Organizing Digital Photos

[Nanab]

Hi All,
I am going to take on a HUGE project...and I could really use your help!!

The goal is to organize all of our photos from the last few DECADES! Can anyone recommend a great software tool that can do the following:
* Tag 1 photo (or select a group of photos) with several categories (Grandkids, RV Trips, Birthdays, etc)
* Store all photos in the cloud or accessible from different devices (laptop, iPhone, iPad, Android, etc)
* Easy to upload to a commercial printer (Walgreens) or allows Walgreens to get photos from that program's stored photos.
* Editing is not a necessity. However, Red-Eye correction would be nice.

At this point if I want to find a specific picture I have to look in folders with the approximate year and each photo's name is a long series of characters!!! AAARRRGGGHHHH!!! I don't mind making the time to categorize each & every photo as long as I can find it later with a quick key-word search.

Thanks for any and all input!

[CurtPutnam]

Here is what I do:

Images aare stored by date in yyyy-mm-dd format
One folder per year
All images imported into Adobe Lightroom (not this does NOT move images on disc)
Individual date folders may renamed to have a description after them - example: 2020-09-15-PaysonAZ
Images get keywords as desired or needed

Lightroom incorporates Adobe Camera Raw so it covers about 95% of the editing I need (including HDR and panoramic merges.) Editing is non-destructive.

I use the disc based version although Adobe is pushing its web based version hard.

Lightroom can also organize in what it calls collections. Basically, they are links to the original images. For example, suppose you have images for 10 family reunions spanning 20 years. If you store your images by year, a collection would allow you to see all family reunion pics in one spot without having too move anything.

[Nanab]

Thanks for the info! I checked into it a bit and it looks like the only option is subscription based. I'm a little timid of that because then I am tied to them forever or I will have to repeat categorizing all pics again if I decide to quit buying the monthly subscription. But Thank You! I may reconsider this after a bit more research!

[Reverse_snowbird]

At the risk of being slammed by Google haters, Google photos has unlimited storage if you pick their high quality option ( Original quality charges after 15 GB.)
They have one of the best facial recognition applications that I've used and can organize the photos into albums based on who or what you want to recognize. That gives you online storage accessible from anywhere, but I don't know if it has redeye reduction.
Unfortunately, you may give up rights to your photos.

Microsoft photos also has facial recognition software, and that's included in later versions of Microsoft. That will organize the photos on your computer without online storage. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...hotos-by-faces

Amazon Prime members get free unlimited online storage, but I haven't explored those options.

Have you really scanned in all those photos?

[CurtPutnam]

Check into Photoshop Elements. Comes in a box and has editing and organizing features.

I also have DxO which I like but that has only minimal keywording for organization.

What you want is a PhotoBase and there ain't no such that I know of. I suppose you could build your own with a spreadsheet but that would be tedious and then you still need an editor, view, abd print programs.

[Boscorelli]

Originally Posted by CurtPutnam

Check into Photoshop Elements.

I use PSE for this too; however, I'm on an older version (PSE 15). I don't know if you can use their cloud for storage, as I don't like the idea of storing my files anywhere other than on my own device(s). I do have a personal cloud (My Cloud) that is on my home network.

PROS: tags are good, searching by tag works well.

CONS: Moving pictures to another device is a PITA. If you don't do it within the program, it loses track of the picture, then you must "find" and reconnect it.

Another option I used a long time ago, when I scanned-in and digitized old photographs was iTag for Photographs . That program added the tags directly to the pictures, in the metadata - as opposed to a database. That way, the tags stayed with the pictures no matter where you sent them.

[Nick Danger]

I used to do the same thing with music I had. What I had to do was create individual database files for each album (full CD, cassette or vinyl) that had each song as a separate file under that album. That way each specific item has its own unique designation (address). Think of it as a system like a file cabinet. Each file has to have a specific address and name to be able to access thru a search. Additionally, you have to know how it was labeled to recall it. Remember that computers can only do as they are instructed. It can't find something that it doesn't know exists (which is why Google is such a success). Once you have created the individual file you can then organize each item into as many distinct groups as you chose. Like having a song on 10 different playlists at the same time. Am I making any sense to you? The photos aren't actually stored in the database, only the specific address of the particular photo. so you can keep the list separate from the photos. I did this all in database many, many years ago. I used to be a card carrying geek back in the day. I just use itunes (instead of windows based Media Player) now for all of my music because it's not actually my "intellectual property".

As for the cloud - I never put anything out there that is mine! Once you put it out into the universe you can't control when and how it is used. Google always tells you that the info is yours but they also have rights to it too. It's like hiring a photographer to do wedding pictures and expecting they won't keep a copy. Never happens! What I do is put it either on an external hard drive, flash drive or sandisk that I can connect to any computer using a USB or drive port. Once you set up your database you can copy it to as many "systems" as you chose without downgrading anything or having to re-accomplish your "sorting". If you make improvements to the parent database it updates all files accordingly automatically when you do a save. that way you can have several version of the field by date and you can retrieve the one that works best for the application.

What you're looking to do will certainly be a time filling endeavor if done properly. Best of luck!