I've taken photos, now what?

techno79

techno79

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Just moved to a DSLR for the first time but have years of digital photos from my P&S camera. I'm not that keen on printing photos or making albums from photos (except for a very small subset).

I'd like to store all my photos in a single organised directory structure on a local PC. I'd then like to create different albums from any subset of those pictures without actually having duplicate copies of the files that take up unnecessary space. For example, if I go on holiday, I may store the entire collection of photos I took. I may create a personal holiday album which picks a selection of those photos but this album would be purely for the family. I may then want to create another holiday album which further restricts what photos are displayed as they may be ones I am happy for friends to see.

I know symlinks will allow me to create copies of photos without taking up unnecessary space but is there a bit of software that will make this easier for me to do. I like the fact that my albums are just a bunch of image files rather than needing some specific software (e.g. Google Picasa).

The storage will be on a Windows Home Server (v1) PC.

Any help or advice?
 
before we start.. some people will read this and think your not making backups... I presume you have backed up all your pictures anyway... what we are talking about is different albums using the same pictures..

I use tagging software... FastStone image viewer is a tool I use all the time profesionally and personally.. and its free (although i did pay a small optional reg fee)

You can set various tags using a star system... so each album would be tagged by how many stars it has... so one viewer anyone can use... and all you do is tag

It might not be what you want.. but from your description and not wanting anything too messy.. thats my answer :)
 
I'm definitely backing up photos so that is not the issue. Simply looking for software that will make it easy for me to create albums. Ideally something that doesn't require software to view albums hence having a preferences for software that just creates albums as a bunch of jpegs but using symlinks.
 
techno79 said:
I'm definitely backing up photos so that is not the issue. Simply looking for software that will make it easy for me to create albums. Ideally something that doesn't require software to view albums hence having a preferences for software that just creates albums as a bunch of jpegs but using symlinks.
Click to expand...

that post is miles more clear than your first one... not heard of owt and doesnt seem like anyone else has....yet its a good idea...if i had time I would make one :)
 
You can't have it both ways, you want software to create albums, but you don't' what software to view albums :)

Kipax has summed it up, in that you need to tag all your images ( be that by keywords, stars, or numeric system) and you'll also need software that will read those tags. Now there are lots of software that will do that from expensive lightroom to free faststone.

As a mac user I have Aperture which will create smart albums based on tags, so if I keyword a shot holiday it will be in the holiday smart album, if I add keyword beach to the same photo it will also be in the beach smart album and so on. Pretty sure most package will do that sort of thing.

No image is moved from my original filling structure, nor are they duplicated, but to view them I have to use the same software package, or export the whole smart album of photos, which obviously makes the copies you don't want to have.
 
yes you would still need software to view the pictures... at the end of the day every pic viewed will need some sort of program to view them... I think the OP wants one software to create a gallery consisting of symlinks to the pictures thus taking up minimum space.. then any standard pic viewer already installed should follow the symlinks... I dont even know if they do follow them?

Its a good idea if it exists.. if it doesnt then theres a gap :)
 
Hi Techno,

not sure of your aversion to software to manage your photo's, i'd suggets some 'aversion therapy' and download a demo of lightroom. i think it could be just what you are after for organising. You could easily tie yourself in knots using explorer to manage your collection.

Here's a video explaining lightrooms organisation
 
KIPAX said:
that post is miles more clear than your first one... not heard of owt and doesnt seem like anyone else has....yet its a good idea...if i had time I would make one :)
Click to expand...

Sorry, seemed clear in my head when I was typing it out :)

KIPAX said:
yes you would still need software to view the pictures... at the end of the day every pic viewed will need some sort of program to view them... I think the OP wants one software to create a gallery consisting of symlinks to the pictures thus taking up minimum space.. then any standard pic viewer already installed should follow the symlinks... I dont even know if they do follow them?

Its a good idea if it exists.. if it doesnt then theres a gap :)
Click to expand...

The reason for going down the symlink route is because my albums are created from normal folders and jpeg files and thus they are viewable by any image playing software/hardware e.g. WiFi enabled digital photo frames, Windows Media Center PCs and networked media streamers/players (e.g. Xtreamer or Western Digital Live). I could also then throw each album onto a USB stick or DVD disc which would play in most devices like DVD players or TVs with USB ports.

If I used some other software to create albums then I would be limited to using that specific software to view them and only on PC devices.

Anyway, I guess the software I'm looking for isn't specific to photos. It's more of a symlink manager. My search will continue.

Thanks for all the help.
 
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