You can often find programs that are both viewers, editors, and catalogers at the same time. These are, for example, Zoner Photo Studio, ACDSee, Nero Kwik Media and many others. No doubt, all-in-one tools are convenient for many users. But if among the many of their features, the main ones for you are those related to organizing photos, it may be worth taking a closer look at specialized programs.
Firstly, such applications are not overloaded with unnecessary options - and therefore, in most cases, they work faster and more stable than multimedia processors. Secondly, specialized programs usually offer more tools for searching photos by different criteria.
Daminion 1.0RC
Under its current name, the Daminion cataloger has been in development for more than five years, but its creators have much more experience in writing applications for organizing photographs. Previously, Daminion developers released the PicaJet program, but later decided to write a completely new application with multi-user access to the photo database and other interesting opportunities. At the same time, a single-user version of Daminion is also available, which is distributed free of charge. The multi-user version is called Daminion Server.
Daminion works with catalogs - databases of photographs, and adding files to the catalog is the user's concern. This means that you need to manually specify the path to the folders with snapshots. In this case, files can be physically copied or transferred to a folder that is used to store data, or they can simply be added to the directory without copying. At the same time, Daminion remembers the relative paths to the files, so when transferring photos to another drive, all data in the directory will be saved. When adding photos to the catalog, you can immediately assign tags to them, or you can do it later - everything is at the discretion of the user.
As soon as the files are entered into the catalog, they are displayed in the program window as thumbnails with captions. In the signature, you can see the basic information about the file: name, resolution, size, shutter speed, ISO. In addition, each thumbnail contains tools for organizing: you can quickly set a rating, mark an image, add keywords, set a color label, view detailed metadata. The user can change the way files are displayed, displaying only images without additional information or vice versa, removing the thumbnails and calling up a list of files with information about them.
If you select an image, you can see more information about it in the Properties panel. There is also an opportunity to supplement this information: indicate the people who are captured on it, the event in which the photo was taken, the place of shooting, the category. For professional photographers, such fields as "Project", "Client", "Copyright" are provided. You can also fill in the fields in the Properties panel in batch mode by simply pre-selecting the desired photos. All changes in the tags are synchronized with the metadata of the files, so information about the files is always present both in the database and in the files themselves.
If the right panel is informational and at the same time serves for data entry, then the left panel - "Tags" - is intended for search. All file search criteria are here at a glance. For example, you can display only pictures located in the same folder, open the "Created Date" list and quickly find a photo by the month it was taken, display only files with the highest rating, and so on. It is very important that, in addition to custom tools for organizing, the program also offers a lot of automatic ones. For example, it's very easy to select geo-tagged photos taken with a specific camera, using a specific lens. There is nothing complicated in using several conditions at once.
There is also an advanced search in the program, which allows you to use up to fifty parameters, including operators AND, OR and others.
There are no image editing tools in Daminion, you can only rotate thumbnails for more convenient viewing. If any changes were made by mistake, you can always roll back to previous version- The program keeps track of revisions. This is especially true for multi-user work with the application.
Daminion works not only with graphic files, but also with video, PDF documents. At the same time, the program is optimized for working with very large collections of images (the test database consists of 500,000 images), so you don't have to worry about the stability of its work when adding new files. By the way, for convenience, you can use several independent directories that can be opened in the program at the same time - each on a separate tab.
IMatch 3.6
| Developer: | photools.com |
| Operating system: | Windows |
| Spreading: | shareware |
| Russian interface: | No |
Although latest version IMatch dates back to the end of last year, when you look at the program's interface, you get the impression that it has been around for many years. Really, appearance has always been IMatch's weak point, and against the backdrop of modern interface solutions, small buttons with Windows 2000-style graphics look scary. The author has long promised to redesign the appearance of the application, but so far this has not been done. However, many users still prefer this particular program.
The main reason is the support of scripts, thanks to which you can connect to the program almost any function that is not implemented in it by default. For example, there are scripts for file versioning, for finding files that were incorrectly tagged, for checking the correct names, and others. Scripts do not have to be created manually - very many useful additions already written by other users of the program and available on the forum.
Another important feature of IMatch is stable work with large collections of files. The program easily copes with databases containing hundreds of thousands of photos, does not slow down and works quite stably. In addition, IMatch implements a periodic reminder of the need to create a backup.
Like Daminion, this program works with photo databases that need to be manually populated with photographic content. The processes of creating a database and importing images are implemented as a wizard, but despite this, it is difficult to call them intuitive. Too many flags have to be set along the way. By default, the database is sorted by folders in the program window. It is also possible to browse by category, by saved search patterns, by the history of selected files, and so on.
MyPhotoIndex 1.24
MyPhotoIndex is inferior in functionality to its more advanced competitors, but the program has several important advantages. First, the program is free and open source. Secondly, it is very simple, and the user does not need to puzzle over where to find this or another option for a long time - they are all at hand.
