I t was seriously a life changing day when I discovered the magic of a “non-destructive” photo managing computer application.Like many of us, for the longest time I just had photos stored all over my computer's storage drives, in multiple folders, with only a reasonably decent approach at useful organization.But, when I started using a really good photo manager, I began to see how easy and fun it is to bring all of my photos together, into one centralized location.When a photo manager is at its greatest, it's tapping into all of the information invisibly stored inside of your photos. This information called metadata, speeds up what was once a much more laborious task — the process of organization and identifcation of photographs. Calendar dates the photos were taken and GPS locations which are embedded inside of almost current photos, now makes it an almost instantaneous and automatic procedure to see your photos grouped by event and location.And then there's the ease at which we can now make fixes to our problematic photographs.
![]()
UPDATE Mar 2018This article, which was originally published in January of 2011, has just been completely rewritten to include my favorite photo managing applications currently available today.Because of the challenges of updating a massive article such as this, I have not completed the detailed reviews for a few of the applications I'm recommending below.But, instead of making you wait until everything is completely finished, I've decided to do something I've never done before. I'm posting everything I have finished up to this point, and will then continue to make incremental content updates as I complete them — including new screenshot images for areas I've already written.I'm doing this because I feel a lot of people could already be benefitting from what I do have finished, so why wait any longer.Thank you for your patience, and having the ability to overlook all of the flaws in these content stages.So, bookmark this article, and check back to see the updates!Cheers!Curtis. Is a fantastic and now totally free application. After you create and sign-in to your Adobe ID account (also free), you are then able to download the latest version that never expires, and now doesn’t require one of their paid subscriptions to their Creative Cloud (CC).Adobe Bridge CC, as it’s formally called, is a desktop digital asset manager. This is a fancy way of describing what its purpose is, and that is as a visual hub for all of the files you use for your creative projects.Other than being able to rotate images, it doesn’t have any other editing capabilities. You read that right, it's not a photo editor.
Read user reviews of leading DAM systems. Platforms: MacWinLinux. Elvis DAM is a digital asset management solution for businesses of all sizes. Search functions, and allows users to download digital assets in.
So you won’t be able to do color corrections, crops, or remove dust, scratches or blemish removals from any of your photographs.I like to think of the analogy that Bridge is like a beautiful massive dining room table top where you can spread out all of your photos and easily get to work, moving them around, sorting, renaming, and captioning them.Especially when you are working with newly scanned photos, much of your early work revolves around these organization processes, and detective work learning when your photos were taken and who's in them. This application is perfect for this period of time because the program isn't cluttered by the controls in a user interface also expected to handle visual editing. Organizing Photos in BridgeBridge doesn’t use a centralized database to keep track of each photo you want to manage. So, there is no import process at all to gain access your photos and videos.
Instead, you will be working with them where they are currently being stored on your storage drive(s).Up in the top left “folders” and “favorites” panels, you simply choose which folder of photographs you would like to work with. And with 7 different displaying modes — Essentials, Filmstrip, Metadata, Keywords, Preview, Light Table and Folders — you are very likely to find a view of all of your photographs you will find to be perfect for the task at hand.From within Bridge, while organizing your photos, you can easily create folders, and then move your photos around from one folder to another. Since there is no centralized database, you won’t be just moving them around inside the application. It’s mimicking the folder and file structure in Explorer (if you’re using Windows) or Finder (if you’re on a Mac). And if you were to update the content of your folders and file order outside of Bridge, the next time you launch Bridge, since it’s accessing your files live, all of your external updates will then be reflected inside the application as well.Bridge also allows you to rate your photos with stars, add keywords, assign text/color labels, create stacks, and generate slide shows. Photo Metadata and Filenames in BridgeMetadata is definitely a strong suit for Bridge.
