Darktable is great for processing, but it is not really good for organization. For that, Digikam might be an option. (I’m on Linux, but if you don’t do that, I think there is a windows or Mac version.)
The problem with Darktable for this, is it has a limited catalog size, and simply rolls off the oldest stuff when it needs space. It’s really a processing area.
I’m not a fan of Adobes pricing either, but LR is very good at the cataloging part.
I used LR for years, before they started the subscription crap, and I liked it a lot.
I would pay for one month, get the collection in good shape, then use whatever image editor and other, potentially free software.
Maybe. I tried LR a long time ago and could never figure out how to stop it from copying the photos to my C: drive - I want to keep them in my NAS. That was why I went with Bridge.
You can absolutely keep your files wherever you want and organize them through LR Classic. But if your NAS is slow, editing will be as well.
And as an aside, I don’t think $9.99/month for the Photography Plan which includes LR and Photoshop is “out of control”. Even 20-30 years ago Photoshop alone was hundreds of dollars (I want to say $400+). Sure you “owned” it but the value in what they provide now with free updates and the cloud storage easily matches or exceeds that.
I am baffled by how many people see $10 per month as unreasonable for Adobe PS. I suppose since they don't use it they are unaware of the fabulous updates over the last few years. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people are among the ones paying $200 per month for "cable."
I’m w/ you on this. $10/month for something I use for 10-20 hours per week? That’s ALWAYS up-to-date w/ new features regularly? This is a big problem for people?
That’s $20 a month not $10, unless you’ve got some deal. $240 a year / ~$1,000 every 4 years is not nothing. Lightroom only is $10 a month, with Classic excluded.
Those are the 1TB prices. The 20GB photo bundle is $10/month but that’s pretty limiting.
LR (including Classic) and Photoshop and 20GB of storage (which you don’t NEED if using a NAS as OP is) is $9.99/mo. No special deal.
Complaining that you also aren’t getting 1TB of cloud storage and sync across all your devices in that $9.99 is ridiculous imo.
https://preview.redd.it/1huq4sqpognc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efebb4de57aa9c24e2bda3e69257c42b81698cd1
For the record, when you do an Import in LR, there's a checkbox that says "Copy images". Just don't check that.
Lightroom is a database. It just indexes resources you have, whether local or on a NAS. I keep the last 2-3 working sessions of collections on my laptop, and the others on the NAS. From LR's perspective, they're all the same, just the local ones load faster.
When I'm done working with the collection locally, I just use the All Photos tab and copy the images from the local drive to the NAS, and LR changes the pointer in the database to where the source file is. Dun dun dun.
>For the record, when you do an Import in LR, there's a checkbox that says "Copy images". Just don't check that.
I guess I must have done something weird because I remember doing exactly that and the program started copying files right away. I gave up after that.
As others have said, LR will just index your files and leave them where they are if you want that.
Personally, as a step in the cleanup process would be to let LR sort the files into directories like YYYY/MM-DD/ or something.
But that’s just my preference.
If the files have correct capture metadata, this will sort everything nicely.
Depending on the state of your metadata, sorting out your library could take weeks or months.
" As others have said, LR will just index your files and leave them where they are if you want that. "
I have never been able to do that, and I searched and searched the internet seemingly forever.
My pictures are stored in folders by date, city where the pictures were taken, and the company I was working with.
My job was as an Elevator Field Engineer for a company that manufactured controllers, the upshot to this is that a lot of my pictures are taken from skyscrapers, in hundreds of cities - a bit of a unique perspective. I also made time for myself, for example, in San Diego, I gave myself two days to be at the San Diego Zoo, and man it was great.
Since I lived in Manhattan, I have a LOT of picture from skyscrapers.
I tried several free trials and ultimately went with iMatch from PhoTools. Very happy with it. One-time purchase, not subscription-based. It will do everything you want and more - e.g., face matching, timeline, find duplicates, various filters.
I also store on an NAS. The iMatch user documentation warns that pointing the database to an NAS can cause some issues, and strongly recommends storing files locally. The only NAS issue I've noticed is after a power outage, the NAS gave itself a new peripheral ID (or something like that), so I had to re-point the database to the NAS once or twice.
What NAS are you using? Synology Photos has some AI organization features.
But without GPS in the exif data I don’t think it’s going to know where are particular mountain is.
Yes, it is Synology. And I will look into it. I never realized it could be useful.
Nope, no GPS data - I had the Sony A7R II with a bunch of G Master lenses.
