Image management software

[Mercutio]

I need to get organized.

I don't know how many images I have. Between digital cameras and collecting fine art images and yes, porn, I have a LOT of images. Very possibily more than a million (the computer I'm sitting at has ~123,000 .JPG files on it, and it's not one of my file servers).

I've tried to sort it with directories. This has not always been a successful endevour.

Has anyone ever heard of software for managing image content on that scale? "Normal" software like ACDSee has some limited capabilities to declare favorite directories and the like?

Does anyone even know what I need to do with it all, or what kind of software I'm describing?

 

[blakerwry]

sounds like you need some sort of database software that will allow you to rank your files and associate labels with the pictures like genre, date/time, comments, etc.

my best guess is to look under the file management tools on webattack.com

 

[jtr1962]

I've been using the software that came with my first scanner. It is basically a slightly limited version of Ulead PhotoImpact. The Photo Plus Explorer automatically makes thumbnails each time you go into a new folder. You can select pictures in each folder to be deleted, copied, or moved. I also think you can put captions for each picture but I haven't tried that yet.

BTW, I'm not far behind you. I have about 56,000 images on the partition where I have most of my images. Probably over 70,000 total. Most of these are pictures of major news events like 9/11. And then of course there is the usual eye candy. Once I start playing with digital photography that number should go up exponentially. I wouldn't be surprised if I hit a million myself in a few years. And that doesn't include the thousands of family photos and slides that I plan to digitize soon.

The best way I find of organizing most images is chronologically. For example, I've so far collected over 10,600 images related to 9/11, and over 18,000 of the war with Iraq. I basically just start a new folder for each event each week and put the images there. Doing it any other way would be next to impossible, and I get some sense of chronology. You can do likewise with your own digital photos if you have many pictures of widely varying subjects. Of course, if you have many of one subject, you can lump them in one folder, or subcategorize them further. Giving the images themselves semi-descriptive names might help if you need to find a particular picture out of thousands later on.

 

[Howell]

The only image management software I've used is Paperport and that's on a much smaller scale.

 

[Tannin]

It's a significant roblem, Merc. I don't know an answer either. I have thousands of images and add hundreds, sometimes thousands, more each week.

Currently I store them in folders cronologically, but that's far from ideal. I also want to sort them by species and by location. It does need a database application, and one that doesn't require a lot of tedious data entry, keying in key facts about each picture.

I guess the bottom line is that not only do I not know of a program which would be sutable, I can't even imagine what one would look like. I think maybe we just have to battle on as best we can - but I'll keep an eye on this thread just in case someone comes aong with a brilliant idea.

 

[Howell]

What you might do is keep the pictures in numbered folders and not attempt to id the contents by the name of the folder. Then use a database and its natural functions to point you to the correct numbered folder.

 

[cquinn]

Have you heard of Thumbsplus?

It is a database application that can automatically catalog your images
and lets you create specific categories to fit them into later.

 

[blakerwry]

let's be sure to use the tools section if we find a good product for this problem.

 

[SteveC]

I have the same problem, and I've been trying a few different programs. Besides ACDSee, there's Adobe Photoshop Album, Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album, and Ulead Photo Explorer. They all have the same basic features, but so far Photoshop Album seems to have the most promise, and has a good interface. Maybe I'll write a formal review of them, and see how they handle once you get into the tens of thousands of pictures.

 

[SteveC]

Well, I tried importing about 100,000 files into Photoshop Album, and it locked up about 80% through. It was able to handle about 20,000, and still be fairly responsive, but I don't think it can handle the really large amounts you need, Merc.

 

[Tea]

Yep, we have tried Thumbsplus, Cquin. Nice program. In fact we have tried most of the ones mentioned in this thread, but keep coming back to our longstanding favourite PMView Pro, which doesn't try to make a database, just to get the fundamentals right. But it's time I trawled around looking at the alternatives again.

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah, thumbsplus isn't gonna cut it. I sicced it on a directory that only had 80,000 images in it, let it run over night, and had to kill the process when I woke up this morning. It looked to me like it barfed before it even did anything.

I'd like to be able to use the filesystem rather than a database to contain my data. Sorting would be good. It looks like a lot of apps use either access (yuck) or mysql (better), but I can't see those working if my data got moved around, as it does from time to time.

 

[i]

What about one of those new-fangled "your filesystem is a database" options that I keep reading about on Slashdot? You know ... the ones that I always skip reading and thus can only speak of vaguely while waving my virtual hand around.

Yes, those ones! :wink:

I always skip reading about them because my collection of pictures consists of maybe 4 or 5 images.

 

[Mercutio]

Perhaps Eric will show up with a bright idea or two. I recall him as someone else who had outrageous image-storage needs.

 

[Will Rickards]

I'd like to be able to use the filesystem rather than a database to contain my data.

The database usually wouldn't store the images themselves, only metadata about them. The database could store the images themselves and then you wouldn't have to worry about them moving around in the filesystem because they aren't in the filesystem but in the database.

Now this is becoming sort of an issue for me/in-laws. They have a digital camera (Olympus 2MP). I end up taking most of the pictures with it. For instance, when Liam was born I took like 200 pictures. Just last night at his first birthday party, I took @40. The camedia software that olympus provided with the camera allows you to store the images in an albums hierarchy. But most of the time I just want to look at pictures taken near a certain date. Also I haven't figured out where it stores the pictures yet. So this image management will become an issue for me.