The program offers the organization of photos by categories, by tags and by rating. Tags can be added immediately when importing images into the database of the program, moreover, several tags that are used most often are already added by default.
Access to all main functions is implemented through context menu. With it, you can add and remove tags, add and edit comments, change the date the picture was taken, send photos for printing, encrypt them, set them as wallpaper on your desktop. Separately, it is worth noting the possibility of data exchange: with one click, photos can be uploaded to Facebook, Flickr and other services.
Using the built-in search tools, the user can search for photos by tags, by title, and by other criteria. A convenient function is to search for images that were taken between two specified dates.
Photo Event Organizer 1.3
Of course, it's very good when you have the time and desire to keep your photo collection in perfect order: put ratings, sort pictures into categories and add tags. But, unfortunately, even a simple analysis of hundreds of photographs into folders for some drags on for months. Thanks to large memory cards, we do not have to think about the lack of space and often copy photos to the computer once every two months. And then all the events recorded during this time are in one heap.
Photo Event Organizer is simple program, which helps in simple sorting of running photo archives by date. Specify the directory in which all photos are stored, and also set the time interval that determines the duration of one event. After that, the program will show for what period the photos for which will fall into each folder, and will offer to give a name to each event during which they were taken. If desired, you can sort the photos simply by month or year.
After the operation is completed, you will see new folders with neat names like "October" and "November". Photo Event Organizer can either copy photos to new folders or move them, which is faster, of course. If duplicates are found during the copying process, they are new folder will not be transferred. Thus, the program can also help free up some space on your hard drive.
namexif 1.6
And in the end - one more simple free utility, which helps organize photos by adding time information to file names. The information is taken from the metadata written to the file at the time it was created. Once you get files with names like 2013-04-01-17h56m56.jpg, it becomes a little easier to navigate them.
Namexif's work is organized as a wizard: first, the user is prompted to specify files or folders. Since the program can look into subfolders, you can immediately select the root directory, and then Namexif will find and rename all the photos at once.
At the second stage, you need to choose the renaming format. For example, an application can leave the original name at the end, or add arbitrary characters to all names.
Unfortunately, there is no preview of changes, as well as rollback, so it's best to practice on small folders first.
Conclusion
The requirements for image organization programs may vary, but the end goal for the user is always the same - the ability to quickly find the right photo. Each of the programs discussed above helps in this in its own way, so it remains to choose the one that is best for you. Do not forget that the photos that you cannot find are just as useless as long deleted.
If there is a whole bunch of photos and videos on your computer and all this is scattered in different folders, then sometimes you want to look at pictures from a certain period of time (for example, for a year) and it turns out to be oh, how not easy!
Of course, you can collect everything together, put it in one folder, but you still have to organize all this stuff by years, months, or otherwise, depending on how you need it.
Consider 2 ways to organize photos and videos (together or separately, no difference) so that you can easily navigate, even if there are a lot of files, for example, several thousand.
The easiest and most convenient way to organize all the photos and videos so that you can easily navigate them is to group them all in the so-called Windows library (or several).
WHAT ARE WINDOWS FILE LIBRARIES
Libraries are separate folders, which group files according to a certain attribute (for example, music, images, videos, general) and allow you to work with these files more conveniently, for example, if you take images or videos, you can arrange them by date, which you cannot do in ordinary folders.
The following libraries are initially created on Windows:
- Video;
- Images;
- Documentation;
- Music.
Accordingly, each of them is intended for a certain type of files, which is clear from the names.
Libraries are displayed directly in Windows Explorer, in the left column:
You can rename the libraries as needed. For example, it is not necessary to split videos and images into separate libraries. Yes, it will be more correct and more orderly, but it may be convenient for someone to put everything in one pile, both photos and videos. In this case, you can rename the "Images" library, for example, to "Videos and Photos" and add both there and then. The “Images” library itself will also allow you to arrange the videos correctly, since the settings of these libraries are very similar.
You can also create new libraries if you wish. But usually this is not necessary. Since the defaults already available are enough for any type of file.
ORGANIZING PHOTOS / VIDEOS IN LIBRARIES
Transferring photo / video collections to the library
The first thing to do is to transfer all your photos and videos scattered around your computer to one or more libraries. Decide right away whether you will store photos and videos separately, i.e. in different libraries, as originally conceived in Windows, or all on the heap. Let me remind you that you can do this and that and everything will work.
According to your choice, collect all the photos and videos from your computer in the appropriate folders: "Pictures" and "Videos" (or all in "Pictures").
If the computer is such a mess that it is difficult to manually find all the photos and videos scattered in different folders, then you can use the WinDirStat program to help. It allows you to evaluate which files (by category) take up space on your computer and where they are located.
