[NHCOLL-L:3327] RE: Photo Organization Software for Biologists

[Rachael Arenstein]

When I worked on the Move Project for the National Museum of the American 
Indian we too struggled with the issue of how to manage the thousands of 
digital images that our project created.  For this project the museum 
purchased a program called Portfolio by Extensis
http://www.extensis.com/en/products/index.jsp;jsessionid=OT2PYHRXGRHKJLAQAAUQ0FQ

It was available as a stand alone program and as a server based program that 
would allow for multiple users at the same time.  It used to be that you 
could download a free trial version for 30 days.  It was a very powerful 
program with easily adaptable metadata functions and search capabilities as 
well as being user friendly and easy to learn.  On the downside it probably 
costs more than $100.

The New York Times on Thursday February 1, 2007 published an article by Ian 
Austen in the Circuits section "Better Shoeboxes for Digital Photos: New 
Programs Arrive to Browse and Manage Images."   I will see if I can e-mail 
the article to you.  It has a good disussion of various options.

Best,
Rachael Perkins Arenstein
Conservator in Private Practice





>From: Matthew Sarver <ammodram at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: ammodram at yahoo.com
>To: Entomology Discussion List <entomo-l at listserv.uoguelph.ca>
>CC: NHCOLL-L List <nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu>
>Subject: [NHCOLL-L:3324] Photo Organization Software for Biologists
>Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:09:04 -0800 (PST)
>
>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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