Between the built in Metadata Panel or the floating “File Info” Window, you will have complete control over all of the metadata fields you could possibly imagine. (Such as Camera EXIF, IPTC, Video and Audio Data, GPS, etc.)For most people, the majority of all of these available metadata fields will be unused. However, it’s nice to know you have access to them if you ever want to use them. And to make things easier and less cluttered from all of these options, you can create your own metadata template that will then hide all of the unused options and only show you the fields you will be using regularly — such as the date the photo was taken and the caption (description) etc.In most cases, Bridge stores this metadata inside your master image files (using the XMP standard). If it isn’t possible to store the information (invisibly) inside the file, metadata is then stored in a separate file called a sidecar file.Bridge’s Batch Renaming process is far beyond what we normally get in photo managers. If you’re ever seeking out a stand-alone batch-renaming application because you need the access to advanced features, you may find you no longer need to after seeing what’s already built into this application.You can literally build out a “formula” for your perfect filenames by adding and removing bits of information such as additional text, sequence numbers, dates, camera information, metadata, and then apply your custom formula to all of the photos you have selected.
A nice touch is the option boxes for Windows, Mac OS and Unix to insure operating system compatibility with your newly renamed filenames.Since there is no central database with this application, Bridge will instantly save any filename and metadata changes you make right to your master images files. So, this means your revised photos will be available to other photo managing or editing programs immediately, and will have access to all of this new information. Who Is Bridge For?is easy enough to use, once you get the hang of it.
I think even if you have basic goals and skills, you will enjoy using it.Since it accesses your photos on your storage drives live, and writes all changes immediately, you aren’t locked into using only this application with your photos.Bridge makes an incredibly powerful organizer and labeling application that will handle a large portion of your duties. And then you could use another application at any time to handle any visual edits you want to make such as color corrections, crops and dust and scratch removals.For those possibly interested in using Adobe’s Lightroom at some point, Bridge could be a great starting point to see how you like working with a product in the Adobe Creative Cloud family. If you enjoy Bridge, you could then easily transition into Lightroom (now with less of a learning curve) or even the powerful editing capabilities of Adobe Photoshop.Additionally, I think if you are already happy using a program like Microsoft Photos or Photos for macOS to handle all of your digital camera photos, Bridge would be a great additional application to use for your scanned photos. You could have two different collections of photos. And then at some point later, when you are done organizing and labeling your scanned photos, you could merge your two collections into one — if you so choose. Is a photo managing and editing application that comes free and pre-installed with every Mac operating system since OS X Yosemite in version 10.10.3 (April 8, 2015).
It replaced iPhotos which was then discontinued.It's very clean and extremely minimal. So minimal, I find it’s at the risk of (still) not having features many have learned to rely on with previous photo managers.After discontinuing their professional application Aperture, Photos is now the only photo managing application Apple is currently supporting. And since the 1. Release, they arguably haven’t been quick to update the application with very many advanced features previous iPhotos users are likely still clamoring for.But, what you do have with Photos is a very solid photo managing application that makes photo managing easier to learn and use than probably almost any photo manager out there.
Organizing Photos in Photos for macOSPhotos uses a centralized database, so it's aware of and keeping track of every one of your photos managed inside. This means every one of your photos will first need to come into the application in one of two ways:The first being through Apple’s internet “cloud-syncing” platform called iCloud. I apologize, but my complete review for this application currently isn't finished yet. I will be posting it as soon as I can.Short Version: ACDSee is as close to Google's Picasa as I've currently found, yet from a reliable company with a long track record of constant updates and support. It's great for people with basic goals and skills, but also has a lot of advanced features that will challenge and grow with you. It's not free like Picasa was, but it really does a lot for what it costs.
And it's been around for years and years and years. I was using this application in the 1990's, so it doesn't seem to be going anywhere! (Which I know, is what I had thought of Picasa sigh ). Within minutes of using for the first time, I knew this photo manager was something special. And by the second day of my trial, I already had my credit card out and found myself purchasing a license for it.Picktorial sports a dark colored interface, which in the past has usually been reserved for applications only advanced users were able to use. It's modern, minimal, and unfortunately for Windows users, is only for the Mac.My first impression was that Picktorial feels like what previous devotees of Aperture have been hoping Photos for macOS would have already become by now.