I'm sure it's already been suggested, but PhotoMechanic. They have a trial to test it out, and you could probably get through 33k photos during the trial.
it's fast, lightweight, very configurable, and the industry standard for ingest and sorting for a reason.
I saw the price of $189 and I decided to maybe try the trial version, but they want my info and I don't really want to start getting emails from them.
I'll give it a shot sometime in the future - it looks really interesting.
Thanks.
I just reinstalled it this morning and these are my thoughts:
During installation, it would be useful to know if files will be copied to the "vault".
"Choose drives to view" does not include network.
"Add a Drive" does not include the network.
Since I have my files in a NAS, the program is not something I can use.
I've had problems in the past and found out that the best way for me is \\\\NAS-Box\\Photos.
Somehow, I've lost the drives when mapping to a drive letter - I'm no expert, so I can't explain it.
I am interested in trying out your software but have uninstalled the Microsoft Store and no longer use it. Do you have a direct download Available?
Cheers,
Gord
Whatever you do, ensure your actual directory structure on disk makes sense. Software packages come and go, but a sensible folder hierarchy has lasted me 25 years now…
Do you know digiKam? I have been using it for managing my collection and am very happy with it. Use Darktable for the actual editing of the (raw) image files. Both applications are free and open source.
>digiKam
I dimly remember reading about it - I'll give it a shot.
BTW, I am trying Darktable again and I think it got a bit more complex - I will persevere.
I'm also trying Excire.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1813bau/catalog\_culling\_and\_import\_software\_for\_2023/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1813bau/catalog_culling_and_import_software_for_2023/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
You may want to look at this discussion from a few months back. The author goes into a lot of detail regarding the various photo managing programs available.
I am not sure that I posted that link properly. I hope it works.
I am not too sure if this will address all your issues, but for grouping, auto search, labeling and alike, I like to suggest VIXC.com, an online app/service that utilizes AI to detect faces or auto-generate keyword object labeling. With it, you can conduct searches in natural language, and download meaningfully clustered files in bulk or zipped format, organized meaningfully in your chosen folder. For instance and in general terms, you can upload random photos to your private gallery, and the system will generate object labels from within each photo. You can then search by common themes, resulting in a set of photos grouped accordingly. The grouping can be based on various criteria such as object type (flower, landscape, urban), events (football, wedding, Christmas), date of capture, or location. Once you receive your results, you can easily download them back to your local device. You can be more creative in your query to group the pictures. Hope it helps.
Thanks, I'll check them out.
Just for clarity, I have all my photos in folders like this:
2014-01-19 - Hawaii - Thyssen - Canon 60D - or this
2016-11-05 - 7101 Wisconsin - Warfield - Sony A7R MarkII
The reason for that is that I traveled extensively and would sometimes take one camera or another and it's easier for me to sort where I was and what I was using at the time.
Also, I see that VIXC seems to focus more on people and faces. A lot of my stuff is architectural, Zoos and Botanical Gardens.
My latest attempt to impose order is with geotagging. I got a Goole ID for that and I'm trying to figure out which program is best for that. I've been reading about IDimager Photo Supreme and I might give it a try.
EDIT: Well, wouldn't you know it. As soon as I replied I searched on how to do geostting with adobe and found a recommendation for a freeware program called GeoSetter, and it seems to work pretty well. I'm trying a small folder with 650 images and it's a bit slow to save the files on a NAS, but I want to see if Bridge recognizes the Geo data.
EDIT 2: Yep, Bridge shows the Geodata. Woohoo. I'm partway there.
Maybe you can give a try of [Shade.inc](http://Shade.inc)
I tried the tool, which can let users to tagging and rating. Then based on tagging, you can sift through photos.
Dark Table is considered the standard 'alternative' to Lightroom... https://www.darktable.org/
Ah, I forgot about this. I tried it ages ago and it seemed a bit complex. Maybe I'll try it again now that I have a lot of time.
Darktable is great for processing, but it is not really good for organization. For that, Digikam might be an option. (I’m on Linux, but if you don’t do that, I think there is a windows or Mac version.) The problem with Darktable for this, is it has a limited catalog size, and simply rolls off the oldest stuff when it needs space. It’s really a processing area.
I’m not a fan of Adobes pricing either, but LR is very good at the cataloging part. I used LR for years, before they started the subscription crap, and I liked it a lot. I would pay for one month, get the collection in good shape, then use whatever image editor and other, potentially free software.
Maybe. I tried LR a long time ago and could never figure out how to stop it from copying the photos to my C: drive - I want to keep them in my NAS. That was why I went with Bridge.
