Photo indexing/catalog software for PC

[ianh64]

I am looking for some Windows (2000) software so that I can catalogue my digital photo collection. I would like to put in a description plus location and have this sotred within the photo file properties. I realise that some of this is available as file properties, but I would like to pictorally select a group of photo's and apply the same information to all.

As a bonus, it should also allow me to create searchable web pages of this information. Other useful extras would be printing of contact sheets, interface with Adobe Photoshop 6 and Photoshop Elements and capturing direct from camera media or twain interface.

Cost: Free -> £100, maybe slightly more for the right thing.

Many thanks

Ian

 

[ancientgeek]

iview is what people use. (Not me, I'm a humble iPhoto user).

http://www.iview-multimedia.com/products/index.php

Check versiontracker etc to see what people think.

 

[Merlin]

Look at Portfolio, I use it and someone I know who has thousands of library shots (not shots of libraries ) uses it.
Extensis are the makers. Make sure it does all you want, they (well UK were ) are contactable by phone and will explain all.
can create keywords and assign to the thumbnails just sync created, can also have it auto extract keywords from filenames, note you need Quicktime installed to create thumbnails of photoshop psd files, can copy/paste thumbnails into directories or onto CD and this writes the full blown files to that, it interacts with your real storage....
can launch editor from thumbnail
do advance searches and so on.
Not sure of web use. Cost is about £160 I think, I may be wrong, but its good for me.
Merlin

 

[ianh64]

Thanks for te update chaps. I had found Extensis Portfilio 7 and something called Brilliant Photo. I downloaded the trial versions. Initially I tried BP (very basic) but I soon ditched that for Portfolio 7.

I was thinking of going with that, its not 100% perfect but will do the job that I want it to albeit with some restrictions on formatting style.

However, I have just read the reviews of MediaPro and initially I like what I see. Apart from being marginly cheaper (im not sure what $199 equates to now a days in £), Extensis does have some clutter really of use with large studios. And im not convinced that it will do my web publishing without adding Portfolio NetServer which doubles the cost - the basic export to web does not work for me. Also, burn to disc only works with Win XP.

The problem is that I have spent 2 days cataloguing 250+ images with Portfolio and I can't see anything in MediaPro about importing Portfolio catalogues. Maybe I will try Media Pro with a different project and have a play with that so initially would not have to migrate.

Thanks for the pointers though

-Ian

 

[wb1]

Best I've found is the free Picasa which is owned by Google... excellent functionality and it's free....

http://www.picasa.com/

 

[tomson]

Have you considered upgrading your version of Photoshop to CS? Not sure how much it'd cost you but it'd certailny add most of the functionality you're looking for and obviously give you the added extras that CS offers.
Within CS's Flilebrowser you can edit or add keywords, descriptions, copyright details, and search by keyword, description, exif info, dates etc etc. You can also add categories and sub categories, store and edit exif info, store the details of the origin of the image and best of all you can batch process from within the Filebrowser allowing you to choose images on the fly and apply user defined actions to them. You can also create pdfs, online galleries and contact sheets.