And this seems to be proven when you take a look at their aggressive update timeline with version 1.0 coming out in just March of 2016.I'm normally not so easily drawn to applications that have so little time out in the market, but I admit, I was dazzled by how polished and complete it already feels.It's incredibly easy to use, so those with basic goals and skills will probably take to it easily. Yet, Picktorial is also adding advanced features so deceptively, it's easy to forget they are also trying to satisfy the professional users as well.Not only is Picktorial a standalone application, Photos for macOS users can also use Picktorial as an extension. This gives you access to the full-range of editing tools from Picktorial while inside of Photos for macOS.And those still looking for a right time and place to abandon their Apple Aperture libraries, you will be happy to know Picktorial allows you to natively read your current Aperture libraries — even multiple libraries at the same time.Picktorial can’t modify Aperture edits but you can choose between viewing the original file or the preview, and make new edits to the original file or additional edits on top of the preview file. Organizing Photos in PicktorialUnlike photo managers that use a centralized library database, such as Photos for Mac OS or Photoshop Lightroom, Picktorial instead is “catalog-free” and uses your Finder hierarchy to organize your photos. But, instead of possibly overwhelming you with access to every single one of your folders, throughout all of your attached devices, the interface stays nearly “stress-free” by only showing you just the folders you have chosen for it to monitor.And, similar to how Google's Picasa worked, the folders you tell it to monitor are constantly being watched.
So, even if Picktorial isn't running, if you add or remove photos from your Finder folders, the next time you launch Picktorial, it will instantly show your revised folder contents of photos. Likewise, If you move a photo from one folder to another in Picktorial, it's actually moving your master file in Finder from the one folder to the other. This means total organization freedom.This freedom of course comes at the cost of accountability. Without a centralized database, Pictorial will be relying on you not to accidentally tamper with your desired folder organization. For example, Picktorial is not going to take any responsibility for remembering where you had certain photos stored if two nights before you moved them around using another seemingly harmless application.Something I'm still not very happy with though, is the lack of a full-height view of all of your photo thumbnails. It appears the creators of Picktorial are trying so hard to keep a minimal and easy to use interface — with what they call their “Single-Space Workflow” — that the center area of the application has to share the space not only with your thumbnails, but also with a preview window of the image you've selected. Even though there is a slider to change the height of the separator between the two, there doesn't seem to be a way to fill the entire area with just your thumbnails, which I seem to sorely miss.
![]()
Editing Photos in PicktorialIf you're familiar with the editing tools in Photos for macOS, you will feel right at home with the adjustment panel in Picktorial. Not only is it in the same location, with a similar look and feel, but it also has an abundance of easy to use tools above and beyond what Photos offers.The controls are so clean and minimal, you almost forget how powerful Picktorial is. It has a RAW processing engine built in to work with your raw image files, and currently already supports 500+ cameras.Picktorial doesn't use layers, and instead has gone with a method where your edits are applied in areas, such as “patches”, which gives you more precise control with each tool instead of affecting the entire image.Because it's non-destructive, it never makes changes to your original master images. And any edits you make can be undone anytime you wish.What almost seems like magic, is how Picktorial actually handles all of your edits. Since it doesn't rely on a library database to store all of the incremental changes, it instead cleverly saves all of this data invisibly right inside your master image files (as XMP formatted metadata) for formats such as JPEG, TIFF and DNG files.
If your masters are in the RAW format, the data is stored in an accompanying.xmp sidecar file.Because there aren't any preview or alternate version files generated and accessed by a database, each time you click on a photo with edits previously made to it, there is likely to be a slight delay while the edit information is read and re-processed to generate a live version for you. You'll instantly see the original version and then it's replaced by the fully edited live version about a split second later — the delay time depending on how fast your computer is and how many edits you've made.
It's maybe slightly off-putting as you first get used to this phenomenon, but it seems to be a good tradeoff for those seeking the perks of a database-less photo manager that doesn't leave a lot of extra (redundant) version files in folders all over your storage drives.What this means, again, is freedom. For example, you can copy and move any photo edited in Picktorial to another Mac running Picktorial, open it and see all of your edits! You could even use a cloud platform like Dropbox or Google Drive to always keep them in sync between the two. And theoretically, you could also open them in any other application — now or in the future — that is capable of reading photos with edits saved with this same embedded XMP metadata process. Photo Metadata in PicktorialThe amount of metadata you can currently add and edit is fairly limited. Some of the key EXIF camera metadata is viewable.
