Ask Slashdot: Best Software For Image Organization?

Wycliffe writes Like many people, I am starting to get a huge collection of digital photos from family vacations, etc. I am looking for some software that allows me to rate/tag my own photos in a quick way. I really don't want to spend the time tagging a bunch of photos and then be locked into a single piece of software, so what is the best software to help organize and tag photos so that I can quickly find highlights without being locked into that software for life? I would prefer open source to prevent lock-in and also prefer Linux but could do Windows if necessary.

Comments

Simplest is best

[amightywind]

mkdir, find.

lightroom darktable

[blackest_k]

my first thought was lightroom but darktable is free runs on linux( OSX too) and will also generate a database of your images.

For image processing you would also want a 1GB or better graphics card to take advantage of GPU processing, not that you are really interested in that, other people maybe.

Software doesn't really matter

[Zocalo]

Unless you have some really workflow/hardware your source images are going to be in either JPEG, your camera's proprietary raw format, or both. JPEG supports a standard method of tagging via EXIF directly in the image that includes a "Rating" tag that any tool is going to use. If you are tagging raw files then make sure that you write out the tagging information into .XMP "Sidecar" files. This is an Adobe defined "standard" based around XML files, but it's extremely portable and just about any image editor/tagger that supports .XMP files will follow the core Adobe standard tags, including the ones for rating images, and since it's XML you'll always have access to the tag data if the worst should happen and to roll your own tools if need be. As long as you choose software that supports one or both of those formats, then you'll be fine and about as futureproof as it's possible to be.

Cataloging write-only archives

[namgge]

Based on my experience as an executor, you should pick the best one or two photos from each significant occasion, record the date, location and the people (forename and surname) it shows in a plain text file and trash the rest. Fortunately chronological order is both the easiest and best way of organising such a collection. Don't bother keeping pictures that don't have clearly recognisable people in them because it's only these that will be of any interest in future.

Then, when you die your kids will inherit a nice collection of ca 100 family photos complete with enough information to make them interesting and give them a context.

Namgge

Re:Cataloging write-only archives

[Harlequin80]

Please GOD don't do this!

If you want to create a best of album to pass on to your kids then by all mean to that. But don't trash the rest! Storage is cheap so there is no reason you shouldn't keep everything. One of the best finds I ever had from my great grandparents was a suitcase full of old photos taken around the turn of the century. Most of them were of random life, and even though I didn't know who the people were it was a fascinating insight into how they lived. It was only 110 years ago but I found the differences incredible and much more relatable in photo form then in a book.

I have just over 60gb of digital photos now. Many of them are crap. Another chunk are essentially duplicates where I have taken 20 photos to capture a moment. What we do is put together a highlights book for each year. We actually print them using a company that makes coffee book style books. It's a lot of work, sifting through the images, editing and cropping them and then finally putting them together in a 40-60 page book. But it is so worth it. We now have 13 of these books and we will start on 2014 shortly.

Re: Cataloging write-only archives

[Harlequin80]

Jpeg has been the standard for years now, I doubt very much that it will become inaccessible anytime soon. And the best thing about digitised photos is the don't degrade like the physical versions. Proprietary mail storage files are not really comparable.

The other nice thing about digital is that all it takes is a codec to read something. I don't need to dig out the old vcr etc.

As for the old home videos, I made the concious decision about 5 years ago to transfer all of them to digital for exactly the reasons you outlined. So I spent days going through all mine and my parents videos and captured them on a pc. I also worked with my dad to scan every single photo and slide that he had. It took us 2 years and we went through 4 scanners in the process but they are now done. We also worked through them naming and dating them as best we could.

And finally why would I have a reader for my first digital camera? I don't even own it anymore and I can't even remember what type of cards it took (I think it was CF). I have transferred them onto my NAS and will have reused the card multiple times. They're not like film canisters.....

In the end there is no guarantee that my system will be readable in x years time. But using common standards, such as jpeg, and LTO tapes to back them up mean chances are they will be for someone who cares enough to look. In addition I print the yearly summary that exist in the physical world and requires no special interface to use.

I use folders.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Vacation
  |--->October 2011 - Caribbean
                      |--->10-27-2011 - Jamaica

Transfers to/from any platform with a copy/paste.

I keep slimmed down albums (nee: sets) on flickr where I (and others) can add notes.

Re:Image Organization

[esldude]

I certainly agree with this sentiment. Guy wants software to use, not to create it himself. Advice like this is why people don't listen to you.