home Comp. literacy How to organize your photo archive. Photo cataloging. The best free programs for organizing your photo collection How to organize your photo storage on your computer

How to organize your photo archive. Photo cataloging. The best free programs for organizing your photo collection How to organize your photo storage on your computer

The beginning of autumn is the time to sort out summer photos, and at the same time organize the family photo archive. Over the years, millions of users have used demons to do this. paid program picasa. But this year, you may have to reconsider your habits - starting May 1, Picasa is no longer available for download. The popular program suffered the same fate as previously Google Reader, and now its support has been discontinued. You can only work with Picasa if you have downloaded it before, but keep in mind that no updates will be released for it anymore.

It would seem that there is something, but there are enough programs for organizing photos on the market, both paid and free. But despite the huge selection of applications for working with images, finding a full-fledged replacement for Picasa is not so easy. Mainly because, for all its simplicity, this program was multifunctional: with its help it was possible to organize photos into albums, and select pictures according to various criteria, and perform basic editing operations, and quickly upload albums to the cloud.

Let's not forget that Picasa was a free solution, which means that commercial programs should not be considered as an alternative. We also deliberately do not include in this review programs whose main function is to view images. Our goal is to find solutions that allow you to organize large collections of pictures and upload photos to the Internet.

⇡ "Google Photos" - successor to Picasa

For creating backup You can hardly find a better solution for a photo archive in the cloud than Picasa's successor, Google Photos.

First, all web albums downloaded using Picasa are automatically transferred to the new service from Google. Secondly, as in the case of Picasa, users of the new service receive unlimited space for storing photos, the size of which does not exceed 16 megapixels. For most people who use their smartphones to take pictures, this means that the entire photo archive can be downloaded for free, because the number of smartphones with better cameras is not so large (even the iPhone 6s has a 12-megapixel camera, and samsung galaxy S6 - 16 MP).

To upload photos to the cloud from a computer, you need to use the Google Photo Backup application. Like Picasa, it allows you to automatically download all photos from memory cards, from the desktop and from standard Windows folders to store pictures. In addition, you can add any number of additional folders in which photos are stored.

At automatic copying photos to the cloud from memory cards, you can also select the folder where a local copy of the images will be saved. Google Photos Backup can download images at their original resolution or automatically compress them. RAW files are supported, but their loading is disabled by default (this can be changed in the settings).

If everything is more or less clear with uploading images online, then many other Picasa functions in Google Photos have not migrated. The online service has rather modest image editing capabilities (and, frankly, the editor's interface leaves much to be desired), there are no tags, captions and comments to photos familiar to Picasa users. Therefore, if you have used Picasa not only as a tool for uploading photos online, but also as a cataloger and editor, in addition to Google Photos, you should look for a desktop application with the desired functionality.

⇡ BonAView 1.9.0

Developer: High Motion Software
Operating system: Windows
Distribution: Free
Russian interface: yes

BonAView is not the most famous program for working with photo archives, but it is undeservedly overlooked. In terms of functionality, it is close to Picasa, and in some ways even surpasses the recently closed program.

Viewing images is possible by catalogs, by albums, or in the Timeline mode, so beloved by Picasa users, when photos are automatically sorted by the program by the time they were taken.

Ratings can be used to sort images, and custom albums can also be created. BonAView is suitable for working with photo collections of any size, as it supports an unlimited number of albums (including any number of nested albums). The number of photos in each album is also not limited.

You can use filters to sort images. They help to display only photos related to a particular album, having a certain name or a given rating.

Viewing photos is possible in two modes: in the form of thumbnails, the size of which can be easily controlled using a special slider, and in 3D view. The second mode allows you to work with the "carousel" of pictures, rotating and even editing them in the course of viewing.

By the way, about editing. There are a lot of functions for enhancing photos in BonAView. There are options for adjusting color reproduction, correcting levels and removing red eyes, tools for automatic adjustment, tools for sharpening and blurring, about a dozen effects (sepia, negative, shadow, etc.), a good set of frames for different occasions. It is interesting that, as in "large" photo editors, there is an opportunity to apply editing tools not to the entire image, but to its part, having previously selected the required fragment.