And thankfully, there is already support to add and edit the important ones for scanned photos such as a title, keywords, and a caption. Again, because there is no database, this data you add is saved immediately and automatically into your master images.Additionally, in response to a I found, I know they “are working on adding support for editing IPTC metadata fields as well.”Batch processing I believe is also on their list. So, the future looks promising here for those who rely on adding a lot of additional data. Who Is Picktorial For?Picktorial feels as easy to use as Photos for macOS, yet has a development team proving to add features to it at a pace Apple seems uninterested in even attempting.If you are a Mac user, who loves the aesthetics and workflow of Photos for macOS, but would love to have some more advanced features, then Picktorial is something you might really want to take a look at. Especially if you are at all intimidated by the looks of the alternatives such as Photoshop Lightroom or even ACDSee Mac Studio.And because it doesn't use a database, you won't at all be locked into this application. You can even use this alongside others photo managers you like as well — such as Adobe Bridge to take advantage of all of its metadata capabilities.If Picktorial Innovations continues to improve this application with features professionals rely on, at some point, I won't be surprised if it becomes a serious contender in the professional field with those seeking a “lightweight” and less cluttered interface that's also a lot of fun to use.
My scanned photo collection in Adobe's Lightroom (v3.0)For Windows users who feel held back by the simplicity of Picasa, Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom is currently the best choice out there.Sure there is Adobe's lighter-weight Photoshop Elements, but it lacks the necessary feature of “non-destructive” editing that I suggest.Additionally, this will be great to use if you are loyal to their flagship standalone professional photo editor Photoshop. Both programs work extremely well together.Try not to be intimated by the sales literature suggesting this is only meant for professional photographers. Yes, many of the features are intended to aid the needs of professional photographers and their hectic post-process. But this doesn't mean you can't take advantage of its feature set to organize and edit your entire collection of scanned photos “destruction-free.”.
Part of the editing panel in the Develop Module for Adobe's Lightroom (v3.0)But I won't lie, this is quite a learning step-up from Picasa. It's dark gray default palette is very slick-looking, but with all of its information jammed into every square inch of application real estate, it does a great job of making a “newbie” feel like you have no idea what you should be doing next.On the bright side, if you are familiar with how to use Photoshop Elements, you will find the learning curve will not be as steep. Otherwise, you will definitely want to spend some time getting to know the application before you commit to any kind of workflow importing your photos and beginning to edit them.Photos are managed by Lightroom from ordinary folders on your hard drive. You select which folders you want included and Lightroom goes to work to importing the file information for its database. This gives you the freedom to organize your masters the way you see fit.But of course, like other programs working in the same manner, this will also put more pressure on you to make sure you don't accidentally delete or modify your master images while working with other software on your computer.For this added level of file protection, you should look into using either iPhoto or Aperture (both only available for the Mac).Lightroom's strength isn't so much its ease at organizing your photo masters. Aperture seems to have that duty won hands down in my opinion.
But instead, it's a workhorse image editor with so many sliders, hidden panes and buttons that you will probably hear yourself say you may never have a need for the likes of Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS again! I apologize, but my complete review for this application currently isn't finished yet. I will be posting it as soon as it's ready.Short Version: ACDSee Photo Studio is the successor to, which is the Mac version of the ACDSee product line. ACDSee Mac Pro appears to still be available for purchase and a free trial download, even though it's no longer listed on their main product page. This is because ACDSee Photo studio will eventually be replacing it entirely when it's finally for sale to the public. (It's currently available to — public release I hear is estimated for July 2017)ACDSee Photo Studio, was completely written from the ground up, to not only be compatible with macOS Sierra, but also to be faster.
