russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Especially on the Internet when there are no vocal inflections, no hand gestures, no body language. Even if one is an expert in something (see the posts by the community college teacher), written words allow everyone to come off as experts even when they are not, so when the real expert comes aboard, s/he gets castigated as a know it all. That's why it behooves one to chose those words carefully, and which is why I was questioning you on "generally agreed" and such.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

Yes, it can and does very well. A huge example is to import (add to the catalogue, not duplicate photos) all your gazillion photos. Then go to the smart collections and choose all photos without keywords. Sort by date. Click the first in a series of X event, shift click the last photo in the event. In the keyword panel type the general keywords for that event seperated by a comma. (red, car, ford, rusty, broken, junk etc.) when you hit enter those photos will have those keywords assigned to them and be removed from the smart collection. Very cool and as quick as possible.

When finished you can search by keyword such as Hawaii and then add more proprietary keywords via typing or...It also gives you a painter tool that paints all sorts of things including keywords in the photos. So you do your batch keywording then go back and find a sunset. Grab the painter tool type sunset in the paint bucket (my term) and then scroll and click on all the sunsets. No typing just a quick click.

In case you haven't figured it out, I am a strong advocate of LR. This is after almost 15 years of using all sorts of methods all described here in this thread, and many that weren't, plus many of the latest and greatest of programs for handling my photos. They did some wonderful things but they all lacked something and now I wouldn't go back to any of them with the exception of quick viewing an emailed photo or similar which I use an old copy of ACDSee or good ole Windoze.

Use LR and your keywords, they are a Godsend.

PixelBill Loc: Holliston MA

Everyone probably knew this (except me), but Lightroom 4 and later will not work with Windows XP. I read a lot about Lightroom after seeing the comments here and really liked it so I ordered it from Adorama. It came today and during the installation process a message box come up to tell you that you must have Vista or later and the installation stopped. My computer is too old to upgrade and I just don't have the budget right now to replace it. I mention this just hoping nobody else gets caught like I did.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

Two points of interest. (IMHO)
1. I recommend purchasing direct from Adobe, you get the latest version and don't pay any possible middle man fees.
2. Sad to say with XP you are stuck using version 3 however, that is a fine version which I am very happy with. When the time comes to update my OS I will also update LR to get those great looking adaptations I see and hear about.

Brian in Whitby Loc: Whitby, Ontario, Canada

CD and DVD Rot are caused by improper storage nothing more.
Properly stored the medium will outlast the drives to read them.

wlgoode Loc: Globe, AZ

Can you supply a link that describes this problem with Disc Rot & preservation with improper/proper storage?

Brian in Whitby Loc: Whitby, Ontario, Canada

Here are some links. The information is quite dated (2004 at best) but probably still applies. The suggestions for safe storage may now be overkill because of improvement in manufacturing but certainly will do no harm if followed.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1590561,00.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aadvdrota_2.htm
http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aadvdrota.htm
http://hometheater.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=hometheater&cdn=gadgets&tm=284&f=00&su=p504.6.342.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_compatibility.htm
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cds-truth-cddvd-longevity-mold-rot/

Here is a more recent article (2011):
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386203,00.asp
Based on this article I would suggest re-copying or duplicating optical disks every five years or making a couple of copies. John C. DvoraK does not state how he stored his CDs. Did he follow the best practices outlined in the other articles?

At present Writeable BluRay disks and burners are expensive and the RIAA wants to keep it that way. However BluRay may be more reliable. It has not been around long enough for problems to occur. Personally, I keep my backups on mirrored SATA drives on a NAS (Network Attached Storage). It is not foolproof but it works for me at this point. When SATA drives are replaced by something better, I will have to copy my files again. to the new medium. If your files are presently stored on IDE drives, now is the time to copy them to SATA drives while there are still functioning IDE compatible computers around.

seeker Loc: Rhode Island

Just now I viewed photos that were downloaded to discs in 1998-
2006. All were absolutely fine. Don't know how long they will avoid rot but are ok at this point. More recently I have stored photos on flash drive but as with all technology I imagine there can be problems with that form of storage as well.

runsthebitterroot Loc: Western Montana

Well this convinces me that I need to go back to paper tapes and punched cards.
:D
Larry

GC likes NIKON Loc: East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Gosh, are we back on this AGAIN ????

ephraim Imperio

Here are 10 of the 2013 best photo organizing software comparison and reviews:

http://photo-organizing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

sueyeisert Loc: New Jersey

I do what you do, but on a Mac. Then I import my photos into lightroom and I tag them so they are easier to find. For organizing I like Lightroom much better than the organizer in elements.

Mwendell

Go buy the latest version of Lightroom software. It's an Adobe program and it's not very expensive. Lightroom can do more than you can imagine and organizing and storing your photos is one of the best features that it offers.