It is also worth paying attention to an interesting feature for creating visual annotations. Using it, you can add various graphic elements and text to the picture.

We also mention the excellent built-in search engine. BonAView can search for photos in specified folders, user albums, certain properties(size, resolution or file type, date last change, rating).

To quickly select photos stored in different folders and albums, it is convenient to use the ImageBoard tool (analogue of Photo Tray in Picasa). Once photos are placed on the ImageBoard, they can be added to albums and other operations as a group. But there are no full-fledged tools for batch processing in BonAView - for this, the same developer offers a separate ImBatch program.

Unfortunately, BonAView does not contain any means for sharing photos with other people. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the latest version of the program is dated 2013, when social functions were not as in demand as they are now. However, BonAView can be used in conjunction with Google Photo Backup.

⇡ JetPhoto Studio 4.15

Developer: Atomix Technologies Limited
Operating system: Windows/Mac
Distribution: Free for non-commercial use (pro version available)
Russian interface: no

JetPhoto Studio combines the capabilities of a cataloger, viewer, graphic editor, and also contains tools for publishing photo albums on the Internet.

To start working with the program, you need to create an album. Then photos are added to the album from various sources (from a memory card, from local folders, from a webcam, etc.). By sorting images in the album, the user can mark them with an asterisk, add keywords and notes (that is, a textual description of the photo). It is also possible to edit information in EXIF. All this data can be used when searching for the desired pictures. And pictures marked with an asterisk can be quickly highlighted. It is convenient to use the calendar to search for photos. Just click on the desired date and only pictures taken on that day will be shown.

In addition to the usual mode for such applications to view photos in the form of thumbnails, JetPhoto Studio offers an interesting opportunity to display images on the map. The program perfectly understands geotags and makes it possible to assign them both manually and on the basis of a loaded GPS track. It also provides integration with Google Earth, creation KML files and KMZ. If data about where the photo was taken is not automatically available, it can be easily added by simply entering the location on the map. This can also be done for a group of photographs, having previously selected them.

JetPhoto Studio offers many of the most different ways convenient image viewing. For example, based on the selected photos, you can create a wallpaper, flash gallery, screensaver, slideshow, web gallery in one of several formats.

But the image editing capabilities are more than modest. There are only a couple of the most basic effects, tools for basic image correction and cropping.

Like Picasa, this program allows you to not only work with photos locally, but also publish them on the Internet. There are two main ways to do this: using the Flickr service and the JetPhoto Server. The second way involves creating your own website with web albums based on the templates provided. The user needs to purchase hosting, deploy JetPhoto Server on it, and then upload web albums from the program to the site. Agree that for the majority this is too complicated and expensive (especially since we are looking for an alternative to Picasa, which means free solutions).

But integration with Flickr is very interesting, because on this photo hosting you can store photos with a total volume of up to 1 terabyte. In order to be able to upload your photos to Flickr, you need to authorize JetPhoto Studio to access account. After that, you can upload both entire albums and selected photos. At the same time, you can upload originals or compress images to a specified size, manage privacy settings, add geotags. Keywords and notes added to photos in JetPhoto Studio will also be transferred to Flickr. For the convenience of users, the amount of available free space is shown before each download.

Among the shortcomings of JetPhoto Studio, it is worth noting a not very responsive interface. The program often "thinks" when performing some operations, and importing photos with default settings generally paralyzes the computer. True, if you switch to import in the background, you can work with other applications. In an age when even many web applications can simultaneously load data and respond perfectly to any user action, this looks like archaism. However, JetPhoto Studio is in a sense a relic of the past, because the latest version of the program is dated 2013.

⇡ WindowsphotoGallery ("Photo Album") 2012

Developer: Microsoft
Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
Distribution: Free
Russian interface: yes

Perhaps someone will consider the application from Microsoft not the most the best alternative Google product, but Windows Photo Gallery is very close to Picasa in terms of functionality. The application can be downloaded for free as part of the Windows Essentials package. Windows components"). In addition to the component we are interested in, the package also includes a blog editor, a mail application, OneDrive and a program for working with video files. During installation, you can select only those applications that should be installed.

