Cataloging images using an Access database

[Rob_L1664876404]

I'd REALLY like to know what Jack means when he said "I'm cheap..."!

 

I spend most of my workday in database applications - Access is one of the main two we use. I do not believe it is the most efficient or convenient way to go in this situation. Along with the other alternatives suggested, you might check out ULEAD Web Album. I don't know if it's still available, but it's very economical and is probably on one of your old flatbed scanner CD's. It associates a thumbnail with each image and has a user-configurable database to enter all sorts of data.

[pmj]

For creating thumbnails from larger JPEG files, you could consider <a href="http://www.imagemagick.org">ImageMagick</a> (see also <a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/images">chapter 6 of Philip and Alex's</a>.) It is very easy to run from a Unix shell script, DOS batch file or something else (like the Access/VBA shell() function). Set it up and let your PC crunch over your files for a while.

[bobatkins]

The ULEAD Web Album program looks very interesting. I eventually managed to find a site that still had a downloadable trial version. Not to many unnecessary bells and whistles, user definable database fields, auto thumbnail generation, very good query engine etc. It's old so it doesn't import EXIF data, but the more important drawback is that it's no longer available! My version will self destruct in 15 days and ULEAD don't seem to have a similar product anymore :-(

 

They have an "all singing, all dancing, photo album/image editor. coffee maker program" (Photo explorer) but from what I read it doesn't seem to have the same database power that the old "Web Album" did (and their trial download link doesn't work!).

 

Anyone know a way to get a fully functioning version of "Web Album"? I don't think it was bundled with any hardware I ever bought, but I'll dig through the pile of "accessory" CDs just in case!

[darren]

I've been thinking of buying IMatch to organise my images. Have you tried it, Bob? If so, what did you think? Why didn't you like it?

 

IMatch seems to have a nice way of categorising photos, and has some sort of scripting ability (haven't explored that much yet).

[bobatkins]

I took a look at iMatch and it does seem like a very powerful package. However it looks like the cost of that is a pretty steep learning curve. It's not a product for the computer-phobic and a decent grasp of database principles probably wouldn't hurt.

 

I downloaded a 30 day trial version, and my guess is that it may take 30 days to figure it out! It's certainly not intuitive. That being said it's a focused product that does one thing and probably does it very well if you can figure out how to use it properly.

[darren]

Still, that's probably time better spent than learning the ins and outs of Access programming and building yourself an application from scratch. How long's that going to take?

 

IMatch also has nifty features for indexing offline CD-ROMs, spitting out images into web pages, etc.

[bobatkins]

I totally agree that after a week's work, you'd be far better off learning iMatch than writing a database in Access.

 

The only advantages of writing your own programs are (1) Since you wrote it you don't need to learn how it works! and (2) Any time in the future you need a new feature, you can add it.

 

The problem with commercial software is that you get what they give you, at least until they get the chance to sell you an upgrade. The advantage of (good) commercial software is that they probably give you way more than you'll ever need.

[nikos]

My professor for Software Engineering in college always used to say that any self-repsecting software application for general use (that is, not made to fit a specific, fixed, application environment) should be programmable.

 

The problem with most software on the market today is that is falls under the two categories you mention. Either you wait for the upgrade, or you have an overly complex application that can do more than you want, but frequently makes the simple stuff you need too difficult.

 

Good software caters for the basic needs common to the majority of the user base, then provides an easy way for power users to customize or create tailor made additions for their specific needs. Unfortunately I have not come across a cataloging application that follows this paradigm, at least not with acceptable quality.

[Robin Smith]

Bob

 

I have done exactly what you have done using Filemaker (I prefer it to Access but it is the same deal). It is extremely easy and as you are designing it you can alter it however you want. I cannot really think of any reason not to do it yourself. Mine has thumbnails, subject cataloging systems, slide labelling etc. etc. It all depends really whether you want to reinvent the wheel or buy into a ready made system. I love databases so it was a no-brainer for me, but there is a learning process involved in setting it up and of course a predesigned version already that has had the thinking put into it. The issue of course is that you may not much like their ideas.

[alexander_de_crignis]

well it is maybe a bit late for an answer, but who knows.

 

If you want to use a serious database, i would suggest you use MSDE, which is free and is the same engine then SQL server. I even found a web enterprise manager for it for maganement purposes.

 

I have comitted a image database, but for the sake of size, i do not store the images in the database but ruther the links to the images.

 

the makes it very usable in using a browser to view the images and thumbnails.

 

Again now I have given up the idea of the image database, cause I have 10000 images to categorize, which makes it rather difficult. Since most images have a significant name or are located in a directory with an also significant name, i am just using the index server (included in Windows 2000 or XP) to categorize the images per name etc.. and have build a search engine page which finds the images and displays the dynamically generated thumbnails. All this works fine under ASP.NET, an on a Windows XP PRO machine.

 

Building a database is not very complicated if you are getting all data from scratch and the historical aspect is not to important. But if you have a large amount of history to catch up with it becomes a big problem. Thats why I used the index server which automatically indexes all existing images and files but also adds all the new ones within a reasonable amount of time.

 

well thats all folks

 

however if anybody has an idea how to extract thumbnails from Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop images. that would be great.

[jean_michel_nil]

Hello

 

It seems that nobody noticed it in this thread, but Photoshop album is using an access databse. The file "my catalog.psa" can be renamed into "my catalog.mdb" and then you can use the tables. However the DB models seems quite strange (if you need more information please mail me).

 

So I am trying now to use PS Album to sort, arrange and tag my picture because it is the faster and more user-friendly tool in this category (I try several of them). And because his exportation possibility (creation of web page, simple list in text ...) are rather limited I will try to access the Access DB to produce my own web pages and report.

[paolo_mulazzani]

i've my own program in Access 2000 and one of the output of this program is the complete map of my site (www.fotomulazzani.com).

 

As you can see the output HTML produced are grouped in tree sets of indexes: tree-like navigation in explorer style, alphabetical indexes of keywords applied to any image and the chronological index of images published/taken.

 

But locally my Access program is also a tool to archive and retrieve as many images you want.

 

Due to Access limitation in images manipulation, only the names and the path of images are stored, but the load of records is AUTOMATIC, and so also the first building of the keywords set, from meaningful names of the folders, and the set of the date for any image, from the date of the file.

 

Everithing else can be modified/added later, before the generation of html indexes set.

 

If you are interested in testing it i'll send you my program for free with the source code.

 

It's a job started 4 years ago during my spare time, in Access97 and never finished, of course.

 

My plan is to translate it in english, too, and to add thumbnail automatic generation feature... soon ....

 

Paolo Mulazzani

www.fotomulazzani.com

[pkz]

check out a free demo of PhotoLibrary at

http://www.PhotoLibrarySoftware.com/

 

and the Open Directory which has a list of Image Management Software at

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Graphics/Image_Cataloguing/

 

See this review too.

 

http://www.photosource.com/tools/software/

 

Pete

[bob_griner]

Bob

 

How's this search going? My wife is struggling with the same thing. We're somewhat Access experienced, but the JPEG restriction is a huge problem. She's already catalogued hundreds of photos in Excel, and we need to be able to import that into the FINAL solution that works for providing information and a visual representation (thumbnail, not actual).

 

Bob (www.grineruniverse.com)