Photos and videos should be moved to folders, not libraries. You can find the “Pictures”, “Videos” and other folders in your user folder (for old operating systems), or in the This PC section (for newer systems, such as Windows 10).
The libraries themselves are formed just from some of these folders.
If you already had photos and videos in some other folders, then you can transfer them entirely in folders. It is not necessary to move files separately. Example:
Sort by dates
After you have moved your entire collection to the “images” and “videos” folders or to one of them, open the corresponding library through the “Libraries” section (shown above). Initially, there will be no order there, of course. Everything will look something like this:
But since the collection is now in the library, it's easy to organize everything by date.
To do this, click on an empty space in the library with the right mouse button (hereinafter referred to as “RMB”) and select “arrange”, then select the value “day” or “month”. If you select “month”, your collection will be sorted by month, with the year next to it. Example:
And now you can open a specific month and see photos for this period. Getting into the folder of the selected month, the photos in it will already be sorted by day (see below).
If you select “day”, the entire collection in the folder will be sorted, respectively, by day:
By clicking on the arrows next to a certain day, you can hide the photo / video for that day:
If you want to unorder, i.e. to turn on the normal view, then in the “Organize” menu, select “Folder”.
Note! Windows organizes photos and videos primarily by “date taken” (for photos) and “Date created media” (for videos). These parameters are usually set to the file by the device itself, on which the shooting was carried out. You can see and change them through the file properties (RMB on the file and select “Properties”), in the “Details” tab.
Video media creation date
If for some reason this data is not in the file (for example, the device did not create it when shooting), then the photos and videos will be sorted by the date the file was created:
But this is not good, because the creation date of the file changes every time it is copied to a different folder, to a different disk, etc. It's best to always include the date the photo was taken and the date the media was created!
More “fine” filtering by dates
You can filter your collections even more finely, for example, select a specific day or range of days (weeks, months, etc.) for which you want to display photos / videos.
Before that, you need to change the file display option to “table”. To do this, right-click in the window area, select “view” - “table”. The files in the folder will be displayed in the form of a table, indicating the date, size and other parameters in the corresponding cells:
Now, by clicking to the right of the “Dates” column, you can select a specific day or range of dates, weeks, months, years. For example, we want to display photos / videos only for the dates from November 11, 2016 to November 30 of the same year. Select the range with the mouse and all elements that do not correspond to the specified dates will disappear in the explorer window.
If you need to cancel filtering, then also open the window of the selected filter and uncheck it (see image above).
Ability to group files according to different criteria
In addition to sorting the collection by dates, you can also group by certain criteria, for example, by file type, and in this case, all displayed files will be conveniently grouped. Example:
From the example above, we see that 3 groups have been created, by file types, the unnecessary of which can be collapsed so as not to interfere. This is useful when there are a large number of different files in a folder, when you need to view only files of certain types. For example, we want to separate photos and videos by grouping them appropriately. By selecting grouping by file type, we will see separately video files grouped by file type (MP4, MOV, etc.) and photos grouped similarly (JPG, PNG, etc.).
To perform grouping, right-click in the desired folder, select “Grouping” and in the submenu that opens, specify the desired grouping option, for example, “Type” (just “by file type”, as described above in the example).
There are different grouping options besides the file type. If the desired option is not in the list (it happens that the “Type” option is also missing), in the grouping submenu, click “Details”.
In the window that opens, check the boxes for the grouping options that you will use and click “OK”. They will now appear in the list of grouping options.
If you want to cancel the grouping, select "None" in the list of options.
You should be aware that grouping is not available if you have selected any ordering option, such as “month” or “day”. Grouping only works when ordering is disabled, i.e. “folder” option is selected (see above).
CONCLUSION
In fact, for those who have a large collection of photos and videos, it will always be important to be able to quickly organize everything by date or group it. It is convenient and very easy to do.
If you have something to add or any questions about the article, leave it in the comments, I won’t miss anything! :)
Do you have a lot of photos and videos stored on your computer? :) How do you hover in your multimedia collections?
We continue the topic and continue to direct order in the computer. Today we will clean up the folders with photos.
Immediately make a reservation - I know that there are many special programs, which can not only sort and process your photos, but also, if desired, post them to a web gallery. And not only do I know, but I know how to use them. But this post is not about batch processing photos in Photoshop and not about the advantages of Lightroom over Picasa. It's about how to arrange a mountain digital photos, cluttered up half of the hard drive and how to subsequently prevent such disgrace.
And those who want to automate the process can sort it out at their leisure in the appropriate software.
You can come up with a huge number of systems for organizing digital photographs, professionals have one, amateurs have others. The main thing is to organize your home photo archive in a way that is convenient for you personally.
