I would love to get some opinions on which photo organizational software peopl use/love and why. I have experience with PSE photo org but I have also been looking at ACDSee. So, if anyone has a minute and can give me some good pros and cons for each, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!!

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Aimee

I use iView Media Pro. I chose it because it allows me to keep my photos where ever I want to, even off line. This allows me to move my photos to disk (I have way too many to keep on my hard drive), but still view the thumb nails and perform searchs on them. I also use it for all my scrapbook elements and have recently used it to catalog my music collection. It runs on both the Macintosh and Windows systems.

This is really a personal thing.. I've tried/used them ALL.. and love / hate certain things about each one. There is no "photoshop" organizer out there - no "buy it - you'll love it and it is perfect" app yet. Here are a few to get you started - however, I recommend you just download each one a give the demo a try for a week.. if you find one that you understand and like the UI/functions for, that's the one!

Iview - decent interface now that they fixed up the PC version (was MAC only) but missing some advanced features (ie: scripting, versioning) that may not matter to non-photographers.

ACDSee - again, wonderful interface with lots of power and you can even get an entire list of scrapping keywords/categories for it.. but, the software is a bit bloated and eats CPU - not for the low end machine.

IDimager - complete and wonderful product... the only thing wrong with it is the user interface and complexity.. This is the product that I use and manage my professional photography business with.. but it is not for the non-technical... v4.0 is coming out this year with a revamped UI.. I continue to hope!

Thumbsplus - a true catalog program with very good speed and keyword search ability.. it is missing some basic stuff that should be there in a product by now - ie: downloader, file renaming, versioning.. but it is an easy UI, and very very fast. I use this for my personal photos.

Imatch - totally professional and tremendous power.. but again, a UI that only the pros will love.

Picassa - nice UI but limited functionality.. it is free with is a bonus!

ExifPro - not a true catalog program per se.. but the nicest small photo / file viewer out there.. Reallly a hidden gem - I use it to quickly see keywords and it has a great rating/slideshow and lighttable function.

So many more... Photo Mechanic, BreezeBrowser, Adobe Bridge, Photoshop Elements, ... the list goes on and on. To be honest, I do like what I've seen from ACDSee's numerous products.. the latest is version 9.0. You might give it a go first since many users here like it. Just be sure you have a decent PC first.

Good Luck.. Phew!

Wow...thanks for the input. I will certainly try several of those before I make a decision. The only other question that I forgot to pose earlier with regards to the programs is if any of them actually effect the original file locations on the comp if you adjust them in the browser program. Or, are all of these programs just for cataloguing purposes? (I hope that question makes sense!).

Again, thanks for the input so far!

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Aimee

WOW...Great advice Pesto and Connie!! TFS!!

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Are you are asking whether you can change a file's location from the program? In iView Media Pro you have the option of moving the elements location on disk if you want to. And if you move elements into different file structures (say from the Finder), iView automatically tracks it to know where it is.
BTW, iView does have scripting. I have written some very useful scripts for my workflow.

Ditto for the rest of them... when you use a catalog program, most of them will NOT affect the location of the files on the disk. You are basically just using the program to assign keywords to the files or organize them in catalogs...

I use keywords for all my photos, kit items, fonts, and elements. When I need to find something, I just do a quick keyword search and up pops all the items that match those keywords wherever they are physically located.

For example, I might need to find a purple sheet of paper with swirls and some pink buttons. I'll do a search like: PURPLE, PAPER, SWIRL and all my papers that I've keyworded with these items will appear. I might then add the one I want to a Lighttable and then do another search: PINK BUTTON.. etc etc.

The files themselves might be located on 5 different harddrives or even on DVD's.. the program will still be able to locate them from its library and display them. If they are located on DVD, you might be prompted to insert the right DVD if you need to open that file in photoshop etc..

These are indespensible tools that you really do need in the digital age... I'd never be able to do my job without them..

Good Luck!

I have IMatch - it's windows only. I like it because you get a folder view and a category (or keywords view). It also has a better "relocate" command - if you move your stuff outside of IMatch you can open it and then tell it where to look, and it's pretty good about relinking everything, where as the Elements Organizer has trouble with that. It also has scripting - and someone wrote a script to create a pure HTML gallery for uploading to a website, where as the latest version of PSE's Organizer uses Flash for the website generation.

There is a 30 day free trial for IMatch, and the next version (3.6) should be out very soon.

-Trish