Immediately after launch, Photo Gallery picks up all the photos stored in the image library (by default, these are the My Pictures and Public Pictures folders). To add other images, you just need to show the program where they are stored by changing the library settings.

If you need to overwrite photos from a memory card, just connect the drive - the program will immediately offer to import pictures.

In the Photo Gallery window, photos are sorted by the time they were taken. At the same time, as in Picasa, photos stored in different folders can be nearby. Their location on the disks does not matter. If you wish, you can choose one of many other sorting options: by folders, by rating, by drive types, by people shown in photos, by name, by geotags. Appearance The workspace of the application is highly configurable: you can enable the display of additional information about the file, rating, signatures, quickly change the sort order, etc.

A variety of means are offered for organizing images: rating, flags, captions, text tags, geotags, information about the people present in the photos. To add tags of different types, it is convenient to use sidebar. In the course of work in the program, the user compiles a database of tags, and later you can quickly find photos tagged with a certain keyword, or those in which the right people are present. Interestingly, Photo Gallery can help with the identification of people: the program itself finds the heroes of the photographs and offers to indicate who they are.

All photo information added to Photo Gallery can later be used in searches. For example, you can search for pictures taken in certain months and tagged with a particular tag. The AND and OR operators are used to define search criteria. The search criterion can also be the file type (video, photo, raw file) and whether it was published online.

Photo Gallery allows you to send photos and videos by mail, as well as upload to various online services: Flickr, OneDrive, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo. Images can be compressed to the desired size before uploading. In addition to sending to the Internet, photos can be used to create panoramas, collages, videos (in the Movie Maker application).

You can also find some image editing tools in the Photo Gallery. There are several filters with a handy function. preview, tools for color correction and noise removal, exposure adjustment and photo alignment. In addition, directly from the program, you can rename files, change the resolution, edit information about the shooting date. It is convenient that all the changes made can be canceled by pressing one button.

Unfortunately, support for Photo Gallery for Windows 7 will soon be discontinued. This is because Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 have a built-in Photos app for viewing, organizing, and sharing photos online. This application allows you to view photos in different modes: by albums, by folders or by date. Photos is integrated with OneDrive, and all the photos that the user interacts with in the application can be uploaded to the cloud. Albums are created automatically based on best images or manually by the user. However, in terms of functionality, Photos is inferior to Photo Gallery (as well as Google Photos is inferior to Picasa - simplification is now in vogue).

⇡ Zoner Photo Studio Free 18

Developer: Zoner, Inc.
Operating system: Windows
Distribution: Free
Russian interface: yes

We deliberately placed Zoner Photo Studio at the end of the review, leaving this app for dessert. Despite the fact that the program is the little brother of the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, it has all the modern important functions for organizing your photo archive, as well as free uploading to your own photo hosting. It differs from the paid version of Zoner Photo Studio Free in that it lacks advanced image editing tools: masks, filters, gradients, selection tools, noise removal, adding frames, perspective correction, working with HDR, and screen capture tools. , batch processing, creating video slideshows. However, the list of what the program has is much longer than the list of missing options.

Zoner Photo Studio Free can work both as a simple tool for viewing photos stored on disk or on any media, and as a cataloger. In order to create a database of photos, you need to import them into the program from any folder, from a memory card, etc. Photos stored in the database can be displayed as a calendar, by folders or by keywords. There are a lot of viewing modes: from one in which the main part of the window is occupied by one image, to “tiles” (with the ability to flexibly adjust the size of thumbnails). In addition, you can display multiple photos side by side, and view geotagged photos on the map.

Image sorting is also great: photos can be sorted by title, rating, date created or last modified. There are also great amount advanced criteria that use all EXIF data. In addition, the program can display RAW and JPEG images separately, giving preference to either the first or the second.