The following principles can be taken as a guide
1. The Photos folder is divided into several categories, for example:
- Travel and trips
- Guests and holidays
- Job
- Miscellaneous Pretty Things
- disassemble
2. Now we determine the scale of the disaster and begin to scatter photos into categories. If you can't decide which category to put a photo in, temporarily send it to the Collate folder.
3. When distributing photos, along the way, get rid of frankly unsuccessful, blurry shots, as well as duplicates.
- folders with names in the format "Year_Month_Event", for example 2010_09_Mushroom hunting or 2011_01_Masha's birthday. Folders with such names are automatically arranged in chronological order
- folders with clarifying names - for those photos where the date of shooting is not important. For example, in my Work folder, I have Cooking, Wallpaper, or Tile Collections folders. Or in the folder "Various beautiful things" - "Cats", "Nature", "City"
Rename folders inside categories according to one of these principles.
5. We look through the “Disassemble” folder - after several tens or hundreds of files have gathered there, you will probably come up with some idea for sorting.
Now let's take a look at the files themselves. Inside each folder, select all files, press F2 (rename) and enter a name (for example, 2010_09_Mushroom hunt) Now each file will have a name like “2010_09_Mushroom hunt (1)” The serial number will be indicated in brackets.
In order to free up disk space, you can do the following: inside each folder, create a “Best” folder and copy the most good photos from every event. Make a crop, remove red eyes, correct the color and save for viewing or sharing. The remaining and original photos are archived and rolled up on DVD.
That's it, we'll put things in order in your digital photo archive, now the task is to maintain it. To do this, just a few simple steps:
1. Regularly upload photos from the camera to the "Disassemble" folder on your computer or laptop
2. Once a week (at computer tuesday) sort the contents of this folder, deleting unsuccessful photos and processing successful ones, and immediately, without leaving the cash register, scatter them into categories, not forgetting to rename them.
An unbridled desire to photograph anything and everything is characteristic of any owner of a digital camera. Therefore, on the computers of the vast majority of users (who modern users does not take pictures?) an unimaginable number of pictures accumulate quite quickly, which are often found in randomly named folders and have meaningless names. Finding the right picture in such gigabyte photo jungle is quite difficult, because it is unrealistic to view the entire photo archive every time. As a result, unique pictures that captured some memorable moments of life are likely to be lost among a host of other images.
However, providing quick and convenient access to specific photos is not so difficult. To do this, you need to think carefully about the system for storing images in your photo archive and involve specialized software tools in the process.
Storing pictures on a computer
The first step is to clearly understand that storing all the pictures in a digital camera is not the most convenient and, of course, not the most reliable way. It is better to download photos to your computer after each photo shoot, and do it as soon as possible - while the memories of the events are still fresh in your memory. After that, it is wise to immediately get rid of bad shots - blurry shots, dimly lit photos, out-of-focus shots, etc. Of course, some of them can be improved by certain software tools, however, if the same images are available best quality It is clearly not worth spending time on correcting shooting defects.
Of course, when importing photos to a computer, it is better not to drop them into randomly created folders - otherwise, in the future, you will spend a lot of time searching for the right pictures. You should develop some kind of hierarchical system for storing images (taking into account the nuances of a possible search), and then save the images in accordance with your own system of rules.
There are many options for organizing the storage of images in the photo archive. Most often, when distributing images into folders, they are guided by the calendar-geographical principle (in this case, the date and place appear in the folder name - for example, 2011_05_27_Crete) or divide the images into folders based on the events on which they were taken (say, 2011_07_31_Birthday) - Fig. . 1. You can also take into account the theme of pictures in the system (landscapes, animals, flowers, etc.), etc. In general, each user will have his own version of the hierarchy in the photo archive, which depends on the significance of certain criteria for him.
Rice. 1. Possible option
photoarchive folder structures
In addition, it may be useful for search if you mark photos with keywords (family, vacation, corporate, etc.), thereby combining them into virtual thematic collections. This will allow in the future to quickly identify (by filtering or otherwise - depending on which software tool will be used to solve this problem) images, taking into account the keywords of interest. It is faster to assign such keywords when importing images from the camera, although you can do this operation later - after saving the photos to disk. Unfortunately, in any case, the initial process of assigning keywords will require some time and effort, although modern software allow you to assign keywords to groups of photos at once, which significantly speeds up the process. In addition, you need to approach the assignment of keywords thoughtfully - with an eye to the expected needs and based on the software tools that will be used to manage the photo archive.
