I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
places the month and date in the file name.
I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
structure.
Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
free ware, that will show:
thumbnail of the image
keywords to identify content of the image
location and date.
It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
the image files.
"Keith nuttle" <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:VPa6k.8703$jI5.8346@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
>I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
>currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
>places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably free
> ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change the
> image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
Keith nuttle wrote:
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
> free ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
> the image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
Could try Picasa... it will do basic *non-destructive* editing if you
want, allows easy uploading to Picasa Web Albums (with plugins available
for uploading to Facebook, Flikr, etc.), and should cover your
cataloging needs. And of course, it's free, fast, and easily removed if
you don't like it.
The latest version of Window's photo gallery is not bad. It will not
mess up your file structure. I use Photoshop Elements. It is a very good
comprehensive program but it is not free.
"Keith nuttle" <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:VPa6k.8703$jI5.8346@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably free
> ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change the
> image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
Keith nuttle wrote:
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
> free ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
> the image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
Here's a Freeware list of viewers and editors for you all to check out:
The primary purpose would be that database aspect. The basic idea is to
tag the photo with some keywords, such that if I was looking for my
sailboat pictures, I could type in sailboat and it would show all
location of the pictures of my sailboat
Keith nuttle wrote:
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
> free ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
> the image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
For home use, I honestly think something like flickr is the best way to
go. Should be no problem finding the originals on your hard drive once
you search on the web versions. It's a lot of work tagging all the
images but quite useful to have that on the web versus just at home.
Ultimately there are better DAM (Digital Asset Management) solutions but
not good cheap ones. It should be possible to move your metadata from
one system to another, for example using the metadata to generate
keywords for stock photography submission but that's also probably going
to involve some pretty intense knowledge of database work & possibly
some programming. Alternatively, you can embed the metadata in the IPTC
fields of the jpegs (similar to EXIF) but careful as compatibility is
not very good for many such programs.
I wound up with a home brewed system for annotating on my edgehill.net
web pages using PHP and the info is stored in simple text files beside
the jpegs so I can search those and reformat however I like in the
future or load it up into a database if I decide to.
Most programs will let you keep your directory structure but if you go
in & move some pics without the program running, the data gets hosed.
Some programs will have a utility running in the background to detect
these kinds of changes.
Keith nuttle wrote:
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
> free ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
> the image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
Assuming you are using Windows Operating System.
What I use is not freeware, but fairly inexpensive (about the same as a
tank of gasoline - depending on the tank size), phototools.com's IMatch.
I had my own home grown system using Perl and IMatch slipped right
into my workflow and was able to keep the important parts of my home
grown system allowing me to migrate to something in the future if needed.
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
Keith nuttle wrote:
> I have about 3gb of pictures most 1.3 and 3.1 mega pixels in size. I
> currently have them organized by month, year, special event. My Olympus
> places the month and date in the file name.
>
> I would like to try some of the photo organization programs but hesitate
> as I don't want them to take over my photos and destroy the directory
> structure.
>
> Could someone one recommend a photo organization program, preferably
> free ware, that will show:
>
> thumbnail of the image
> keywords to identify content of the image
> location and date.
>
> It does not need any image manipulation capabilities, and must not
> rearrange the current directory organization of the photos, or change
> the image files.
>
> It must be easily removed if I don't like it.
On Linux: KPhotoAlbum http://www.kphotoalbum.org/ Does everything you
specified and allows fast classification. I've been running it on
Ubuntu with approx 20000 (60gb) of photos and an happy with the results.
I've got a directory structure similar to yours and wanted something
that didn't modify the file. This suited my needs. YMMV
Photo database 
Linear Mode
