Best way to Tag Photos - non-Sw specific

I am about to embark on a serious organization project.

I have put my images into directories

now - I want to tag my photos.

I have 2 questions

What is the best SW to use for Tagging

(is free Picasa that must worse than $99 Adobe)?

How can I tag but get the info into the file itself so it is

software package independent.

 

Thanks

Allen

Allen the "best" is always subjective. Don't expect a final answer. Ask yourself what you need and/or what you want. Visualize a data base structure that will fill all your points. Then download the SW (most have 30 day trials} and test each one to your requirments. Then you will probably suit YOUR purposes not others opinions.

 

I personally use (the old) PS Album 2 which is around 50 US for over 21,000 images and it works for me. Organization only. Good luck.

For software independence, your best bet is any software that supports the IPTC standard. This is an aging standard and really designed for press work. However, it is a standard, is public, and should be portable to the newer standard, which is Adobe's XMP.

 

I'm not sure what software, if any, currently supports XMP. You could try IMatch, which supports IPTC writing. I use IMatch and am quite happy with it.

 

Beware of any software that allows changing the EXIF data in an image. EXIF is designed to be read-only, for the most part, and you could end up with unreadable files.

I used to use Picasa but found <a href="http://www.itagsoftware.com">iTag</a> to be an excellent (and free!) tool for adding IPTC metadata.

I just found iTag on an independent search. At first glance it is everything that I wanted in a simple program with good visible documentation. It is free abd it is better than the rest.