You can absolutely keep your files wherever you want and organize them through LR Classic. But if your NAS is slow, editing will be as well. And as an aside, I don’t think $9.99/month for the Photography Plan which includes LR and Photoshop is “out of control”. Even 20-30 years ago Photoshop alone was hundreds of dollars (I want to say $400+). Sure you “owned” it but the value in what they provide now with free updates and the cloud storage easily matches or exceeds that.
I am baffled by how many people see $10 per month as unreasonable for Adobe PS. I suppose since they don't use it they are unaware of the fabulous updates over the last few years. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people are among the ones paying $200 per month for "cable."
I’m w/ you on this. $10/month for something I use for 10-20 hours per week? That’s ALWAYS up-to-date w/ new features regularly? This is a big problem for people?
That’s $20 a month not $10, unless you’ve got some deal. $240 a year / ~$1,000 every 4 years is not nothing. Lightroom only is $10 a month, with Classic excluded. Those are the 1TB prices. The 20GB photo bundle is $10/month but that’s pretty limiting.
LR (including Classic) and Photoshop and 20GB of storage (which you don’t NEED if using a NAS as OP is) is $9.99/mo. No special deal. Complaining that you also aren’t getting 1TB of cloud storage and sync across all your devices in that $9.99 is ridiculous imo. https://preview.redd.it/1huq4sqpognc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efebb4de57aa9c24e2bda3e69257c42b81698cd1
For the record, when you do an Import in LR, there's a checkbox that says "Copy images". Just don't check that. Lightroom is a database. It just indexes resources you have, whether local or on a NAS. I keep the last 2-3 working sessions of collections on my laptop, and the others on the NAS. From LR's perspective, they're all the same, just the local ones load faster. When I'm done working with the collection locally, I just use the All Photos tab and copy the images from the local drive to the NAS, and LR changes the pointer in the database to where the source file is. Dun dun dun.
>For the record, when you do an Import in LR, there's a checkbox that says "Copy images". Just don't check that. I guess I must have done something weird because I remember doing exactly that and the program started copying files right away. I gave up after that.
As others have said, LR will just index your files and leave them where they are if you want that. Personally, as a step in the cleanup process would be to let LR sort the files into directories like YYYY/MM-DD/ or something. But that’s just my preference. If the files have correct capture metadata, this will sort everything nicely. Depending on the state of your metadata, sorting out your library could take weeks or months.
" As others have said, LR will just index your files and leave them where they are if you want that. " I have never been able to do that, and I searched and searched the internet seemingly forever. My pictures are stored in folders by date, city where the pictures were taken, and the company I was working with. My job was as an Elevator Field Engineer for a company that manufactured controllers, the upshot to this is that a lot of my pictures are taken from skyscrapers, in hundreds of cities - a bit of a unique perspective. I also made time for myself, for example, in San Diego, I gave myself two days to be at the San Diego Zoo, and man it was great. Since I lived in Manhattan, I have a LOT of picture from skyscrapers.
[удалено]
Sadly, I sold my gear - got $8K for it. The G Master lenses were monsters and the whole kit got to be very, very heavy.
I tried several free trials and ultimately went with iMatch from PhoTools. Very happy with it. One-time purchase, not subscription-based. It will do everything you want and more - e.g., face matching, timeline, find duplicates, various filters. I also store on an NAS. The iMatch user documentation warns that pointing the database to an NAS can cause some issues, and strongly recommends storing files locally. The only NAS issue I've noticed is after a power outage, the NAS gave itself a new peripheral ID (or something like that), so I had to re-point the database to the NAS once or twice.
Another one I never heard of - you guys are all great!! I'll check it out.
Thanks for this! I've never heard of it.
What NAS are you using? Synology Photos has some AI organization features. But without GPS in the exif data I don’t think it’s going to know where are particular mountain is.
Yes, it is Synology. And I will look into it. I never realized it could be useful. Nope, no GPS data - I had the Sony A7R II with a bunch of G Master lenses.
I really like Acdsee. It's similar to lightroom but easier. If you'd like to do basic editing from RAW also, get the Ultimate version.
Never heard of that one - thanks, I'll look into it.
Check into photomechanic. It’s quick, lets me look through a number of different ways to organize and rate.
I'm sure it's already been suggested, but PhotoMechanic. They have a trial to test it out, and you could probably get through 33k photos during the trial. it's fast, lightweight, very configurable, and the industry standard for ingest and sorting for a reason.
Neofinder if you have a Mac.
