 08:04 AM »
Sorry, my bad.  Smart Pix does read IPTC data, and can write new data to an image also.  I just had a play with iView Media Pro 3, quite nice IMHO.

Jeff

JeffK

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #48 on: March 19, 2007, 05:47 AM »
I just tested for my requirements 30 image organizers over the last 48 hours and came to some conclusions.  Not much help to MrCrispy because I didn't look closely at tagging.

My needs are - when you select a folder the thumbnails of the graphics in that folder (not just photos but also any graphics) show very quickly.  One can see, if one chooses, the thumbnails for the folder and all subfolders at the same time.  Preferably also some means of building databases, catalogs, albums or collections of the graphics across several folders, and not too slowly.  If graphics have tags the ability to quickly filter on one or more.  BTW this quick survey was for image organisers, not image editing.

I have a set of 30,000 small web graphics which I use for testing.  The fastest of these programs cataloged these graphics faster than the slowest cataloged my 700 digital camera images.

And the winner is iView Media Pro; I found I got to know this program readily - it is quite intuitive IMHO.  It is also expensive.

A cheaper alternative is Studioline Photo Basic (freeware) and Classic (currently on special at $30).  These seem to have the same power as IVMP but the interface in not as crisp.  Futher experimentation required here.

This is the third time I have done this exercise and the original winner SmartPix Manager ($35?) id still up there.  Interface and ease of use are not good but power is there.

While it may appear to be oriented toward photos I found ExifPro good for general graphics.  This is possibly the only software in my experiment I will buy.

Zoner Photo Studio does not quite meet the basic criteria but still could be lived with because of the functionality (a free and a $20 version).

If databse functionality is not required P3DO seems to do the job.  Faststone and XNView don't meet the criteria but have reasonable GUI's.

iMatcha and CodedColor are database oriented and don't quite meet the basic "I want to see it and I want to see it now criteria".

An old favourite Graphics Workshop was abysmally slow.

Thumbs Plus is tempting but there seem to be cheaper alternatives albeit without the nice GUI.

My experience is that when searching for software, eventually one comes across a particular product in a category which just seems to fit like a hand in a glove.  This is one of the few software categories I've found where I haven't been able to find quite the right match.  I've willed myself to like ACDSee.  I've even thought to myself, what the heck I'll just buy it and use it and swallow hard everytime I have to reselect a whole heap of subfolders for viewing.  It's amazing how expensive $40 can appear when the fit is not quite right.

I can't justify $199 for IVMP but at least it sets a standard.  I will pay for exifpro and would consider doing so for StudioLine Classic or Zoner Photo Studio.

Jeff
« Last Edit: March 19, 2007, 06:10 AM by JeffK »

superboyac

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?
« Reply #49 on: March 19, 2007, 01:21 PM »
JeffK, nice work there.  It seems like no software category is easy to review anymore, at least not thoroughly.  It's becoming very difficult to not only say which is the best (there's never a clear-cut best), but even to break down why certain feature sets are better than others.

So, what about the hype on Lightroom?  If you listen to everything you hear, it's supposed to revolutionize this category of software.  I tried it and it was a bit much for my old computer as far as speed, so it's inconvenient for me to try it out.  I'm using ACDSee for now, but I can see it's limitations as far as what you guys are talking about here.