To the right of the viewing area, there is an information panel where you can easily edit all the information about a photo. So, it is possible to set a color label, add a rating, title, description, keywords, change EXIF information.

Zoner Photo Studio Free does not work with third party cloud services, but offers unlimited photo storage space on Zonerama's own photo hosting. After creating an account and a gallery, a Zonerama item appears in the navigation bar with two folders: Shared Albums and Hidden Albums. It is easy to guess that all photos sent to the first one become public, and pictures uploaded to the second folder can only be viewed by the owner. To upload photos, simply select them and move them to the desired album with the mouse.

Although the editing options are limited compared to the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, for a free program, their range is quite impressive. You can not only change the image resolution and canvas size, but also add text, place one image on top of another, add some effects, perform color correction, improve sharpness, work with shutter speed and white balance.

⇡ Conclusion

In general, as our little research has shown, most of the free programs that can be considered as a worthy alternative to Picasa have one common drawback: they are quite old. Therefore, we still need to think about whether it is worth switching to an unfamiliar solution or staying on the abandoned, but still working Picasa for a while. The only program that stands out from the rest in that it is actively developed and looks modern is Zoner Photo Studio Free. She, apparently, can be recommended as the best replacement for Picasa.

Almost every person using a digital camera thousands, maybe tens of thousands of different photographs have accumulated on the computer. Everyone has this huge archive stored in different ways. Someone, in one directory, has a lot of different folders with names or dates corresponding to photographs, and someone has them all stored on different disks, network storages, in different folders, and it is quite possible that some of them have long been forgotten in some some folder named "New Folder" :)

Of course, when photographs from several years are scattered all over the computer, the mere thought of organizing and searching for them causes negative feelings. But not everything is as bad as it seems at first glance :) Regardless of how you store photos - Google Picasa will help you with all this archive. I will try to describe in detail the process of organizing your home photo archive using Google Picasa.

In just one hour, you can achieve impressive results:

Find all the photos on your computer, even the ones you forgot about.
Organize them and learn how to quickly search for the photos you need!

Automatic search for all photos.

Let's start from the first point. As I already wrote, I use the very convenient Google Picasa program to manage my home photo archive. It is a free and very powerful photo manager. You can download it on the official page: //picasa.google.ru/. The installation of the program goes smoothly and calmly: we run the installation file and agree with everything that we are offered to do.

Before you get started with Google Picasa, remember two very important and useful things:

Picasa does not store photos on your computer: When you open Picasa, it simply searches the folders on your computer and displays the photos it finds. It displays files of the specified types located in the folders selected for search. Original photos are always kept: When using the editing tools in Picasa, the original files remain intact. Changes you make to a photo are only viewable in Picasa until you choose to save them. Even so, Picasa creates new version photos with the changes made, keeping the original file unchanged.

So, when Google Picasa is installed, we launch it. If all the photos on your computer are located in different folders or on different drives, then I recommend waiting until it automatically searches for photos on your computer.

For example, I have all the photos stored in one folder, so after starting I immediately specified the folder with which the program should work. If you have the same situation, then I recommend that you immediately go to the menu Tools -> Folder Manager and tick only those folders in which photos are stored.

If you have photos scattered all over your computer, then you can do nothing but watch as Picasa finds all your photos and images.

When the program performs a full scan of your computer - on the left side you will see a lot of folders in which images and photos were found. Initially, Picasa finds absolutely every image on your computer.

Sort and organize photos in a collection.

You need to clear this list yourself. To clear the list of photo folders:

Finally, when the list of folders has been cleared of everything unnecessary, you can combine the remaining directories into a Collection. For example, in my archive I found several different folders from my vacation in 2012:

In this form, the names of these folders are not very informative for me personally. Therefore, I combined them into one collection. For this:

Now you just have to look through the entire list of folders and organize them into your collections.

