How do you find the images you've already taken?

[ngc1514]

As our photo collections grow, finding images becomes more of a chore. 

How do you locate a specific image out of a disk full of photos?

I know a lot of people use a hierarchical directory system where the topmost folder is the year, and then subfolders based on events (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Aunt Flo's wedding...etc).  This seems a good way to store images, but it doesn't seem a good way to FIND 'em when you consider every year has a Christmas and Thanksgiving.   The wife comes up and asks to see that image you took a "few years back" with Uncle Joe passed out under the tree.

Not a problem if you can remember which Christmas that was, but if Uncle Joe makes a habit out of passing out under the tree every year, it becomes a bit more difficult. Right now, with scanned images and photos from digital cameras, I have about 25 Christmases on the system.  Rather than scanning each folder, there's gotta be a better way.

I've been using IMatch http://www.photools.com/ as my DAM - Digital Asset Manager - system and, once you get it set up and all the old images categorized, it works pretty well.  Cataloging all your images is, quite frankly, a royal PITA!  It did have the advantage of forcing me to look at every image and, in more cases than not, deciding the image wasn't really worth the disk space to catalog or store. 

I'm always interested in new solutions to old problems.  While IMatch works, I'm only using a small percentage of the program's capabilities and wouldn't mind if there was something smaller, faster and easier to use (and this is the biggie) with the ability to take all the work already put into IMatch and moving it to a new software platform.  IMatch will write all its data to XMP sidecar files, so the new program would have to either work with the side cars or be able to import the cataloging data from the files.

Has anyone found a better means of keeping up with their growing digital library?

Eric in Atlanta



 

[trooplewis]

I would really like a good answer to that one as well. Sometimes I name the image and it is easier to find, but sometimes it still has the camera's numbering system on it and I have no clue where it is at.

I use FastStone to run through directories and locate by thumbnail, but even that can take some time. An RAW files slow FastStone to Slowstone

[KCook]

Good topic  

... forcing me to look at every image ...

While I have tried various photo management programs, they all have that in common.  And that stops me cold, I don't have the patience to go through that.  So .. it would be nice to have a program that at least auto classifies images by date, EXIF data, and image characteristics.  By image characteristics I'm thinking color distribution and spatial analysis.  I understand that there are already EXIF systems that cover the date and EXIF need.  The image characteristics should add the ability to determine whether the shot was indoors or outdoors in daylight, etc.  So to dig up the old Christmas shots you could enter "December", whatever camera you used back then, and a handy shot of a Christmas Tree with the command use the image characteristics to "match this".

After all, some systems now have individual face recognition ...

Kelly

[trooplewis]

So you need to find that special software that automatically puts all your photos in categories like

Stupid dogs
Ugly people
Out of focus shots
hazy landscapes



I'd also need
Photos that don't make my wife's butt look to big
Boat pictures
Beagle pictures
etc
etc

 

[KCook]

Dream on Cabo boy . . .

[ngc1514]

I finally gritted my teeth after retiring and took on the project of honestly (brutally) looking at every image and categorizing those worth keeping.  Managed to cut the image library by more than 50% and, truth be told, could probably go through them all again and do a lot more pruning.  It took a couple months of putzing around before finishing, but I do love the results!

IMatch is supposed to offer some of the search options you mention, Kelly.  According to the docs, you can search for images with the same colors, similar colors or actually look for images that correspond to a rough drawing.  You are also supposed to be able to find images that are similar to a selected image. 

Again, it's some of the many features in IMatch that I've yet to use.  Might be fun to play with...

Eric in Atlanta

[trooplewis]

I tend to classify mine in a directory that is just the year, then subdirectories that have a clue as to what is in them, like "San Francisco trip"

But then there are still things that fall into the "stuff" or "Favorites" directories as well