As for the file names, everything is not clear. It is desirable to use descriptive filenames that make it easy to identify what kind of image it is, since it is completely unrealistic to guess from the name of the DSC_0705 view that this is, say, a photograph from a family vacation in Thailand. Therefore, it is better to rename pictures according to a template. The type of template is determined by the nuances of the search. It seems to us preferable to have the date (perhaps only the year and month) and the frame number in the name of the snapshot - for example, 2011-09-05_0015.jpg or 2011-09_0015.jpg (15th frame taken on September 5, 2011 or September 2011 ) - rice. 2. It is also possible to add the name of a place or event to the name of the image - a variant of the name of a specific photo from the group in this case may look like: Thailand_2011-09_0015.jpg. Such renaming should be carried out in batch mode (manually renaming hundreds and thousands of files is completely unrealistic) - it is better during the process of importing files or immediately after uploading them to the photo archive.
Rice. 2. Batch rename files
When developing a variant of the hierarchical division of photographs, it is worth being guided by two important principles. First, if possible, place the same type of photos together - in the future this will simplify orientation. Secondly, each image must be entered into the archive in a single copy, otherwise the volume of the archive will increase significantly, and difficulties will arise if it is necessary to edit images that have duplicates. It should also be noted that it is more convenient (both in terms of orientation and in terms of the intended backup) to store your photo archive on a separate disk or in its separate partition (ideally, on a separate external drive), where no other information will be stored.
Snapshot management
After setting up a hierarchical system for storing images on disk, you can manage the photo archive using a variety of software tools. The simplest and most affordable way is to use Windows 7 Libraries. Libraries are, in fact, virtual folders in which files are combined, regardless of their physical location. This makes it easier to find, use, and organize files on your computer or on the network. By default, Libraries are designed to help you manage your documents, music, pictures, and videos more efficiently, although you can use them to organize other files if you like. Viewing files in libraries is carried out in the same way as in ordinary folders.
In the case of working with your own photo archive, it makes sense to create a library specially designed for this, give it an appropriate name (for example, "Photo Archive"), and then directly from the explorer indicate to Windows the range of folders that will contain new library(Fig. 3). It is worth noting that the specified folders with photos can be stored on various media(for example, on the hard disk of a desktop PC and an external hard disk), but after placing them in the library, it will be possible to view the corresponding images in one window. And the convenience is not only in this - it will also be possible to arrange files by properties (for example, by date, type, etc.), sort and group them according to a number of parameters, including keywords (Fig. 4).
Rice. 3. Determining the range of folders for the created library in Windows 7
Rice. 4. Grouping pictures based on keywords through libraries
Windows 7
You can go the other way - use the graphics viewer you like, which has minimal functionality for organizing photo collections - as a rule, support for categories, tags and ratings (similar features are provided in many solutions of this kind). Which decision to choose is a matter of taste and wallet, since on the market you can find both recognized commercial products and quite worthy alternatives. free apps. As an example, let's name the paid program ACDSee, well-known to most users, and the free cross-platform viewer XnView, which is gaining popularity. Both named software products are designed to view, organize and easily edit images.
Working with images in these solutions is easy and convenient, as the developers have provided different options for viewing images, included simple tools for performing basic editing operations, thought out functionality for convenient image sharing, etc. As for organizing a photo archive and getting quick access to images of interest, here, of course, the possibilities are more impressive than in the libraries of Windows 7 (that's what specialized software is for!). For example, rating images allows you to assign to each image a certain value in terms of its value (for example, quality), so that in the future it will be possible to quickly find the most popular original images. The use of color marks also simplifies organization - with such marks, for example, you can mark images at different stages of the workflow (in some colors - original images, in others - images after correction, in others - images selected for printing, etc.) - fig. . 5. No less convenient is the use of categories, thanks to which you can instantly find images belonging to a specific category or even several at once (Fig. 6).
Rice. 5. Use custom color labels to highlight pictures
in ACDSee
Rice. 6. Quick access to images from two categories at once in XnView
As a rule, an even more convenient option for managing a photo archive is provided by photo organizers, which are designed to organize and sort digital photographs. Therefore, it is not surprising that these products have more advanced features for organizing photo collections and quickly searching for pictures in them. There are many such solutions on the market. Some of them (such as Apple Aperture, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, ACDSee Pro Photo Manager, etc.) are quite expensive, difficult to learn and aimed at professional photographers. At the same time, home users also have nothing to complain about - they have numerous compact and easy-to-learn applications that are affordable or even free. Examples of such programs include Zoner Photo Studio, PicaJet, and Picasa.
Cataloging pictures using photo organizers is as easy as shelling pears - just place each photo immediately into its logical catalog category (Fig. 7) or first into the general storage, and then assign categories to the pictures (often with the ability to highlight different categories with icons), ratings and tags, and also assign keywords (this will determine whether images belong to specific logical groups). Note that you can assign keywords to all selected images at once and not just one keyword at a time (Fig. 8) - this significantly reduces the complexity of this operation.