An unbridled desire to photograph anything and everything is characteristic of any owner of a digital camera. Therefore, on the computers of the vast majority of users (who among modern users does not take pictures?), an unimaginable number of pictures accumulate quite quickly, which are often found in randomly named folders and have meaningless names. Finding the right picture in such gigabyte photo jungle is quite difficult, because it is unrealistic to view the entire photo archive every time. As a result, unique pictures that captured some memorable moments of life are likely to be lost among a host of other images.
However, providing quick and convenient access to specific photos is not so difficult. To do this, you need to think carefully about the system for storing images in your photo archive and involve specialized software tools in the process.

Storing pictures on a computer

The first step is to clearly understand that storing all the pictures in a digital camera is not the most convenient and, of course, not the most reliable way. It is better to download photos to your computer after each photo shoot, and do it as soon as possible - while the memories of the events are still fresh in your memory. After that, it is wise to immediately get rid of bad shots - blurry shots, dimly lit photos, out-of-focus shots, etc. Of course, some of them can be improved by certain software tools, but if you have the same images of better quality, it is clearly not worth spending time on correcting shooting defects.

Of course, when importing photos to a computer, it is better not to drop them into randomly created folders - otherwise, in the future, you will spend a lot of time searching for the right pictures. You should develop some kind of hierarchical system for storing images (taking into account the nuances of a possible search), and then save the images in accordance with your own system of rules.

There are many options for organizing the storage of images in the photo archive. Most often, when distributing pictures into folders, they are guided by the calendar-geographical principle (in this case, the date and place appear in the folder name - for example, 2011_05_27_Crete) or divide the pictures into folders based on the events on which they were taken (say, 2011_07_31_Birthday), - Fig. . 1. You can also take into account the theme of pictures in the system (landscapes, animals, flowers, etc.), etc. In general, each user will have his own version of the hierarchy in the photo archive, which depends on the significance of certain criteria for him.

Rice. 1. Possible option
photoarchive folder structures

In addition, it may be useful for search if you mark photos with keywords (family, vacation, corporate, etc.), thereby combining them into virtual thematic collections. This will allow in the future to quickly identify (by filtering or otherwise - depending on which software tool will be used to solve this problem) images, taking into account the keywords of interest. It is faster to assign such keywords when importing images from the camera, although you can do this operation later - after saving the photos to disk. Unfortunately, in any case, the initial process of assigning keywords will require some time and effort, although modern software tools allow you to assign keywords to groups of photos at once, which significantly speeds up the process. In addition, you need to approach the assignment of keywords thoughtfully - with an eye to the expected needs and based on the software tools that will be used to manage the photo archive.

As for the file names, everything is not clear. It is advisable to use descriptive filenames that make it easy to identify what kind of image it is, since it is completely unrealistic to guess from the name of the DSC_0705 species that this is, say, a photograph from a family vacation in Thailand. Therefore, it is better to rename pictures according to a template. The type of template is determined by the nuances of the search. It seems to us preferable to have the date (perhaps only the year and month) and the frame number in the name of the snapshot - for example, 2011-09-05_0015.jpg or 2011-09_0015.jpg (15th frame taken on September 5, 2011 or September 2011 ) - rice. 2. It is also possible to add the name of a place or event to the name of the image - a variant of the name of a specific photo from the group in this case may look like: Thailand_2011-09_0015.jpg. Such renaming should be carried out in batch mode (manually renaming hundreds and thousands of files is completely unrealistic) - it is better during the process of importing files or immediately after uploading them to the photo archive.

Rice. 2. Batch rename files

When developing a variant of the hierarchical division of photographs, it is worth being guided by two important principles. First, if possible, place the same type of photos together - in the future this will simplify orientation. Secondly, each picture should be archived in single copy, otherwise the volume of the archive will increase noticeably, and difficulties will arise if you need to edit images that have duplicates. It should also be noted that it is more convenient (both in terms of orientation and in terms of the intended backup) to store your photo archive on a separate disk or in its separate partition (ideally, on a separate external drive), where no other information will be stored.