It has ‘powerful database improvements' as well as ‘a better, more stable browsing experience'. Final ThoughtsSomething important I'd love for you to keep in mind, is like I hinted at in several of the reviews above, it's very possible the best solution for you and your entire diverse photo collection, might be to use more than one photo manager at the same time. It's likely one application may not currently do everything you want it to do to handle every type of photo you have.You might decide what's best is to use one application to organize and sync to your mobile devices, all of your recent digital camera photos. And then you could use a second application with more robust features, that will better help you while you work through the stages of scanning, organizing and labeling all of your scanned photos. At the end of your project, you could then combine the two photo collections into one if you wanted to, and then use your favorite photo manager with it.Please tell me what you think of this article. Which photo managing program do you use and why?And if you aren't using one already, what about this article might be making you think you ought to start using one?Let me know in the comments below.Cheers!
My scanned photo collection in Google's Picasa (v3.8 for Mac)It's easy to have low expectations when it comes to free software. They usually cost you nothing out-of-pocket, but instead make you pay with frustration.They often use in-application advertising banners, nagging pop-ups to get you to buy the premium version of the program, or offer so few features there is little reason to devote your time to them.Picasa is free and I must admit, really has none of these strikes against it. Additionally the interface is so clean and fun to use, it's like they are just begging us to latch onto it and trust it with our entire photo collection.I was using this program when it was just called Picasa for several years before it was bought up in 2004 with Google's war chest of money. This was back when I was a die-hard PC guy and built my own Windows-based computers. It was a fantastic program then, and has only gotten better. “Folder Manager” in Google's Picasa (v3.8 for Mac)Picasa manages your photos in a sort of semi-automatic way. Using a drop-down menu item called the “Folder Manager,” you set which folders of photos on your hard drive you would like Picasa to manage.
You have the option to have a folder not scanned at all, scanned once, or always scanned (so that any photos added later to the folder will automatically be included in Picasa as well).This method enables you to keep your originals stored in any folder structure you wish on your hard drive, but still have an easy way to group photos into virtual albums and edit them from within Picasa. This means even the messiest of “hard drive” folder organization can appear to be tidy!It may not have all of the manual control over your photos the pricier (advanced) professional programs offer, but it still manages to keep up with a strong set of basic tools that every photo collection needs to have. My scanned photo collection in Apple's iPhoto '11 (v9.1)If you own a Mac and haven't heard of iPhoto, you are probably just walking out of the Apple store with your first one.iPhoto is part of the iLife suite that comes “free” with the purchase price of every Mac. Major updates however aren't free like they are with Picasa. But now thanks to Apple's new Mac App Store, the price to upgrade to the newest version is extremely affordable.Those wishing Picasa had a more “hands off” fully-automatic way of storing their master images will love the default import option inside of iPhoto.Keeping “Copy items to the iPhoto Library” checked will allow iPhoto to do all of the storing and moving around of your master files for you. It puts them all in a single “bundled” file (folder) called “iPhoto Library” usually stored within the “Pictures” folder in your home user folder.It's like having a near-impenetrable haven for your photos.
The only way you can access it manually is by control-clicking on the library file and choosing “Show Package Contents.” This is done at your own risk. I do not recommend the average user set mouse in there. Advanced Preferences Tab in Apple's iPhoto '11 (v9.1)What this means is that instead of telling iPhoto where you have stored your photos, you instead import copies of them into iPhoto and allow it to move and place them into the best storage folder arrangement. This is all done “behind the curtain” – out of your sight. So you can sit back and relax knowing that it's being done for you.For those more adventurous, de-selecting this import feature leaves the work up to you and your own folder structure making creativity.Like Picasa, iPhoto has a very similar editing toolset such as rotate, auto “enhance”, red-eye, straighten, crop and blemish retouching.