Rice. 7. Add files from disk to PicaJet category
Rice. 8. Assign keywords in Zoner Photo Studio
All this will allow you to quickly find the necessary photos in the future by searching, filtering, sorting and grouping. Of particular note is the ability to take into account when searching and filtering keywords, which makes it possible to perform complex search queries(taking into account not only one, but also several keywords) - fig. 9. In particular, by manipulating keywords, you can easily find in the depths hard drives all pictures with a sunset on the river, a son on a bicycle, temples under restoration, blossoming apple trees, etc., even if you shot such objects in the course of things, many times and at different times.
Rice. 9. Quick search keyword-based in Zoner Photo Studio
Briefly about products
ACDSee 14.3
Developer: ACD Systems
Distribution size: 71.8 MB
Work under control: Windows XP(SP2)/Vista/7
Distribution method: shareware (30 day demo - http://www.acdsee.com/en/free-trials)
Price:$29.99
ACDSee is a world famous graphics viewer (Fig. 10) aimed at both professionals and home users. Includes tools for quick and easy viewing of files of various graphic formats, as well as audio and video files and archives. In addition to viewing graphics, this solution can be used for editing and cataloging images, batch processing files, finding duplicates, online image sharing, etc.
Rice. 10. Working with pictures in ACDSee
Cataloging in ACDSee is based on the use of categories, ratings and colored labels. Categories are created manually (there is a predefined list of basic categories) and can be nested; For better orientation, the categories are highlighted with different icons. The ratings in this program are basic, but the labels can be edited, which allows you to select images into logical groups in accordance with personal tasks. There is support for keywords and geotags, it is possible to edit EXIF-??and IPTC-data. Imported in category pictures from the most different devices: hard drive, CDs, digital cameras, flash drives, scanners, etc. Batch file renaming is supported. With one click, you can send selected different places for some reason, files into the so-called image basket (Image Basket) for further editing or sharing. When viewed, images are displayed as thumbnails, full screen, or as a slideshow; if necessary, individual fragments of the image can be easily viewed in an enlarged form with the help of a “magnifying glass”. Get more fast access accessing the images you want is easy with sorting, grouping, and filtering based on image size, date, rating, tags, EXIF data, categories, and keywords.
The editing panel built into the program, in addition to supporting basic operations (rotation, cropping, etc.), will help you correct the image exposure, adjust levels and curves, and color correction, get rid of red-eye and noise, and apply standard filters to the image. These operations can be performed on not only single images, but also on several images at once in batch mode. Tools are provided for comparing images and converting them to other raster formats. In addition, ACDSee allows you to burn images to CD/DVD, combine them into slideshows, PDF files and web albums, as well as easily share images by uploading them to social media, to FTP servers, etc.
Zoner Photo Studio 14
Developer: Zoner Software
Sizedistribution kit: Zoner Photo Studio Free - 26.7 MB; Zoner Photo Studio Pro - 87.7 MB
Work under control: Windows XP(SP2)/Vista/7
Distribution method: Zoner Photo Studio Free - freeware; the other two editions are shareware 30 day demo (http://www.zoner.com/ww-en/download-free-photo-program)
Price: Zoner Photo Studio Home - $34.99, Zoner Photo Studio Pro - $69.99, Zoner Photo Studio Free - Free
Zoner Photo Studio is a recent but well-established photo management, editing and organization software. sharing to them (Fig. 11). Possibilities this decision impressive, many functions are implemented by developers with an eye on professional products, in particular on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The program is presented in three editions: free Zoner Photo Studio Free and two commercial - Zoner Photo Studio Home and Zoner Photo Studio Pro. The free edition features are limited to basic functionality. In addition, this edition does not have a 64-bit version and does not support GPU acceleration, as well as dual monitor operation.
Rice. 11. Organize your photo collection in Zoner Photo Studio
Zoner Photo Studio allows you to create a photo archive as a set of albums based on an existing folder structure or manually. Albums have an unlimited nesting level, and the easiest way to create them is by dragging the corresponding folders with pictures from the Explorer window onto the Albums folder of the program navigator. You can replenish the photo archive directly from devices (from camera memory cards, scanners, etc.), as well as by receiving images from websites, PDF files, etc. When viewing images, they are displayed as icons or thumbnails; to speed up access to images of interest, it is easy to use sorting, built-in search and filtering. When filtering and searching, EXIF data, keywords, service text information (title, description, etc.), as well as ratings, tags and GPS coordinates (the latter are entered manually or read from Google maps) can be taken into account. It is possible to batch rename files according to a template.
The editing options are also impressive and will interest both beginners and advanced users. The former may be limited to basic functions (rotation, cropping, straightening, automatic image enhancement), while the latter will be interested in advanced editing functions such as adjusting levels, color editing, improving exposure, noise reduction, etc. Any changes can be applied not only to one, but also to several images at once in batch mode. There is also functionality for converting images from RAW formats to bitmap formats and editing EXIF data. Favorite photos can be easily combined into a PDF slideshow or converted into a postcard, and even 3D and HDR images can be created. As for publishing, it is worth noting the creation of web galleries, recording DVD presentations, printing (using templates and photo calendars), sending via e-mail, as well as uploads to Facebook, Flickr, and Picasa web albums.