Snapshot management

After setting up a hierarchical system for storing images on disk, you can manage the photo archive using a variety of software tools. The easiest and most affordable way is to use Windows 7 Libraries. Libraries are, in fact, virtual folders in which files are combined, regardless of their physical location. This makes it easier to find, use, and organize files on your computer or on the network. By default, Libraries are designed to help you manage your documents, music, pictures, and videos more efficiently, although you can use them to organize other files if you like. Viewing files in libraries is done in exactly the same way as in regular folders.

In the case of working with your own photo archive, it makes sense to create a library specially designed for this, give it an appropriate name (for example, “Photo Archive”), and then directly from the explorer indicate to Windows the range of folders that the new library will contain (Fig. 3). It is worth noting that the specified folders with photos can be stored on different media (for example, on the hard drive of a stationary PC and an external hard drive), but, nevertheless, after placing them in the library, it will be possible to view the corresponding images in one window. And the convenience is not only in this - it will also be possible to arrange files by properties (for example, by date, type, etc.), sort and group them according to a number of parameters, including keywords (Fig. 4).

Rice. 3. Determining the range of folders for the created library in Windows 7

Rice. 4. Grouping pictures based on keywords through libraries
Windows 7

You can go the other way - use the graphics viewer you like, which has minimal functionality for organizing photo collections - as a rule, support for categories, tags and ratings (similar features are provided in many solutions of this kind). Which decision to choose is a matter of taste and wallet, since on the market you can find both recognized commercial products and quite worthy alternatives. free apps. As an example, let's name the paid program ACDSee, well-known to most users, and the free cross-platform viewer XnView, which is gaining popularity. Both named software product designed for viewing, organizing and easily editing images.

Working with images in these solutions is easy and convenient, as the developers have provided different options for viewing images, included simple tools for performing basic editing operations, thought out functionality for convenient image sharing, etc. As for organizing a photo archive and getting quick access to images of interest, here, of course, the possibilities are more impressive than in the libraries of Windows 7 (that's what specialized software is for!). For example, rating images allows you to assign to each image a certain value in terms of its value (for example, quality), so that in the future it will be possible to quickly find the most popular original images. The use of color labels also simplifies organization - with such labels, for example, you can mark images at different stages of the workflow (in some colors - original images, in others - images after correction, in others - images selected for printing, etc.) - fig . 5. No less convenient is the use of categories, thanks to which you can instantly find images belonging to a specific category or even several at once (Fig. 6).

Rice. 5. Using custom color labels to highlight pictures
in ACDSee

Rice. 6. Quick access to images from two categories at once in XnView

As a rule, an even more convenient option for managing a photo archive is provided by photo organizers, which are designed to organize and sort digital photographs. Therefore, it is not surprising that these products have more advanced features for organizing photo collections and quickly searching for pictures in them. There are many such solutions on the market. Some of them (such as Apple Aperture, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, ACDSee Pro Photo Manager, etc.) are quite expensive, difficult to learn and aimed at professional photographers. At the same time, home users also have nothing to complain about - they have numerous compact and easy-to-learn applications that are affordable or even free. Examples of such programs include Zoner Photo Studio, PicaJet, and Picasa.

Cataloging pictures using photo organizers is as easy as shelling pears - just place each photo immediately in its logical catalog category (Fig. 7) or first in the general storage, and then assign categories (often with the ability to highlight different categories with icons), ratings and tags, and also assign keywords (this will determine whether images belong to specific logical groups). Note that you can assign keywords to all selected images at once and not just one keyword at a time (Fig. 8) - this significantly reduces the complexity of this operation.

Rice. 7. Add files from disk to PicaJet category

Rice. 8. Assign keywords in Zoner Photo Studio

All this will allow you to quickly find the necessary photos in the future by searching, filtering, sorting and grouping. Of particular note is the ability to take into account when searching and filtering keywords, which makes it possible to perform complex search queries(taking into account not only one, but also several keywords) - fig. 9. In particular, by manipulating keywords, you can effortlessly find in the depths of hard drives all the pictures with a sunset on the river, a son on a bicycle, temples under restoration, apple trees in bloom, etc., even if the shooting of such objects you passed along the way, many times and at different times.

