Patti, you do understand, don’t you, that none of the organizational pieces of software will actually organize everything without your help? While applications like Album or iPhoto are extremely helpful to lots of people, none of them do the job of neat filing images all by themselves. You still have to key in some information before being able to lay your hands on the image you’re looking for right away.
Try looking for PSA 1.0 at WalMart. I’ve seen them at my local store, so I’m guessing WalMart must have bought up a bunch at a discounted rate. I think I paid around $29 for my PSA copy which I bought a few months ago.
Hi Beth,
Is there a way to organize the pictures without these programs? I just have so many I don’t know where to start. But a long time ago, back in the days when the had apple computers, I had an organization program for graphics, and it was very complicated and screwed up my computer. So I hesitate to get anything that is going to do that.
Do you have a program that organizes your pictures or do you do it yourself? Thanks.
Mostly I do it myself, although I do have one piece of Mac software I like for some things. As far as I know, the "search" capabilities of most of these programs relies on the user adding key words, places, dates, or names in order to give the program something to work with. For most of mine I just organize using folders. It depends on how you "think" and also a little bit on the kind of image files you have. I use a different system for my old scans from family pictures than I do for pictures I take with my digital camera. I organize in folders by surname for the scans, and the digital pictures are usually organized in folders by date and/or occasion, like "Christmas 2003" or "Trip2002". And I have subfolders in many of them. The "Trip" folder gets subdivided by location. I suppose you could just "dump" hundreds of pictures in a piece of software and hope for the best, but that’s not my personal style.
I just tell you this, because if you have image files scattered all over your computer in the first place, you are going to have to do some work before an organizational program does much good anyway. You might want to start by doing some sorting into folders on your hard drive, and then see what you really need. I don’t have a thing against any of these programs, but I just didn’t want you to think there was something "magic" about how much they were capable of doing.
Thanks Beth,
I guess I did think there was something magical about it. I realize the pictures I have already taken I would have to "Manually" sort. But from here on out, I assumed the digital pictures I put in would sort of just "go where they are supposed to go" sort of thing. I could just as easily make a bunch of files with names of months for the pictures are far as that goes – and then when I want to find a picture, try to guess close to the month I took it in!!! Waddya think?
I think that’s one of the best approaches, Patti. Or here’s another suggestion. You have a grandson, don’t you? If I was doing your project, I’d probably start with a folder called "Jake" (what I just named him!) and go through all of the pictures on the hard drive, moving any that were of Jake into that one folder. After I got all of the pictures of him in one folder, I’d probably set up more folders within the one for ‘Jake’ for things like Christmas, Birthday, Easter, etc. Then I’d drag pictures from those occasions into the new folders. From there (knowing me), I take the ‘Christmas’ folder and divide it again according to what year, and get all of the Christmas 2003 pictures of Jake together in one place. Once you got that done (because the pictures of him are probably the most important!), you could move on to "Trips" or "Family" and use the same kind of sorting system. By the time you got the sorting done you might find you don’t even need more software!
And, like I said in my earlier post, sometimes you have to come up with slightly different systems depending on the kind of photos you have. This was just a suggestion for finding all the pictures of your grandson!
Patti, although I’ve never used it myself, I know that Irfanview is a full featured graphics viewing/organizing program used by many. The price is right – it’s Freeward, which means that you can try it out and play with it and if you don’t care for it you haven’t spent a dime. Personally, I’m a Thumbs Plus fan. It’s probably got more versatility and options overall than Irfanview, but comes with a price tag of $45.00 for electronic distribution ($50.00 for the program on CD + shipping). It might be more program than you need, at least at first, but I’m one of those people who grow into a program’s features that I didn’t think I needed before. Both programs are capable of viewing a wide variety of formats, both have thumbnail capability, database functions, and at least some limited ability to apply filters and effects. Nothing to even touch the abilities of PE, though. The URLs for these two programs are:
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http://www.irfanview.com/>
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http://www.cerious.com/>
Hey Patti, Irfanview isn’t Freeward, it’s Freeware. A typo <G>.
