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Know of a good image filing system/database?


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As with everyone else, I'm sure, my collection of digital images is

getting pretty huge. Its becoming far bigger than my primative

filing system can efficiently manage.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations of a good filing sysytem or

database. Something which can use keywords and show thumbnails

would be great.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

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I've used Canto's Cumulus for some time. It runs with both Mac and Windows, and is

a very full-featured asset management application. It'll do what you want, and much

much more.

 

You can download a free trial from here:

 

http://www.canto.com

 

Check out the mYCumulus version - it's only $19.95. Same features as the standard

version, but limits the number of records in a single database. Of course, Cumulus

lets you have multiple databases open at once, and search across all open databases,

so this isn't such a big deal.

 

Standard disclaimer: I don't work for Canto, I'm just a long-time customer of their

products.

 

Enjoy!

 

-- Jim

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You can download trial versions of ACDSee and Adobe Photoshop Album 2. With these you can create tags that you attach to images. You can attach more than one tag to an image, which makes it easy to locate images. I am using Adobe Photoshop Album 2 because I thought it had more features than ACDSee. When you get ready to archive images to CD's or DVD, Adobe Photoshop Album 2 will span CD's and DVD and ACDSee would not at the time I evaluated it.
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Extensis Portfolio has the features you require. It creates thumbnail galleries, and you can use the same thumbnail in several galleries (by topic, for example.) You can assign key words and have many standard and customized fields to use.

 

Unlike most other image filers/browsers, the thumbnails are created separately from the original images and don't take much room. I keep the thumbnail pages in the computer and use them to locate the disc used to archive the complete image.

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I had the same problem/dilemma last summer, so I checked out ACDSee 6 and found it to be very buggy. Thumbs+ was a heck of a lot better, but then I tried Portfolio and I couldn't resist buying it.

 

Another product that gets high marks around here is 'IMatch' (but I've already got Portfolio and really like it)!

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I tried the trial version of PS Album, ACDSee, and IMatch. Did not like the PS Album at all, because it has a file size limit of only 2 MB. I seriously evaluated ACDSee and IMatch, and ended up buying IMatch on line. The driving factors are: 1. Free of some system bugs that ACDSee is claimed to have, which can remove files by itself without your knowledge. 2. more robust category and caption word management capability.

 

The price of either IMatch or ACDSee is less than Thumbs Plus.

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If you have professional needs as well as simply oranizing things, you may be interested in Agave SPS (http://www.prenticephoto.com/Agaveweb.htm). This software was developed by a professional stock photographer and is used by a number of very well-known pros. You can do thumbnails, captioning (including slide mount labels), track submissions, manage dupes, print invoices, etc, etc.

 

It's pricey ($400-ish), but if you have the needs of a professional, it could be worth the money. Otherwise, you'd probably be better off with one of the more economical solutions listed above. In any case, it looks like a cool program.

 

Good luck.

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I tried IMatch after several recommendations on this forum, mostly for it's structured categories in addition to keyword support. (You can search through the archives by typing "imatch acdsee extensis album site:photo.net" in Google.) Loved it, bought it. The user interface is not as "dumbed-down" as products for the mass market such as Adobe Album, but it is far more powerful. You can learn more and get the free 30-day full-featured trial from <A HREF="http://www.photools.com/">here</A>.
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