Rice. 9. Quick Keyword Search in Zoner Photo Studio

Briefly about products

ACDSee 14.3

Developer: ACD Systems

Distribution size: 71.8 MB

Work under control: Windows XP(SP2)/Vista/7

Distribution method: shareware (30 day demo - http://www.acdsee.com/en/free-trials)

Price:$29.99

ACDSee is a world famous graphics viewer (Fig. 10) aimed at both professionals and home users. Includes tools for quick and easy viewing of files of various graphic formats, as well as audio and video files and archives. In addition to viewing graphics, this solution can be used for editing and cataloging images, batch processing files, finding duplicates, online image sharing, etc.

Rice. 10. Working with pictures in ACDSee

Cataloging in ACDSee is based on the use of categories, ratings and colored labels. Categories are created manually (there is a predefined list of basic categories) and can be nested; For better orientation, the categories are highlighted with different icons. The ratings in this program are basic, but the labels can be edited, which allows you to select images into logical groups in accordance with personal tasks. There is support for keywords and geotags, it is possible to edit EXIF-??and IPTC-data. Imported in category pictures from the most different devices: hard drive, CDs, digital cameras, flash drives, scanners, etc. Batch file renaming is supported. With one click, you can send selected different places for some reason, files into the so-called image basket (Image Basket) for further editing or sharing. When viewed, images are displayed as thumbnails, full screen, or as a slideshow; if necessary, individual fragments of the image can be easily viewed in an enlarged form with the help of a “magnifying glass”. It's easy to access the images you need faster by sorting, grouping, and filtering based on image size, date, rating, tags, EXIF data, categories, and keywords.

The editing panel built into the program, in addition to supporting basic operations (rotation, cropping, etc.), will help you correct the image exposure, adjust levels and curves, perform color correction, get rid of red-eye and noise, and also apply standard filters to the image. These operations can be performed on not only single images, but also on several images at once in batch mode. Tools are provided for comparing images and converting them to other raster formats. In addition, ACDSee allows you to burn images to CD/DVD, combine them into slideshows, PDF files and web albums, as well as easily share images by uploading them to social networks, to FTP servers, etc.

Zoner Photo Studio 14

Developer: Zoner Software

The sizedistribution kit: Zoner Photo Studio Free - 26.7 MB; Zoner Photo Studio Pro - 87.7 MB

Work under control: Windows XP(SP2)/Vista/7

Distribution method: Zoner Photo Studio Free - freeware; the other two editions are shareware 30 day demo (http://www.zoner.com/ww-en/download-free-photo-program)

Price: Zoner Photo Studio Home - $34.99, Zoner Photo Studio Pro - $69.99, Zoner Photo Studio Free - Free

Zoner Photo Studio is a recent but well-established program for managing, editing and sharing photos (Fig. 11). The capabilities of this solution are impressive, many functions are implemented by developers with an eye on professional products, in particular on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The program is presented in three editions: free Zoner Photo Studio Free and two commercial - Zoner Photo Studio Home and Zoner Photo Studio Pro. The free edition features are limited to basic functionality. In addition, this edition does not have a 64-bit version and does not support GPU acceleration, as well as dual monitor operation.

Rice. 11. Organize your photo collection in Zoner Photo Studio

Zoner Photo Studio allows you to create a photo archive as a set of albums based on an existing folder structure or manually. Albums have an unlimited nesting level, and the easiest way to create them is by dragging the corresponding folders with pictures from the Explorer window onto the Albums folder of the program navigator. You can replenish the photo archive directly from devices (from camera memory cards, scanners, etc.), as well as by receiving images from websites, PDF files, etc. When viewing images, they are displayed as icons or thumbnails; to speed up access to images of interest, it is easy to use sorting, built-in search and filtering. When filtering and searching, EXIF data, keywords, service text information(title, description, etc.), as well as ratings, tags and GPS coordinates (the latter are entered manually or read from Google maps). It is possible to batch rename files according to a template.