 

[Mercutio]

I realize that it could work both ways.. A lot of database engines that do support BLOBs have (or had, the last time I looked) file size limits that made databases of that sort less than desireable.

 

[Handruin]

Any chance this might work:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopalbum/main.html

They have a trial version if you're interested. I know it's a basic program for someone of your advanced skill level, but it seemed to organize the images. You can even make calendars for family and friends. The question will remain if it can handle a million images. I read their forum and only found limitation on individual files size of 36 Mega pixel if you have 1GB ram.

 

[Handruin]

Here's another possibility...

http://www.fotoware.com/Products/FotoStation Pro/

 

[SteveC]

Any chance this might work:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopalbum/main.html

They have a trial version if you're interested. I know it's a basic program for someone of your advanced skill level, but it seemed to organize the images. You can even make calendars for family and friends. The question will remain if it can handle a million images. I read their forum and only found limitation on individual files size of 36 Mega pixel if you have 1GB ram.

Look a few posts up. :wink: I've tried it, and it chokes on importing 100,000 images.

 

[Howell]

Perhaps you could utilize the MS indexing service and the image's properties (tab) somehow. I know you can discriminate between which folders are indexed.

 

[Handruin]

Sorry SteveC, I didn't read carefully. :-?

 

[Mercutio]

Has anyone used Canto Cumulus before?

 

[Pradeep]

I got a trial version with my Coolpix 995 a few years back. Apparently some kind of DB program for images. I couldn't figure out how it worked.

 

[Jake the Dog]

Any chance this might work:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopalbum/main.html

They have a trial version if you're interested. I know it's a basic program for someone of your advanced skill level, but it seemed to organize the images. You can even make calendars for family and friends. The question will remain if it can handle a million images. I read their forum and only found limitation on individual files size of 36 Mega pixel if you have 1GB ram.

hmmm, I think I wouldn't mind a calendar along the lines of "Merc's chosen babes of the month".

 

[mubs]

Stumbled across this.

This graphics file manager program was written BY digital photo collectors, FOR digital photo collectors.
We have listened to your comments and needs for years, and it's ALL HERE!

Maybe you should check it out.

 

[Howell]

Looks interesting, mubs.

 

[mangyDOG]

Yeah, thumbsplus isn't gonna cut it. I sicced it on a directory that only had 80,000 images in it, let it run over night, and had to kill the process when I woke up this morning. It looked to me like it barfed before it even did anything.

Did you try doing this with ThumbsPlus 6 using the Commander utility which is a separate (small) download which allows you to run batch tasks from a command line without actually opening the main program?

http://www.cerious.com/tpcommand.shtml

I use Thumbsplus quite a bit (my photo collection is only 85000) but haven't had any problems, the main issue I found is to locate its database file on a separate HDD to the images to improve its performance.

 

[mangyDOG]

I forgot to add that the DB size in standard Thumbsplus is a max of 2Gb and recommended to be less than 1Gb, however SQL is supported which allows unlimited DB sizes.

Cheers
mangyDOG

 

[Handruin]

I'm downloading the demo now to see if I can get this to work with MySQL. They don't explicitly mention MySQL, but they say most ODBC are supported. I have just a bit under 20,000 images to test with this. I'll let you know if it works.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm currently looking at storing images in a database, allowing total customization of descriptions and querys. My parter (the programmer) and I tested it with ~25GB of images and it seemed to work pretty well.

We aren't looking at using it for this application, rather for the back end of a fully-dynamic webpage, but there you go

 

[Handruin]

I was able to get ODBC working with MySQL, but I think the demo of this product disables SQL support until it is registered and payed for. I've sent an e-mail to their sales department for clarification. I'll let you know if they respond.

ddrueding, do you actually store the binary information, or do you store links to the images? 25GB of images can vary in quantity if you have rather large images. I think the issue for Merc is quantity, not so much the individual file size.

 

[ddrueding]

I was able to get ODBC working with MySQL, but I think the demo of this product disables SQL support until it is registered and payed for. I've sent an e-mail to their sales department for clarification. I'll let you know if they respond.

ddrueding, do you actually store the binary information, or do you store links to the images? 25GB of images can vary in quantity if you have rather large images. I think the issue for Merc is quantity, not so much the individual file size.

Actually storing the binary of the images (originally in .png format). Using something.NET to retrieve and render the image when needed (sorry, I'm not the programmer). Our idea was to have nothing but a pointer in the wwwroot directory, storing XML, Stored Procedures, style sheets, content and graphics in SQL. CPU intense? Yes. Versitle? Oh, yeah. Not bad for a small business Intranet.

 

[Mercutio]

I liked Photoshop Album's interface, but given the sorting task before me, it's woefully inefficient for my tagging and sorting needs. It worked great for my library of digital camera pictures, but after I spent a couple hours setting up the categories I wanted for my, uhm, "other collection", I found it took me several MORE hours to tag just 2000 files.

Cumulus is a complete and total pain in the ass. I can't believe how obnoxious that program is to use. Seriously. If there were laws involved, they'd all be broken.

My search is ongoing. I managed to find versions of both Photoshop Album and Cumulus just by looking around at the various CDs I already have.

 

[Howell]

http://www.hummingbird.com/products/dm/index.html?cks=y

Six indexable fields to search by.