They both offer filter “effects” to make your photo look antique, black and white or vignetted for example. My scanned photo collection in Apple's Aperture (v3.1)What's so great about Aperture is how easy it is to use for such a professional application.It's like they took what's great about iPhoto — how simple it is to do everything — and they used that formula to make a program that is much more powerful and feature driven.If you can operate iPhoto, there is an excellent chance you will be able to operate Aperture after just a few short tutorials or playing around in it a bit. Aperture can do complicated things in non-complicated ways.The first “advanced feature” I fell in love with was Aperture's main strength — the ability to let me more thoroughly organize my collection by creating multiple Libraries, Projects and Folders. Its little brother iPhoto chose to make organization easier by keeping it simple.They made single “Events” to contain your master image files and that's it. So an Event labeled “2005 Joey's Birthday” will be in the same list of Events as one labeled “1945 July 4th Fireworks.” There is no way for example to separate them out by say – decades.
Being a man of action as well as words, my son Mark bought me a slide scanner and taught me how to use it. I scanned in the slides of the Holy Land without much difficulty. I was delighted to be able to view them on my computer with the same ease as I could view the digital photographs that I had started taking in 1999.The remainder of the slides came first.
Then I started work on the prints in the photograph albums that I had lovingly curated over the decades. The physical albums had started to deteriorate to the extent that some of them were falling apart. Scanning the prints was an ideal way to remedy this. I also scanned in all the prints that had not made the cut for the photograph albums but I had kept nevertheless.
I also spent several months scanning in approximately 4,000 negatives. All in all I must have scanned nearly ten thousand photographs in one form or another. So you’re ready to buy a very high-quality flatbed scanner to digitize your analog prints and film, but now you’re having a hard time deciding between the Epson Perfection V800 Photo and the Epson Perfection V850 Pro Photo Scanners.Whether you or an avid hobby photographer, a true professional, or just want to get all the quality you can out of your prints and film, either one of these models is going to give you exceptional results. But, I want to help you feel confident you’re going to make the right choice.Below, in plain English that will make it very easy to understand, I’ve written out and explained in detail, the 5 differences between the two models. Great information, even if a bit dated.
Many thanks to Curtis and the other commenters. Our family has both Macs and PCs, and a lot of photos only on Google Photos (because we have Pixel phones). I’m guessing that the cleanest way to merge and simplify our various pools of photos is to (a) download/copy them all to a central drive, (b) use a tool like Bridge or ACDsee to tag photos via EXIF metadata, and (c) copy any that need to be on a particular machine back from the central store. Presumably then using Bridge/ACDsee on that particular machine will then correctly see the tags added in the central store.Doing this because I got burned by Google and Picasa – spent years on a PC tagging via Picasa, only to have google wipe it all for me.
Hi Bill,I use Lightroom Classic with Windows 10 to accomplish what you want. It’s a nice and powerful digital asset manager and does great non-destructive editing to my photos. The editing steps are saved within the Lightroom database and I also have it set to optionally save the editing steps within the image file themselves. In other words, the original image is still there, but the steps I used to process the image (exposure/contrast changes, cropping, etc.) is also written within the image file, whether it be a RAW / DNG, JPEG, or TIFF file. So no copies of the edited image are created.
It is easy to go back to the original image this way although it is always good practice to save a copy of all your original images to a separate backup drive.While $10/month isn’t terribly expensive for Lightroom (which also includes Photoshop), a free alternative is to use Adobe Bridge as your digital asset manager and download the free Adobe Camera Raw program to do your editing. This combination works the same way as Lightroom, but while in Bridge, you need to load the picture you want to edit into Camera Raw with a simple mouse click rather than having everything in one program. Camera Raw does very nice editing to JPEG and TIFF files in addition to RAW / DNG files. In fact, it’s very similar to Lightroom in the menu layout (both being Adobe products).I’ve also used ACDsee in the past. It does some non-destructive “developing” but saves the editing steps into a separate side-car file that sits in the same directory as the original image file rather than writing the steps into the actual image file.
It also does destructive editing (more elaborate stuff using layers etc.) and will automatically make a backup copy of the original image before saving the destructive edit. I don’t like these copies and side-car files lying around, so I don’t really use this program any more.I know there are several other programs out there that do digital asset management and non-destructive editing (ON1 Photo Raw, Exposure X5), but I don’t have experience with them. Good luck in your search. Thankyou very much for this article, I have been ripping my hair out in dismay over Apples decision to send Aperture to oblivion – and no thing to replace it. Photos is good, BUT, cannot export it’s folder hierarchy to iOS, yep, no sidebar which means no way to display and find images in a logical manner. In Aperture its a breeze, and now that I read your article I was amazed at the abilities of Bridge.