Hi Patty, I have been through this many times, looking for photo organizing software, installing it, and for some reason or another, not continuing to use it.
I’ve used iPhoto on my brother’s computer, but when you see how many photos I have and how many I am in the process of scanning in, and the external HD that is getting full, then you realize that I have sort of a home made mess here.
So I decided to clean it up, first I organized everything by date, subject, importance, scan-date, digital, or slide, and so forth.
Then I put everything into folders(I already had most folders dated by year and subject), then duplicated the "best", transferred to ext HD. Name everything, and try not to duplicate the names. Re-name the pictures which had been fixed with PSE, on and on.
In other words, I had a monster on my hands, and I managed to come up with a homemade system that is very good for my needs. But very convoluted and confusing to anybody looking at it from the outside.
Oh, do I wish! there was something for us with a lifetime of photos that would do what we want, but for the time being, it is up to us.
Frustrating, but finally accomplishing my homemade cataloging system, has been a long tedious process.
But I am still looking and hoping for the answer from some inovative software company,,,,,,,,, Jane
Beth,
Once I organize all pictures into folders and give them names, is there a way to find them by going to the search? I’ve tried that, put in the name "Caden", and they said nothing was there, when I just went through a whole folder and named it all and the name Caden was in there.
So just using PSE2, can you search and find all pictures with a certain name to it. If not, then I would guess a program is needed. Have you heard of any good ones outside of PhotoshopElements Album? Or would it be best to stick with that one so it works with PSE. I can find many of them out there, but haven’t a clue how they work.
Thanks.
Jane,
This is what I have been doing for the last 2 hours, just naming the pictures. I was then hoping to put all of the same person in one folder and then going further into that to organize. But then PSE cannot find them that way either. So how do you then find a certain picture? Can you put in a "search" and find something by name or date? Thanks.
Don’t use PSE, but go into the search thingie for your computer itself, on a Mac, go up to Edit>Find, and it should bring up everything with the name you are looking for. It will also have anything with that particular name embedded. It will be too many at the start,,,,,,
I get hundreds of hits, but have to narrow them down, date, date modified, .jpg or whatever. I am not too good at this yet, still a bit of a beginner, but the basic search is what I use. It will give you the folder, or folders they are inside. Try to get them inside the dated folders, one for each year, then into sub-folders with the names, and events, vacation, or locations. I was confused for over a year trying to do this, and still am looking for pictures.
Some are hiding on my ext HD, under the wrong date or name.
I cheat, I put some of the best ones on my on-line photo albums such as Pbase or Club Photo, or on my husbands or brothers computers.
It is a daunting task, and whoever comes up with the solution, the software that really does it, will make a lot of money. Makes me tired just thinking abut it.
Jane
I’ve been using Film Factory that came free with my Epson Printer. They do sell it separately and there is a trial version if you want to see what it’s like. Go here and click the link for software. It works for Mac or Windows and is not Epson specific. <
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/index.jsp>
I like the way it organizes things and it’s very easy to use. You create "rolls" of photos and you can group them as you like. I can give the roll a new name or let it use the folder name. You can also group your rolls into Film Cases. For instance, I have a 2002 and a 2003 film case with many, many rolls in each all categorized by dates or events & dates. If I want to create a roll of just my daughters, I can select photos from various rolls and create a new one.
Everything is editable (is that a word?), if you make a mistake and want to rearrange things. If I can’t remember what disk the picture is on, it will tell me exactly where and I don’t have to do a search. For me _that_ is essential! I don’t have time to do a search on an 80Gig hard drive. You can also print out photo index pages of your rolls with as much of the info from the picture as you want and yes, it retains the EXIF info too. I’ve started printing out index pages so I have a visual reference outside the computer and off disk.