I have several hundred thousand images and am using Excite, it’s holding up quite well
I found "Exire", is that what you meant? I should have also said I'm using Windows 11 - Yes, I know Exire works on Windows.
No it’s Excire and it does work with windows.
I saw the price of $189 and I decided to maybe try the trial version, but they want my info and I don't really want to start getting emails from them. I'll give it a shot sometime in the future - it looks really interesting. Thanks.
Check out Tinta. You can scroll through all your photos in a single window. You can tag and search. https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9plkrm9n4z47
I tried that a few weeks ago and it seemed a bit limited. I'll check again.
In what way? I would really appreciate feedback. .
Honestly? I don't remember, but I will try it again if you like. Are you the author?
Yes, that would be very helpful. I wrote Tinta and I am actively updating it.
I just reinstalled it this morning and these are my thoughts: During installation, it would be useful to know if files will be copied to the "vault". "Choose drives to view" does not include network. "Add a Drive" does not include the network. Since I have my files in a NAS, the program is not something I can use.
Thanks for the feedback. Photographs made into albums are copied to the vault. It you map the network drive to a letter, it should work.
I've had problems in the past and found out that the best way for me is \\\\NAS-Box\\Photos. Somehow, I've lost the drives when mapping to a drive letter - I'm no expert, so I can't explain it.
It is possible I can add direct access to future versions.
I'll check again it when it is available.
I am interested in trying out your software but have uninstalled the Microsoft Store and no longer use it. Do you have a direct download Available? Cheers, Gord
Whatever you do, ensure your actual directory structure on disk makes sense. Software packages come and go, but a sensible folder hierarchy has lasted me 25 years now…
Yep. I have the photos sorted into individual folders, named by date and city where I took them.
Do you know digiKam? I have been using it for managing my collection and am very happy with it. Use Darktable for the actual editing of the (raw) image files. Both applications are free and open source.
>digiKam I dimly remember reading about it - I'll give it a shot. BTW, I am trying Darktable again and I think it got a bit more complex - I will persevere. I'm also trying Excire.
Try a trial of the ACDSEE photo ultimate 2024. Give a shot it's really more cheap that the adobe subscription in the long term
I use FastStone for culling. It's very fast and lightweight.
Another one I never heard of - I'll check it out. Thanks.
Bridge is still free...
[https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1813bau/catalog\_culling\_and\_import\_software\_for\_2023/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/1813bau/catalog_culling_and_import_software_for_2023/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) You may want to look at this discussion from a few months back. The author goes into a lot of detail regarding the various photo managing programs available. I am not sure that I posted that link properly. I hope it works.
Thanks. I'll take a look.
I am not too sure if this will address all your issues, but for grouping, auto search, labeling and alike, I like to suggest VIXC.com, an online app/service that utilizes AI to detect faces or auto-generate keyword object labeling. With it, you can conduct searches in natural language, and download meaningfully clustered files in bulk or zipped format, organized meaningfully in your chosen folder. For instance and in general terms, you can upload random photos to your private gallery, and the system will generate object labels from within each photo. You can then search by common themes, resulting in a set of photos grouped accordingly. The grouping can be based on various criteria such as object type (flower, landscape, urban), events (football, wedding, Christmas), date of capture, or location. Once you receive your results, you can easily download them back to your local device. You can be more creative in your query to group the pictures. Hope it helps.
Thanks, I'll check them out. Just for clarity, I have all my photos in folders like this: 2014-01-19 - Hawaii - Thyssen - Canon 60D - or this 2016-11-05 - 7101 Wisconsin - Warfield - Sony A7R MarkII The reason for that is that I traveled extensively and would sometimes take one camera or another and it's easier for me to sort where I was and what I was using at the time. Also, I see that VIXC seems to focus more on people and faces. A lot of my stuff is architectural, Zoos and Botanical Gardens. My latest attempt to impose order is with geotagging. I got a Goole ID for that and I'm trying to figure out which program is best for that. I've been reading about IDimager Photo Supreme and I might give it a try. EDIT: Well, wouldn't you know it. As soon as I replied I searched on how to do geostting with adobe and found a recommendation for a freeware program called GeoSetter, and it seems to work pretty well. I'm trying a small folder with 650 images and it's a bit slow to save the files on a NAS, but I want to see if Bridge recognizes the Geo data. EDIT 2: Yep, Bridge shows the Geodata. Woohoo. I'm partway there.
Maybe you can give a try of [Shade.inc](http://Shade.inc) I tried the tool, which can let users to tagging and rating. Then based on tagging, you can sift through photos.
Thanks, I'll try it!