Have had it for years but not used. Now organiser of choice.Only downside is, not able to port to iOS.
Was going to use Lightroom, no ability to port to iOS.I want my library of images to be ported to iOS in an orderly Apple finder way.I know I can do it with file sharing in iTunes (but fear this is going to disappear with iOS 13), is there an iOS app that could access these files and in such a way that they can be viewed in their original hierarchies, ie folders.Look forward to your reply and suggestionsBest regardsRon. I am an amature photographer taking 1000s of family photos over the years (50,000+ and counting). I have been using Creative Memories Memory Manager and unfortunately it finally crashed. All my photos are saved to my backup dirve, but are in randomized folders. Plus, I have quite a number of photos I’ve been saving recently on my PC and many photos that I would ultimately love to scan. I am looking mostly for a photo manager/organizer so that I can sort, tag, and find the photos I’m looking for and would love to have them all in one location either on my PC or back up drive (or both).
Plus am open to backing up to the cloud after I get things in order. I loved how Memory Manager cataloged chronologically. I’ve been thinking about ACDSee, but I’m not sure.
I also love the idea of being able to upload photos from my phone. And I’ll probably use some basic edited tools, but nothing fancy.
Any suggestions would be great! The latest version of ACDSee is a very realistic alternative to Lightroom, at least in the PC version. Not being a Mac user, I can’t speak about the latest Mac version. It works well with the free Adobe Bridge with the free IPTC Photo Metadata plug-in that adds extra fields that are particularly useful for archivists, museum curators, and librarians, including family historians. They make a highly recommended combination.
I’ve read favorable reviews of Photo Mechanic, but its specs seem to be very similar to those of Adobe Bridge. Since PM costs over $150, and Bridge is free, I haven’t rushed to try PM. Apple specifically advises against storing a Photos Library on a NAS device, for fear of corruption.Many people in various forums are quite vocal in sharing that idea, that if you value your photos – you should not store your Photos on any network share (even if that “share” is private). The issue seems to stem from the fact that Photos expects the underlying file store to be a properly formatted APFS or MacOS Extended partition.In light of this. Will any of the above mentioned applications support library storage on a NAS device, without issue? If you have a lot of photos – especially photos with different family members, timeframes, events and locations, consider Photo Mechanic.
Photo Mechanic – from CameraBits – is a browser that allows you to rate photos, add keywords, descriptions, and captions, and many other features to your photos. It’s not an editor, but it works so quickly that is will streamline what you edit and help a lot with organization. For example, you have a group photo with several family members, so you want to add individual names, relationships, etc. Where does the photo go so you can find it? With keywords, you can search for the terminology – Smith, Brown, wedding, new york, westchester. The keywords, captions and descriptions are carried in the file in a standard format so they will remain after using the editor of your choice. The biggest advantage is speed – and Photo Mechanic was developed for use by AP photographers who needed to turn around large amount s of photos on very short timeframes.
The product is a little pricey – $159 – but for a large volume of photos it is far faster than keywording using other tools. I have had Photo Mechanics on trial, and I find it somewhat more transparent to use for browsing and editing metadata than Adobe Lightroom, because it lets you work directly on the files, without a catalog.However, I also have Adobe Bridge, which I believe is still free, and which does essentially the same as Photo Mechanics. Lets you browse your photos directly on disc and edit metadata. Hence, I’ve found it difficult to justify paying money for functionality that you can get for free.Or did I miss something?
Hi Art,When you complete you webinar, is there a way my wife, who is the genealogist in the family, or I could view it? I’ve begun to build a keyword list for my family photo collection in Lightroom Classic CC. It is hierarchical and the parent keyword is People. Current sublevels are: Family, Friends, and Vietnamese Language School Classmates.