PicaJet 2.6
Developer: picajet.com
Distribution size: PicaJet FX - 5.91 MB; PicaJet Free - 4.81 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/7
Distribution method: PicaJet Free - freeware; PicaJet FX - shareware, 15 day demo (http://www.picajet.com/en/index.php?page=download)
Price: PicaJet FX - 490 rubles.
PicaJet is a convenient and very easy to use program for cataloging image collections (Fig. 12). It is presented in two editions: free PicaJet Free and commercial PicaJet FX. The free edition includes only a basic set of functions - in particular, it does not provide for the creation of categories, the possibilities of sorting and searching, etc. are more than limited, so we do not recommend choosing PicaJet Free to manage large and complex archives. The commercial edition has all the necessary set of functions for effective organization of photo archives, and it may well suit the majority of home users.
Rice. 12. Managing your photo collection in PicaJet
To organize a photo archive, PicaJet uses categories that are created automatically when adding images based on the existing folder structure and / or on the basis of IPTC data, or manually. The nesting level of categories is not limited. You can add pictures to the collection from a digital camera, scanner, webcam, CD/DVD, and hard drive folders. To speed up the process of including images in the photo archive, it is allowed to use hot keys; you can also quickly import images from File Explorer by dragging and dropping. In order to better identify categories, they can be assigned a variety of icons. Categories are assigned during import or manually, for which it is enough to drag a group of images onto a category. There is functionality for batch renaming of selected files based on templates. If necessary, it is easy to add a description and / or rating to the selected images. Photos can be viewed with grouping and/or sorting by date, rating, import time, etc.; pictures can be displayed as a slideshow when viewed.
The editing plan includes operations such as cropping and rotating, red-eye removal, sharpening, auto-correct, and so on. It supports quick correction of several images with one click, as well as resizing them and converting them to another graphic format on the fly. It is possible to print photos in popular formats (including 9×13, 13×18, 10×15), as well as editing metadata (EXIF and IPTC). As for the exchange, it is worth noting the presence of functionality for creating photo galleries for publication on the website, burning photo collections to CDs, sending photos to mobile phone, as well as optimizing photos for sending them by e-mail.
Picasa 3.9
Developer: Google
Distribution size: 14.5 MB
Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7
Distribution method: freeware (http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa39-setup.exe)
Price: for free
Picasa is a popular tool for organizing, viewing, and easily editing photos (Figure 13), and is known in no small part for its tight integration with Picasa's web albums. Such integration expands the possibilities of sharing pictures with other users, and this is a definite plus. And the functionality of this program as a whole is at the level. However, the method of organizing images implemented by the developers, in our opinion, is not very successful. In addition, the application is quite demanding on resources and is accompanied by a very mediocre help system.
Rice. 13. Organize your photo archive in Picasa
Picasa uses albums to catalog images, you cannot create sub-albums. Albums are filled manually by disassembling the images found after scanning or importing, which takes a lot of time from the user. Scanning hard drives is launched the first time the program is launched, and by default it scans all hard disks computer, which is quite a long time - better this process interrupt, manually correct the list of scanned directories through the folder manager and restart the scan. Photos from hard drives are added to photo collections automatically as scanning progresses, and you can add photos manually by importing images from cameras, CDs, memory cards, scanners, webcams, and more. In addition to albums, Picasa has another cataloging tool, the People collection. With its help, cataloging of images by the people depicted on them is provided with the connection of face recognition technology. This collection is created in a semi-automatic mode - the faces in all the pictures are automatically recognized, and then the user needs to specify the faces of interest in the pictures to create the corresponding albums. During playback, images are displayed in normal mode or in the form of a slideshow, taking into account the specified sorting option (by name, date, etc.). To speed up access to the desired pictures, you can mark your favorite photos with tags, as well as use tags - they resemble keywords and make it easy to find photos later through the built-in search. You can also specify geographic data to link images to google map Earth.
Built-in editing tools allow you to resize photos, rotate them, crop them, and perform a number of image correction operations (removing red-eye, alignment, adjusting contrast and color balance, etc.). In addition, it is possible to rename several photos and batch edit them, as well as online image editing using the Picnik.com service. There is functionality for printing photos in basic formats, as well as editing EXIF data. If you want, it's easy to create a photo collage of the selected pictures, burn the pictures to a CD, create a video by combining photos into a slideshow, or publish to Blogger. You can also share your albums with others after adding them to Picasa Web Albums.
