Digital Photo Organizing (1 Viewer)

[Buzz Foster]

I'm looking for reccomendations on digital photo organizing software. I have a mess on my hard drive. Generally, at best, I have a folder that is labelled to tell me what is in it, and nothing beyond there. The folders are scattered across several hard drives.

Ideally, I would like something that allows me to search the hard drives and organize by folder, move folders, rename, etc.

I don't want anything to make automatic changes, but ask me to first make them.

Oh, and I am on a PC.

Suggestions?

 

[Sam Posten]

I think you would be much better off buying a large hard disk and copying all the media you want to save to that drive and then starting cataloging from there. Media organizers could allow you to see the spaghetti you've created but there's no real substitute for brute force copy and paste on your own to get organized.

If you are bound and determined to go down this route however, probably your best bet is:

Microsoft® Expression®

 

[Buzz Foster]

Thanks, Sam. That is the essential starting point...moving all of the pictures to the external drive. The problem is finding all the folders that have been tucked away over the years, and the pictures hidden in them.

Usually when I build a new computer, I don't really prep things in an orderly manner. I put my main hard drive from the old machine into the new machine as a secondary. 10-15 years ago, there simply was not enough data for this to be a problem. On the current system, I have three groups of this kind of data, with little organization (my own fault, I know) and have recently pulled all my old data off of CD-R(W) and DVD-R(W) backup discs...some of it 10+ years old.

So now, it is an even bigger mess.

The problem with using the windows search fuction is that when it finds image files, it shows you every little gif from every software install and package it can find, as well as everything from those Internet Explorer temp files buried in those old backup locations. It drags my system to a crawl.

I downloaded Picasa 3 and am giving it a spin. It isn't as robust of a file management tool as I would like it to be, but it has allowed me to find my stuff and start organizing. I can rename folders that contain photos, open them, and then move them to a central location.

I'm on my way with it, and I have found a lot of stuff I'd forgotten about.

 

[Sam Posten]

Been there, done that, moved to a mac =)

Good luck tho! I think there is a free trial of Expressions Media, might give that a try and see what it finds.

 

[danwiz]

I have to agree with others when they say that you just gotta spend the time to get all of your images on one HDD - either internal or external, or both. Personally I use both - external as backup. Then - I cannot recommend ACDSee enough for organizing those photos. I've been using it since 1998 (WOW! - that's 11 years now) and have mostly been very happy with it. When you visit their site (ACDSee Photo Software) I recommend that you take their quiz to determine which product suits your needs - you can find that page here:
ACDSee Photo Software

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR photos!


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