[NHCOLL-L:3326] Re: Photo Organization Software for Biologists

[Heather Yager]

Hello list-

I am quite interested to hear responses to this question as well - I'm
working on the organization of a large lep image collection.

Thanks,
Heather Y.

On 2/10/07, Matthew Sarver <ammodram at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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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