Peter Krogh in his “Digitizing Your Photos” book has Colleagues under People and under Family has “lastname Branch” for various family branches.You mention the IPTC Photo Metadata Panel that has a date field where circa 1920 or summer 1965 could be used. I’ve looked at the IPTC-Plus Metadata Panel, which I believe is the IPTC Photo Metadata Panel, and haven’t located the field. Is there a specific name for it or am I looking at two different panels? Lightroom Classic CC is using IPTC Extension PLUS Version 1.2.0, and I don’t see a field where I could enter a date like circa 1920.
Is this panel only available for Adobe Bridge? Thanks for your help. Hi Gary,Thanks for your reply.
On Thursday, 7 March 2019 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, anybody can log in to view the live webinar. Check the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) at for the sign-up link. The OGS is still finalizing webinar dates with presenters for the rest of the year, so it may be a few days until the sign-up page is available. Just keep checking back until you find it. After the live webinar, a recording will be available on the OGS site but available only for OGS members.Last June, Peter Krogh did the OGS webinar on “Camera Scanning” and the recording is still available to OGS members. You may want to browse the list of recorded webinars as well as the list of upcoming ones and maybe decide to join the OGS for a year to gain access to them.If you’d like a pdf copy of last year’s webinar I did on Using Adobe Bridge, email Curtis and ask him to forward your request to me via email.
That way, he doesn’t breach any privacy terms of the blog or its users but we can correspond directly, privately.The IPTC Photo Metadata Panel is a plug-in for Adobe Bridge. Bridge is available for free from Adobe and works well with Lightroom.
The “IPTC Photo Metadata Panel” is correctly known as the “IPTC Cultural Heritage Panel”. That was my error. You should be able to download it atbut you’ll likely need to scroll a little more than half way down the page to find the link. Save the ZIP file to disk, then open it and follow the installation instructions in the IPTC-CulturalHeritage-PMDpanel-Guide.pdf file within the ZIP file. I think you’ll find it worth the effort to download and install both the Bridge (if you’re not already using it) and the IPTC C H Panel.Art. I am a lecturer so I use my photos mostly for information – that means I don’t need to edit photos much but I REALLY care about having key words that will help me to find the subjects I need.
Also I like to group some photos into subject related folders for quickly finding things. I found that LightRoom drove me insane because no matter how careful I thought I was being about moving photos into the correct folders they wound up all over the place.
Seriously I am an organised person and this does not happen for me with other applications! So I got Piktorial because I really wanted a catalog free photo manager – easy, straightforward, information focused. So imagine my frustration when I found Piktorial does not allow me to add key words to a whole bunch of photos at the same time. I mean really???
Who wants to label EVERY PHOTO individually?Sigh – I was so happy with Piktorial otherwise, but this is a deal breaker for me. I am now looking for a catalog free alternative that allows me to batch edit metadata.
I am now looking for a catalog free alternative that allows me to batch edit metadata.You might consider GraphicConverter.It started out ages ago as a graphics format conversion program, but has grown into a full-fledged image editor and image management system.It is the only such application I know that allows you to change all the metadata.I’m using several editors/managers, and they all fall short in various ways, most notably, none of them allow you to edit all the EXIF data!I have old film scans that I know the date, but ON1 won’t let me set the EXIF date. I have cameras that, for whatever reason, show up with different names, but Mylio won’t let me change the EXIF “Maker” tag. I love Luminar’s editor, but its new version with image management support doesn’t even have keywords!So, I often keep GraphicConverter open, just because I can edit any metadata with it.Why not just use it for everything?
Well’ it’s pretty geeky, and not as simple to use as other image editors. But I’m seriously considering giving it a chance at being “one and only.”I am now looking for a catalog free alternativeWhy “catalog free?” The only image managers I use all leave the location of my photos alone.
I got seriously burned by Apple’s dumping of Aperture, to which I foolishly turned over my photos to, so it could “manage” them.But a “catalog” generally means nothing more than an “index,” for speedy access. I think what you really want is something that uses.XMP “sidecar” files for metadata, rather than storing all metadata in some database.
![]() Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |