What software do you use to manage photos?

[rowdy]

Until recently, I used iPhoto on a Mac to manage photos.

My requirements are simple - start automatically when the camera or memory card is connected, group photos by date, allow me to export a day's worth of photos to a network directory (from where they are backupped to three different places).

I do NOT want to upload them anywhere - that would take waaay too long.  My iPhoto libraries are just over 250GB in size containing nearly 50,000 photos.

What software do people use to manage this many photos in a similar way?

Must run on Mac, ideally cross-platform and free.

[raymogi]

Yeah iPhoto here as well. Very simple and easy to use even for folks like me.

The thing is I'm using Windows at home now and I can't wait to upgrade to the Mac Pro at the end of this year. I want to bring that OSX experience home again.

[rowdy]

I'm given to understand that iPhoto has been replaced by a new app called Photos.

There was some criticism of Photos to begin with, but I haven't heard much about it for a while.

I believe Photos is only available with Yosemite or later, and I have Mavericks.

[raymogi]

Ah true that. It is called Photos now. I remember doing cmd+space to look for iPhoto and it's greyed out lol.

[SamirD]

So I have somewhere near 600k-700k of photos and videos and 7 cameras.  And a lot of times I need to find one quick.  I use the following:

• High speed card readers.  I never have connected a camera to a computer.  It's slower and more cumbersome.
• A date-based directory structure with the original memory card structure within it.  Each camera has a unique directory name on the card to avoid conflicts with other cameras.  I NEVER reset the file count on my cameras so I always know if a file is older or newer.  Plus I have an odometer of sorts for each camera (until they flip anyways).
• 3 enterprise class drives for storage in triplicate that are compared against each other when each memory card is offloaded and also compared yearly for bit-rot. 
• Smugmug's highest plan (whatever that is now).  I upload everything to there as my archive and offsite backup, and upload there again for display galleries.  The archive copies are downloaded again and compared with the originals each time a card is offloaded.  All the presentation work is done in the display galleries directly online--nothing local.

I was publishing about 45k photos per year with an average turnaround goal of 72 hours from the time they were shot.  And I usually met this goal unless I fell behind.  I've also got hundreds and hundreds of family weddings and other event photos that my family can still look at as the gallery links haven't changed in almost 10 years.  It works for me.  :thumb:

[Incredigasmic]

I use Pixlr for all of my photo management

[rowdy]

I use Pixlr for all of my photo management

Online or licenced per month?

Not quite what I was hoping for.

[SamirD]

Oh and apparently Smugmug has added a fully-featured built-in photo and video editor:
http://news.smugmug.com/2014/05/21/the-all-new-in-smugmug-photo-editor/

I need to get back to shooting...

[1swt2gs]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

[SamirD]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Yep, with raw there's no way around lightroom or aperture for a solid workflow.  But they're really good for it too.

[rm-rf]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

[HoffmanMyster]

• 3 enterprise class drives for storage in triplicate that are compared against each other when each memory card is offloaded and also compared yearly for bit-rot.

My photo library backs up daily, but I'm concerned that if the originals become corrupted, then the copies will as well.  Basically all I'm doing right now is protecting against drive failure, not corruption.  How complicated/expensive is your solution? 

• Smugmug's highest plan (whatever that is now).  I upload everything to there as my archive and offsite backup, and upload there again for display galleries.  The archive copies are downloaded again and compared with the originals each time a card is offloaded.  All the presentation work is done in the display galleries directly online--nothing local.

I'd never heard of Smugmug until now.  :eek:  Very intriguing.  I skimmed through their "see what this is all about" section and they mention how easy it is for you to download your own photos; is it easy to offer an entire album for your friends to download?  I need an easy way to share entire albums with my family - emails are too small/cumbersome, I'm out of space on Dropbox (plus that's an obnoxious method), and flickr is super terrible for downloading pictures.

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

Hahaha, this was my first thought.  :))  "I use Windows Explorer"

[rm-rf]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

Hahaha, this was my first thought.  )  "I use Windows Explorer"

It is just weird to me why someone would want some program on top of everything else. to use more system resources to do the exact same thing that your computer operating system already does for you...
or maybe they just don't know how?

[rowdy]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

)

Nice try

Actually an iPhoto library is just a series of folders, it just happens to have a GUI on top that lets you group by "event", match faces (badly) and so on.

I have fallen back to organising by dates, with one folder for each calendar month, and then one or more folder inside that for each day (with an alphabetic suffix for different "events" on the same day).  But now I have to manually create the folders, manually import the photos from each device, manually delete the photos from each device, manually backup each folder and so on.

This is a pain to maintain (especially using Finder on a Mac), so I was hoping for some way of making the process a little less painful.

iPhoto at least would prompt to import and delete the photos as soon as I connect a device or plug a memory card in, groups by date with separate groups for multiple "events" on one day, and has a fairly simple export (for backup) process.

[Bartlebum]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

[rowdy]

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

[rm-rf]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

)

Nice try

More

Actually an iPhoto library is just a series of folders, it just happens to have a GUI on top that lets you group by "event", match faces (badly) and so on.

I have fallen back to organising by dates, with one folder for each calendar month, and then one or more folder inside that for each day (with an alphabetic suffix for different "events" on the same day).  But now I have to manually create the folders, manually import the photos from each device, manually delete the photos from each device, manually backup each folder and so on.

This is a pain to maintain (especially using Finder on a Mac), so I was hoping for some way of making the process a little less painful.

iPhoto at least would prompt to import and delete the photos as soon as I connect a device or plug a memory card in, groups by date with separate groups for multiple "events" on one day, and has a fairly simple export (for backup) process.

yeah, apple doesn't make things as intuitive as the claim.
but I do like my folders, and sub directories.

I know there is a way to automate importing stuff off of devices on the apple.
I had to set it up for my parents, and their archival from their cameras.
Every time the camera gets connected it dumps it into a new sub-folder that is dated.
Everything gets copied to another drive, then the memory card is emptied.
and then every few months you can just put things into their respected areas/sub folders.

[rowdy]

The thing is I had a nice workflow going with iPhoto BEFORE I reinstalled OS X.

Now I can't install iPhoto (this is documented elsewhere around here), so I'm looking for alternatives.

Although I said elsewhere that I've given up after wasting several hours trying to reinstall iPhoto, I might give it another go one day when I have some spare time.

[1swt2gs]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

Nope, photos still sucks (as most images are .cr2 file). I have it set to open on Preview and then just upload them and organize them in folders the old fashion Windows way.

[rm-rf]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

Nope, photos still sucks (as most images are .cr2 file). I have it set to open on Preview and then just upload them and organize them in folders the old fashion Windows way.

its not the windows way, its the old file clerk way! c'mon!

[Goranth]

I use a mix of plain Windows Explorer/Mac Finder and Adobe Bridge for organizing photos.  Bridges ability to batch name/output is so great for my workflow.  After I get back from a shoot I can just import and rename them all in one go before I start really working.  It's rating system helps to do a quick and dirty selection process too.

[1swt2gs]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

Nope, photos still sucks (as most images are .cr2 file). I have it set to open on Preview and then just upload them and organize them in folders the old fashion Windows way.

its not the windows way, its the old file clerk way! c'mon!

That's what I meant. Sometimes the old/simplest way is the best way!

[rm-rf]

I use a mix of plain Windows Explorer/Mac Finder and Adobe Bridge for organizing photos.  Bridges ability to batch name/output is so great for my workflow.  After I get back from a shoot I can just import and rename them all in one go before I start really working.  It's rating system helps to do a quick and dirty selection process too.

you can do all that without the software ..

[rowdy]

Anyone got any thoughts on Google Picasa?

[rm-rf]

Anyone got any thoughts on Google Picasa?

read the user agreement you wont want to use it.

[jamster]

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

I tried Photo Mechanic a couple of years back, it's geared towards mass organisation/sorting/tagging of images for high throughput professionals (i.e. I don't believe it does image manipulation). It was easy to pick up. It is not free.

I ended up going with Lightroom for manipulation + organisation.

[jamster]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

Hahaha, this was my first thought.  )  "I use Windows Explorer"

It is just weird to me why someone would want some program on top of everything else. to use more system resources to do the exact same thing that your computer operating system already does for you...
or maybe they just don't know how?

Why would you want to use a computer to edit documents, when you can write on paper with charcoal stick? Or use a computer to send email when you can rely on the postman?

You're worried about system resources? Maybe it's time to ditch the Pentium 4.

[njbair]

I use Google Photos with auto backup for everything I take with my phone, then I can go back in and sort the auto backed up stuff later. I use Lightroom for raw files from my Nikon, then post the "developed" shots to Flickr (for hobby stuff) and/or Google (for family stuff).

And rm-rf, while it's true you can drag files around without leaving Windows Explorer, you cannot embed rich metadata such as EXIF data, approval/rejection and rating tags, and album/collection organization; iteratively apply every conceivable kind of treatment or correction non-destructively; or take advantage of a highly task-optimized interface.

[keshley]

Another Lightroom user here, so not a free solution. Not the best solution if you're just trying to organize, and don't care about editing.

Also, how many photos is too many to edit? On a good year, I take about 10,000 photos with my DSLR, and I go through all of them in Lightroom, post processing the good ones as I come across them. Lightroom will even let you do batch processing if you want.

For those who "use folders" to manage, when you're dealing with tens of thousands of photos, folders just doesn't cut it. I might be looking for photos by date (which is how my photos are organized on the drive), but I might need to find photos with architecture in them. Which I tag in Lightroom. Or maybe I want to find photos with Bicycles in them. I can't do a mass search for Bicycle photos taken in Charlotte if they're folder organized. Just not flexible enough. And I'm not going to drill down through hundreds of folders to find the 500 photos that might fit that criteria.

[Coreda]

Anyone got any thoughts on Google Picasa?

read the user agreement you wont want to use it.

The program or the hosting service? Seems fairly standard terms for sharing uploaded content on Google but didn't see anything about the program itself. Last version I used of the program was from 2005.

[SamirD]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

lol.  That's essentially what I do for the raw data.  Then a secondary backup and presentation/hosting on smugmug.

[SamirD]

My photo library backs up daily, but I'm concerned that if the originals become corrupted, then the copies will as well.  Basically all I'm doing right now is protecting against drive failure, not corruption.  How complicated/expensive is your solution? 

I'd never heard of Smugmug until now.    Very intriguing.  I skimmed through their "see what this is all about" section and they mention how easy it is for you to download your own photos; is it easy to offer an entire album for your friends to download?  I need an easy way to share entire albums with my family - emails are too small/cumbersome, I'm out of space on Dropbox (plus that's an obnoxious method), and flickr is super terrible for downloading pictures.

It's actually quite cheap.  I find the enterprise class drives in cdw's outlet from time to time, put them in an external enclosure with a fan.  I have 3 drives like this.  I then connect them to the fastest system I have where I also connect the memory card readers.  I copy the data from the cards to one of the drives and then compare it to the original.  I start uploading that to smugmug.  While it is uploading, I copy that same new batch of photos to the backup drive.  I compare the backup drive with the original.  After the smugmug upload is done, I download them again and compare that with the originals.  The originals are then moved to a folder I keep on the card called 'offloded'.  I erase the offloded directory on a card before I go out shooting again.

Since videos are transcoded at Smugmug, I keep three local copies of them on the drives.

Every so often (usually yearly) I use windff to compare one drive to another.  I note the differences and then play the 'one of these is not like the other' game and if two match, the third one got corrupted.  I'll copy a good copy over the corrupted one and move on.  I try to get rid of my drives in advance too.  I'll try to replace them every 2 years even though they have a 5yr warranty and a 1M mtbf.

Smugmug's storage is very, very robust.  I've uploaded and downloaded 100GB on that service and compared to the originals without a single bit error.  They're using Amazon's storage infrastructure so it's very bulletproof.

I'll upload the days photos to a an archive section I made in smugmug (where I do the upload and compare), and then upload the photos again to individual galleries for presentation.  (I actually upload the entire days again just like for the archive and then move them around in smugmug as that's easier, but the concept is the same.)

The whole solution sounds a lot more complicated than it is.  I literally don't rely on any specific computer system, and it works with any camera since it doesn't rely on the camera either.  I have 7 cameras that I can use and offload and keep organized pretty easily.  I've got about 700,000 pictures and videos in the archive.  I'm on the highest plan with smugmug and am using a bit over 1tb with them.  I think I even have a referral code I can give you that gives you a discount on the service.

[SamirD]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

Hahaha, this was my first thought.  )  "I use Windows Explorer"

It is just weird to me why someone would want some program on top of everything else. to use more system resources to do the exact same thing that your computer operating system already does for you...
or maybe they just don't know how?

There's a lot of features and workflow efficiencies that stand-alone programs can bring.  They also introduce their own overhead, so sometimes a native solution can work better.  It's really up to the task and individual.

[SamirD]

I use a thing called folders to manage all my files, sometimes those folders have other folders inside of them.

)

Nice try

Actually an iPhoto library is just a series of folders, it just happens to have a GUI on top that lets you group by "event", match faces (badly) and so on.

I have fallen back to organising by dates, with one folder for each calendar month, and then one or more folder inside that for each day (with an alphabetic suffix for different "events" on the same day).  But now I have to manually create the folders, manually import the photos from each device, manually delete the photos from each device, manually backup each folder and so on.

This is a pain to maintain (especially using Finder on a Mac), so I was hoping for some way of making the process a little less painful.

iPhoto at least would prompt to import and delete the photos as soon as I connect a device or plug a memory card in, groups by date with separate groups for multiple "events" on one day, and has a fairly simple export (for backup) process.

The only thing I don't like about 'automatic' systems is that when (not if) they mess up, you lose your photos...

[SamirD]

iPhoto sucks for me.

I own a DSLR and shoot primarily in .cr2 (raw). So if I want to preserve those RAW files I have to use Lightroom.

So basically LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

For editing, sure, but for organizing things by events and dates, Photos should still do a good job, no?

Nope.  Lightroom is even really good for organization.  There's a lot of pros that use it to catalog everything they've ever shot.

[SamirD]

By the way I have no need to edit the photos.

There are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to worry about editing them, anyway )

haha, I'm actually in the same boat.  That's why I like the smugmug solution--upload, hide photos I don't want to publish, share the gallery link to publish--done!

[SamirD]

I use a mix of plain Windows Explorer/Mac Finder and Adobe Bridge for organizing photos.  Bridges ability to batch name/output is so great for my workflow.  After I get back from a shoot I can just import and rename them all in one go before I start really working.  It's rating system helps to do a quick and dirty selection process too.

Adobe Bridge sounds interesting.  Can it do simple changes to the photos or just rename/exif/etc.?

[SamirD]

I use a mix of plain Windows Explorer/Mac Finder and Adobe Bridge for organizing photos.  Bridges ability to batch name/output is so great for my workflow.  After I get back from a shoot I can just import and rename them all in one go before I start really working.  It's rating system helps to do a quick and dirty selection process too.

you can do all that without the software ..

You can, but it won't be as easy (unless it's just renaming).

[SamirD]

Anyone got any thoughts on Google Picasa?

read the user agreement you wont want to use it.

Yep, a lot of 'free' products eula's are horrible.

[SamirD]

Another Lightroom user here, so not a free solution. Not the best solution if you're just trying to organize, and don't care about editing.

Also, how many photos is too many to edit? On a good year, I take about 10,000 photos with my DSLR, and I go through all of them in Lightroom, post processing the good ones as I come across them. Lightroom will even let you do batch processing if you want.

For those who "use folders" to manage, when you're dealing with tens of thousands of photos, folders just doesn't cut it. I might be looking for photos by date (which is how my photos are organized on the drive), but I might need to find photos with architecture in them. Which I tag in Lightroom. Or maybe I want to find photos with Bicycles in them. I can't do a mass search for Bicycle photos taken in Charlotte if they're folder organized. Just not flexible enough. And I'm not going to drill down through hundreds of folders to find the 500 photos that might fit that criteria.

Yep, and this is why a lot of pros use it.  I haven't used it myself, but I've interacted with a lot of people who do--and once they use it, it's a core part of their workflow.

[HoffmanMyster]

Samiiiiiiiiiiiiir

I've never seen a decuple-post before.    Please use the multi-quote button!

[SamirD]

Samiiiiiiiiiiiiir

I've never seen a decuple-post before.    Please use the multi-quote button!

I kept screwing up the multi-quotes so I just did it old school. 

[CPTBadAss]

Is there an open source version of Lightroom or a version where it isn't pay per month? I like the editing functionality of Lightroom but I don't need it to organize my pictures.

I just use Windows Explorer and flickr to organize the pictures I actually care about. imgur is for random stuff.

[keshley]

Is there an open source version of Lightroom or a version where it isn't pay per month? I like the editing functionality of Lightroom but I don't need it to organize my pictures.

I just use Windows Explorer and flickr to organize the pictures I actually care about. imgur is for random stuff.

Its getting harder and harder to find, but there's a standalone SKU. I think the reason its so hidden is because the standalone version of Lightroom ends up being a lot cheaper than the Adobe CC version. Assuming you use it every month, of course

I need to upgrade to LR 6 anyways, so let me see if I can dig it up...

Edit - Here it is: This link should add LR 6 standalone to cart

[CPTBadAss]

That's great to know. I don't think I'd use Adobe stuff enough to justify that monthly cost which is my issue.

[SamirD]

If you just want to do image editing, GIMP portable is also pretty awesome for free.

[rowdy]

read the user agreement you wont want to use it.

I usually do read them, haven't had a chance to look at this one yet though.

I tried Photo Mechanic a couple of years back, it's geared towards mass organisation/sorting/tagging of images for high throughput professionals (i.e. I don't believe it does image manipulation). It was easy to pick up. It is not free.

I ended up going with Lightroom for manipulation + organisation.

Both non-free unfortunately, which exceeds my $0 budget for this

I use Google Photos with auto backup for everything I take with my phone, then I can go back in and sort the auto backed up stuff later. I use Lightroom for raw files from my Nikon, then post the "developed" shots to Flickr (for hobby stuff) and/or Google (for family stuff).

Online, right?  I have far too many photos to upload, and it would be far too slow to manipulate them (sort, review, search) online.

[rowdy]

To give a vague indication of how many photos I am trying to organise, in 2014 I had around 5800 photos/videos totalling 20GB.  2015 is 4310 files totalling around 21GB and counting.

I also backup my other half's photos.

She created just over 60000 photos/videos totalling about 89GB in 2014, and so far in 2015 around 31000 files totalling 59GB.

The history goes back about 10 years, although everything before 2012 is stored on several other external hard drives.  It is mainly the incoming files that I would like to organise.

Anyone used DarkTable?

http://www.darktable.org/

It seems aimed at Linux distros mainly, but apparently runs on a Mac, although the "Good luck " doesn't fill me with confidence.

[CPTBadAss]

If you just want to do image editing, GIMP portable is also pretty awesome for free.

I want to bulk process photos. I have Photoshop Elements 9 which I use to image edit but it's a pain to process like 200 pictures with that.

[SamirD]

If you just want to do image editing, GIMP portable is also pretty awesome for free.

I want to bulk process photos. I have Photoshop Elements 9 which I use to image edit but it's a pain to process like 200 pictures with that.

Bulk processing is hard unless you have a simple process to do on all of them like sharpen 10%.  Then something like irfanview is quite good at that.