XnView 1.99.1
Developer: Pierre E Gougelet
Distribution size: 4.36 MB
Work under control: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP/Vista/7; There are versions for Mac OS X and Linux
Distribution method: freeware (http://www.xnview.com/en/download.html)
Price: free (for private non-commercial or educational use)
XnView is a free cross-platform viewer for images and other multimedia files (Fig. 14) with support for very a large number formats (for this moment- more than 500). The program allows you to easily view, process and convert image files, and is also equipped with a number of additional features, including the presence simple tools to organize photo collections.
Rice. 14. Working with a collection of snapshots in XnView
Photo archive management in XnView is based on the use of categories, the nesting of which is unlimited. Assigning categories to images is done manually and is possible for all selected or marked files at once. You can add pictures to the photo archive from a disk, as well as from scanners and digital cameras. In addition to category support, you can assign ratings, color labels, and tags to your many photos to make it easier to navigate. When viewing photos, it is allowed to include sorting by date, rating, format, width/height, orientation, description, comment, etc.; You can view the selected pictures as a slideshow. A built-in search is also implemented in the program, taking into account the basic parameters of images, including EXIF and IPTC data. You can batch convert and batch rename files.
The utility is equipped with a basic set of image editing functions (including resizing, rotation, cropping), allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, gamma and color balance, has tools for auto tuning levels, red-eye removal, simple filters and effects, etc. Many operations can be applied to a group of images at once in batch mode. It is possible to edit IPTC data. If necessary, the XnView utility can also be used to compare images, print files, create panoramic images, take screenshots, generate multi-page files and web pages, and a number of other actions.
Conclusion
Photo archives are different for everyone, as well as the requirements for working with them, however, for all users, searching for the right pictures in the archive takes a lot of time. It can only be drastically accelerated proper organization photo collections, which implies a well-thought-out system of catalogs in the archive and the use of specialized software tools.
Each user chooses a hierarchical system himself, based on the subject of the pictures and his own priorities - the main thing here is that you feel comfortable. As for software tools, it all depends on the user's requirements in terms of cataloging and the complexity of the intended search. Someone will have enough opportunities Windows libraries 7 or a simple free viewer, others will prefer more functional paid solutions: the popular ACDSee viewer or one of the photo organizers we reviewed, among which Zoner Photo Studio seemed to be the most convenient for cataloging.
Almost every person enjoying digital camera, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of different photographs have accumulated on the computer. Everyone has this huge archive stored in different ways. Someone, in one directory, has a lot of different folders with names or dates corresponding to photographs, and someone has them all stored on different disks, network storages, in different folders, and it is quite possible that some have long been forgotten in some some folder named "New Folder" :)
Of course, when photographs from several years are scattered all over the computer, the mere thought of organizing and searching for them causes negative feelings. But not everything is as bad as it seems at first glance :) Regardless of how you store photos - Google Picasa will help you with all this archive. I will try to describe in detail the process of organizing your home photo archive using Google Picasa.
In just one hour, you can achieve impressive results:
- Find all the photos on your computer, even the ones you forgot about.
- Organize them and learn how to quickly search for the photos you need!
Automatic search for all photos.
Let's start from the first point. As I already wrote, to manage my home photo archive, I use a very convenient Google program picasa. It is a free and very powerful photo manager. You can download it at official page: //picasa.google.ru/ . The installation of the program runs smoothly and calmly: run setup file and we agree with everything that we are offered to do.
Before you get started with Google Picasa, remember two very important and useful things:
Picasa does not store photos on your computer: When you open Picasa, it simply searches the folders on your computer and displays the photos it finds. It displays files of the specified types located in the folders selected for search. Original photos are always kept: When using the editing tools in Picasa, the original files remain intact. Changes you make to a photo are only viewable in Picasa until you choose to save them. Even so, Picasa creates new version photos with the changes made, keeping the original file unchanged.So, when Google Picasa is installed, we launch it. If all the photos on your computer are located in different folders or on different drives, then I recommend that you wait until it automatically searches for photos on your computer.
For example, I have all the photos stored in one folder, so after starting I immediately specified the folder with which the program should work. If you have the same situation, then I recommend that you immediately go to the menu Tools -> Folder Manager and tick only those folders in which photos are stored.
If you have photos scattered all over your computer, then you can do nothing but watch as Picasa finds all your photos and images.
When the program performs a full scan of your computer - on the left side you will see a lot of folders in which images and photos were found. Initially, Picasa finds absolutely every image on your computer.
Sort and organize photos in a collection.
You need to clear this list yourself. To clear the list of photo folders:
Finally, when the list of folders has been cleared of everything unnecessary, you can combine the remaining directories into a Collection. For example, in my archive I found several different folders from my vacation in 2012:
In this form, the names of these folders are not very informative for me personally. Therefore, I combined them into one collection. For this:
Now you just have to look through the entire list of folders and organize them into your collections.
