[NHCOLL-L:3324] Photo Organization Software for Biologists

[Matthew Sarver]

Hello folks - 

Apologies for cross-posting.

I wonder if any of you have come up with good solutions to managing your digital images of insects and other organisms?  (in addition to any organization done using the windows filesystem)

I have spent a good deal of time trying to find an inexpensive ($100 or less) Windows-based application that will allow me to easily tag and organize my photos.

However, photo organization software is not designed with taxonomy in mind, so the ability to add many levels of custom hierarchical tags is essential.  I also need to be able to work with EXIF and IPTC metadata, and export all tags and metadata from the program's internal database in non-proprietary file types like CSV, XML, or text files.  I work on a laptop, so would also benefit from indexing of files stored on removable media and external hard drives.

The front runners in the field seem to be programs like IMatch, Compupic, and ThumbsPlus.  iViewMedia Pro was also well-regarded, but it has now been purchased by Microsoft and their new version of it will cost $300.

I like the idea of ThumbsPlus integrating with a "real" database (MS Access by default, but also SQL and others), but have heard that it is pretty slow, due to the inherent slowness of the way the database handles OLE objects.  Compupic is supposed to be fast, but the method of categorization sounds tedious for the multi-grained levels of the taxonomical hierarchy.  IMatch sounds good - anyone have experience with it?

I have also considered using a program to extract the metadata and then storing it in a custom made database using Access, but this is not the ideal scenario.

I would appreciate detailed information on any solutions folks have come up with to address this problem. 

Thanks,
Matt

Matt Sarver
New Castle, DE


 
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