Bottom line…it suits me and the way I want to organize my photos. 🙂
Patti
Now that I’m thinking about this a little, it WOULD be nice if something like Film Factory were available withIN Elements.
Duh…that’s probably what Patti was asking in the first place!
BTW, nice name!
Patti Anderson
Film Factory! This sounds really promising, I am going to give it a good try, as I am really getting overwhelmed with my photos. Searching becomes harder and harder as I get more. But at least I have them organized timewize. The thing that really bugs me is to remember a certain photo from a long while ago, and try to find it on the computer, or my other dilemma, find the BOX that it is in either at my brother’s house or here.
Film Factory sounds like that it makes lists that crossover from folder to folder, can find either way.
I know I’m not using the correct words, but you know what I mean. I will give this a try tomorrow, as I have to walk the dogs and sign off soon. Thank you for the info, I do love Epson products,
Jane
Okay, if I put in the name of my grandson, 1000 items come up – that is not the efficient way to do it with my photos. I cannot believe that PSE does not have a way to find pictures. They have a box that says "search" on it, I wonder what that is for then?
With PSE you can already see all your pictures in a folder, that is probably the best way to search for a picture, is just open a folder of a name, they should all appear in a thumbnail, and then go from there. I don’t know how detailed a photoalbum gets. I don’t want it to be more work than it is worth. I would probably get Albm 2 with no question if I had Windows XP, but since it doesn’t work on that, I hear there are a lot of bugs with Phto Album 1 that DOES work on 98. The prices on ebay are going for over $20 and this is before shipping.
So I don’t know what to do.
Thanks.
Jane and Patti – I just realized I have a Film Factory on my computer, I opened it up and there is nothing in the files and no "help" menu. But I must have gotten in free with my last Epson printer also.
In a nutshell, how do you use it and what does it do and I will try to find the CD again and start over.
Thanks for the help.
Ain’t this fun!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patti
I just did a search on one of our grandsons, Max and got 361 hits, of which about 40 were my UMAX scanner and a few other things with max in them. This IS fun, I should refine my system, that will be quite a task!
I have heard that Album and iPhoto have some bugs, but I can’t use either, so I sure will give the Film Factory a try. I did install a wonderful photo organizer last year(can’t remember its name) but I had a conflict with something else in my Mac and it crashed. Took me 2 days to get it back to normal again, with lots of help from Conflict Catcher, so that was the week that I decided that I had to invent my own cataloging system.
From what I have read on other forums too, that the cataloging of large photo collections is a universal problem and there hasn’t been a really good solution yet. Lets invent one here, and patent it and all become rich so we can buy G5s and Adobe CS!
In the meantime, I am continuing to work on my messy system,,,,,,, Jane
I understand there are many reasons why a lot of people are still using Windows 98. Some of them are economic reasons, some of them are comfort level reasons, and so forth. But if you are still using Windows 98 you really need to consider finding some way of upgrading your computer to the point where you can use Windows XP. XP is designed to enhance your digital photo experience. Just to give you an example, I have purchased two digital still cameras and one digital video camera. I didn’t have to install anything to get the computer to recognize any of the cameras. Windows XP just knows how to read and interface with the devices.
Yes, you can continue to use Windows 98, but you have to remember that Microsoft is no longer supporting the operating system at all. So there isn’t a software company anywhere who is going to worry about making sure their new software is compatible with 98. And soon you’ll find that you won’t be able to buy anything at all for your system.
I know, some of you are going to say that it is easy for me to say this because I have already switched to Windows XP. And maybe some of you just cannot change. So unfortunately you are going to be left to finding your own solutions or writing something in Visual Basic that will in that would you to accomplish your objective. I had considered writing of Visual Basic program that would catalog all my photographs until I purchased a new computer system with Windows XP. In fact, I had the prototype of the program written before I purchased the new computer. But after seeing the capabilities Windows XP gave me, I decided it just wasn’t worth the effort.
From what I have read on other forums too, that the cataloging of large photo collections is a universal problem and there hasn’t been a really good solution yet. Lets invent one here, and patent it and all become rich so we can buy G5s and Adobe CS!
Jane, sounds like a great idea! LOL Most photo organizing softwares are just glorified databases anyway. Meanwhile, give Film Factory a try, ignoring its anemic photo editing features and enjoy it organizing abilities.
I have version 2.5. It’s very simple to use. Click on the Roll button, select either New Roll or Use name of existing folder. Browse to the folder, add/change info as you like and click OK. Done.
If you want to catalog photos on a CD, insert the disk and create a roll for it. It will add a little CD icon to the roll, so you know instantly that those photos are on a disk. Right-click on any roll to see extra info, disk name or any comments you added.
Film Cases can be added before or after the rolls. Click on the Film case button, Add a case and select the rolls you want to be included OR before you save rolls, select the Case you want to use.
Also, the database info can be added to your media if you like so that if you had to reinstall or buy a new ‘puter the info could easily be retrieved to set it up again. Complete instructions are in the Help files.
Works for me!
Patti
Patty,
But from here on out, I assumed the digital pictures I put in would sort of just "go where they are supposed to go" sort of thing.
What kind of camera do you use? If you’re thinking about buying a new one, Kodak EasyShare cameras can be set up to make your pictures "go where they are supposed to go" within the EasyShare software. You just set up folders in Easyshare, upload them to your camera and then when you take a picture, you "tag" the image, for example Holidays 2004, and the camera put’s it in the Holidays 2004 folder. Then when you download to the EasyShare software on your computer, that picture would automatically go to the Holidays 2004 folder.
I know this is long shot and not very practical as you probably aren’t willing to buy a new camera just so you can organize your photos but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
This whole discussion has got me thinking. It’s not that this is a problem that doesn’t have a solution, clearly programs like FilmFactory and iPhoto can be used to catalog image libraries. No, the problem IMO is that when you insert human beings into the equation, existing solutions are doomed to fail. Take me for example. I’m too lazy to assign key words to my images as I import them into iPhoto or to drag and drop them into the albums I created as a solution for just this problem. I tell myself that I’ll do that first thing tomorrow. Now I have over 3000 images in my library and only about 25 are key worded and none are in albums. It’s not iPhoto’s fault I can’t find the image I want, it’s mine.
Tomorrow! That’s the day I’ll get started organizing my photos. Yeah right. 😉
Joe
Joe,
You know you have a lot of company…
I use iPhoto to organise mine, I have eight individual iPhoto libraries set up and within the libraries are different albums.
For example one library is Holidays 2003 and within that library are separate albums for each holiday during the year.
I started doing this as soon as I moved photographs onto the Mac and now have a routine of downloading, enhancing and filing ….
Something I found out early that works for me was to treat the photographs as you would paper ones. So if I take say 40 photographs and only 10 are OK I just dump the other 30 straight away … to begin with I did tend to keep them all and caused chaos.
Wendy
Oh, That is another big fault of mine, keeping all the lousy ones thinking that I will get to them and fix ’em up sometime. Now, I immediately trash the bad ones. My husband is going thru the same problem, he thinks that the baddies just might be used someday. Trash them! Then at the same time, I go thru them a third time and take the BEST and put them in a folder with the same date, adding the ‘best’, copy it then I slide the
mediocre ones over to the ext HD. Keep the copy of the best on the desktop to work on or transfer to a photo album page, and maybe to have the very best printed up.
I will try the various softwares to see which I like the best, but as you say, each human wants to sort in their own way. I sure am getting better at this now.
Jane
I have 4500 images catalogued and tagged in Photoshop Album 1.0. I love the program, despite the bad rap it gets from some people. It’s working so well for me, I haven’t bothered to upgrade to 2.0. Ditto for PSE 1.0. If it ain’t broke, I have a hard time getting myself motivated to fix it…
Bert
