Advice needed for organizing and classifying pictures

[joannec]

I am very new to digital photography and would like some advice about programmes for classifying and organizing my pictures. I have the HP Photo and Imaging programme which came with the printer and Zoom Browser which came with the Canon S2 IS camera. Do some of you have experience with either of these programmes and are they any good? I have heard there are some free viewing and album programmes available. Can anyone recommend any? Is it better to buy one of the album programmes and if so can anyone recommend any particular ones? I am currently experimenting with Serif Photo Plus for editing but it doesn't have an album with it. Would I be better off investing in Photoshop?

[IanF]

I use ThumbsPlus for cataloguing my photos. You can add any number of folders and sub folders. It also has some good image manipulation tools as well as a good slide show feature.

It used to be a freebie with magazine CD's but by the looks of it, it's only free for a time limited period now.

Mine's TP4 but it's now up to version 7. If the TP+4 is anything to go by then it's well worth the money.

[RAH]

The program Picasa, free from Goggle, is very popular, and mentioned many times in threads on this forum - i.e. you could do a Forum search on it and get more info. Or go to the website and take a look - http://picasa.google.com/

[john-henry]

I am very new to digital photography and would like some advice about programmes for classifying and organizing my pictures. I have the HP Photo and Imaging programme which came with the printer and Zoom Browser which came with the Canon S2 IS camera. Do some of you have experience with either of these programmes and are they any good? I have heard there are some free viewing and album programmes available. Can anyone recommend any? Is it better to buy one of the album programmes and if so can anyone recommend any particular ones? I am currently experimenting with Serif Photo Plus for editing but it doesn't have an album with it. Would I be better off investing in Photoshop?


I use Fotostation 4.5 and find it very good for sorting, filing and printing from, however I think it costs £70 or so, very expensive for what it is.
If I didn't have this I would use Picasa2, free from Google, it seems to be an excellent program, much better than Zoombrowser.

There are also several good editing programs available for free if you search around.

regards
john

[AlexH]

I would recommend Photoshop Elements 3- aside from being very capable at image manipulation, the organisational side of it is very intuitive and easy to use. It has a couple of different ways to catalogue depending on how you work, as well as a very handy date view. Worth checking out Adobe's website.

[Trevor Lee]

I would agree with Alex. I have photoshop elements 3 and it is excellent at organizing your photos. Adobe have just brought out elements 4 but i dont know how much more than Elements 3 this is. I can recommend it though.

Regards

Trevor

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[stevo]

A friend of mine has a program called ACDSEE(I think thats the right name) & loves it I believe some versions of it are free.

Steve.

[John P]

If it's basically an album you want with some editing facilities I would try Picasa (http://picasa.google.co.uk/) first before you spend any money.

It's very simple to install and immediately after installation it will search out every image on your computer and organise them for you. Moving them around from there if you need to is simplicity in itself, just drag and drop.

It automatically picks up any new pictures uploaded to your computer in the future and sorts them by date order. Lots of other features too.

[joannec]

Thank you everyone for your advice. It seems people like Picassa and Elements 3. Unfortunately, my computer has windows 98 and both of these need xp so it looks like I will have to have it upgraded. I haven't yet looked into ACDSEE but I will.
Joanne

[Highway Man]

I use Photoshop Album 2. One of the great things about this is that you can download a limited version from Adobe's website http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=72&platform=Windows Unfortunately I think you also need XP.

Mark

[saluki]

Thank you everyone for your advice. It seems people like Picassa and Elements 3. Unfortunately, my computer has windows 98 and both of these need xp so it looks like I will have to have it upgraded. I haven't yet looked into ACDSEE but I will.
Joanne

I use ACDSee 7 on my home PC running Win98 - it works fine. Great program and easy to use, probably the best one mentioned unless one wants to use something professional such as Extensis's Portfolio.

saluki

[normjackson]

Thank you everyone for your advice. It seems people like Picassa and Elements 3. Unfortunately, my computer has windows 98 and both of these need xp so it looks like I will have to have it upgraded. I haven't yet looked into ACDSEE but I will.
Joanne
The FastStone viewer/browser might be worth a look :
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

[John P]

Unfortunately, my computer has windows 98 and both of these need xp so it looks like I will have to have it upgraded. I checked the obvious download page and it seems that you are correct, however I'm running Win 98 and Picasa works fine for me, mine is version 2.0.0.



There's a download here (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Picasa2_d4476.html) which says it works with "Win - all" and if that won't work there is an older version here (http://www.tucows.com/start_dl/348746_131993_602)