Photo cataloging and organizing: I am looking for a program to tag and catalog a few thousand photos. We had a flood a few years ago and all of our photos (pre-digital) went underwater...

A10 Loc: Southern Indiana

I am looking for a program to tag and catalog a few thousand photos. We had a flood a few years ago and all of our photos (pre-digital) went underwater for a week. I am going to buy a scanner to run the 4x6's thru and want to organize the 50 years worth of photos so I can find them later and share with family. If any of you have suggestions I would appreciate

snowbear

I can think of three things:
1. Adobe Bridge - good for organizing files. It's packaged with Photoshop and the Create Suites.
2. Lightroom - Cataloging and rating images and provides basic editing functions.
3. Database - There are number of inexpensive database systems. It would be simple to create one with fields for file name, folder, date, description, etc.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

ACDSee would do it. I have the Pro5 version. Great program.

Festina Lente Loc: Florida & Missouri

snowbear wrote:

I can think of three things:
1. Adobe Bridge - good for organizing files. It's packaged with Photoshop and the Create Suites.
2. Lightroom - Cataloging and rating images and provides basic editing functions.
3. Database - There are number of inexpensive database systems. It would be simple to create one with fields for file name, folder, date, description, etc.

Lightroom is not only a best in class cataloging program (it can quickly search for virtually any combination of attributes, text strings, etc.) but it is a sophisticated work flow program taking you from sophisticated editing, to printing, slide shows and book printing.

A10 Loc: Southern Indiana

Thanks, I will do some research on this.

A10 Loc: Southern Indiana

Festina Lente wrote:

quote=snowbear I can think of three things: br 1.... (show quote)

Thanks, I was wondering about Lightroom 4. It is inexpensive and I have heard good things about it.

tulsimm

$.02
I would look at "viewsscan" software. May not be the correct spelling. It is scanner software. May be limited to industrial scanners. Has math to save and even enhance scans from photos to newspaperclips. It also gives you tagging and cat. abilities.

rebel hiker Loc: Sanford, FLorida & Banner Elk, North Carolina

Go for Lightroom. It's the standard. Most of the plug-ins and instructions refer to Lightroom. Other programs are good and may be cheaper; but stick to the standard.

GDRoth Loc: Southeast Michigan USA

yes, without question Lightroom 4.1............

It also does much more than "basic" editing.......

ArtSeaMom Loc: Cocoa Beach, FL

I find myself challenged in organizing my photo's too. I've tried iPhoto (not bad if you have a Mac), Adobe Bridge (pretty easy with a nice clean interface to Photoshop), and Lightroom which I'm currently using. The downside with Lightroom from my perspective is that it takes awhile to learn. Lightroom certainly does a lot more than catalog so if that's all you want to do I'm not sure I'd go there.

authorizeduser Loc: Monroe, Michigan

I use Extensis Portfolio. It is a database made for photos and images.

http://www.extensis.com/portfolio-standalone/

At $199 it is not cheap but works better than anything I have found to date.

jjestar Loc: Savannah GA

A10 wrote:

quote=Festina Lente quote=snowbear I can think o... (show quote)

Lightroom 4 is a great way to save and catalog photos, you can use key words such as date and event naming and it also is a great way to do all editing in except when those that require Photoshop arise. Look around for coupons or sales.

thegrover Loc: Yorba Linda, CA

A10 wrote:

I am looking for a program to tag and catalog a few thousand photos. We had a flood a few years ago and all of our photos (pre-digital) went underwater for a week. I am going to buy a scanner to run the 4x6's thru and want to organize the 50 years worth of photos so I can find them later and share with family. If any of you have suggestions I would appreciate

You will find the answer to everything in this book
http://www.thedambook.com/

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Snowbear gave what is probaly the best 3 choices. If you have the time and inclination there are several freeware sites that have a large variety of cataloging (and anything else) software. I have used freewarefiles.com, filehippo.com and of course, cnet.oom and not had any virus problems as of yet. Cnet is very "techie" and has pretty good reviews on the software they have avaiable. You can also download software like Lightroom from these sites as a 30-day demo so you can take it for a test ride before you buy it.

Which ever route you go, prepare yourself to spend some time
on this project. The key to a good catalog system is keywords and dates. the more the better, but this means you will have to manually load these in for all the pictures you scan. The upside is once you get done and get to the keep-up stage finding specific photos or groups of like photos are a snap.

Good luck!! (Oh, and by the way, Lightroom would be my choice)

jjestar Loc: Savannah GA

LIGHTROOM, LIGHTROOM, LIGHTROOM, you are going to have adjust those photos once you scan them in and adjustments can be saved as presets and synched to any photo you bring in.