The editing options are also impressive and will interest both beginners and advanced users. The former may be limited basic functions(rotation, cropping, straightening, automatic image enhancement), and the second will be interesting to turn to advanced editing functions such as adjusting levels, color editing, improving exposure, noise reduction, etc. Any changes can be applied not only to one, but also to several images at once in batch mode. There is also functionality for converting images from RAW formats to bitmap formats and editing EXIF data. Favorite photos can be easily combined into a PDF slideshow or converted into a postcard, and even 3D and HDR images can be created. As for publishing, it is worth noting the creation of web galleries, recording DVD presentations, printing (using templates and photo calendars), sending via e-mail, as well as uploads to Facebook, Flickr, and Picasa web albums.

PicaJet 2.6

Developer: picajet.com

Distribution size: PicaJet FX - 5.91 MB; PicaJet Free - 4.81 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/7

Distribution method: PicaJet Free - freeware; PicaJet FX - shareware, 15 day demo (http://www.picajet.com/en/index.php?page=download)

Price: PicaJet FX - 490 rubles.

PicaJet is a convenient and very easy to use program for cataloging image collections (Fig. 12). It is presented in two editions: free PicaJet Free and commercial PicaJet FX. The free edition includes only a basic set of functions - in particular, it does not provide for the creation of categories, the possibilities of sorting and searching, etc. are more than limited, so we do not recommend choosing PicaJet Free to manage large and complex archives. The commercial edition has all the necessary set of functions for effective organization of photo archives, and it may well suit most home users.

Rice. 12. Managing your photo collection in PicaJet

To organize the photo archive, PicaJet uses categories that are created automatically when adding images based on the existing folder structure and / or on the basis of IPTC data, or manually. The nesting level of categories is not limited. You can add pictures to the collection from a digital camera, scanner, webcam, CD/DVD, and hard drive folders. To speed up the process of including images in the photo archive, it is allowed to use hot keys; you can also quickly import images from File Explorer by dragging and dropping. In order to better identify categories, they can be assigned a variety of icons. Categories are assigned during import or manually, for which it is enough to drag a group of images onto a category. There is functionality for batch renaming of selected files based on templates. If necessary, it is easy to add a description and / or rating to the selected images. Photos can be viewed with grouping and/or sorting by date, rating, import time, etc.; pictures can be displayed as a slideshow when viewed.

The editing plan includes operations such as cropping and rotating, red-eye removal, sharpening, auto-correct, and so on. It supports quick correction of several images with one click, as well as resizing them and converting them to another graphic format on the fly. It is possible to print photos in popular formats (including 9×13, 13×18, 10×15), as well as editing metadata (EXIF and IPTC). As for the exchange, it is worth noting the presence of functionality for creating photo galleries for publication on the website, burning photo collections to CDs, sending photos to mobile phone, as well as optimizing photos for sending them by e-mail.

Picasa 3.9

Developer: Google

Distribution size: 14.5 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7

Distribution method: freeware (http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa39-setup.exe)

Price: is free

Picasa is a popular tool for organizing, viewing, and easily editing photos (Figure 13), and is known in no small part for its tight integration with Picasa's web albums. Such integration expands the possibilities of sharing pictures with other users, and this is a definite plus. And the functionality of this program as a whole is at the level. However, the method of organizing images implemented by the developers, in our opinion, is not very successful. In addition, the application is quite demanding on resources and is accompanied by a very mediocre help system.

Rice. 13. Organize your photo archive in Picasa

Picasa uses albums to catalog images, you cannot create sub-albums. Albums are filled manually by disassembling the images found after scanning or importing, which takes a lot of time from the user. Scanning hard drives is launched the first time the program is launched, and by default it scans all hard drives computer, which is quite a long time - it is better to interrupt this process, manually correct the list of scanned directories through the folder manager and restart the scan. Photos from hard drives are added to photo collections automatically as scanning progresses, and you can add photos manually by importing images from cameras, CDs, memory cards, scanners, webcams, and more. In addition to albums, Picasa has another cataloging tool, the People collection. With its help, cataloging of images by the people depicted on them is provided with the connection of face recognition technology. This collection is created in a semi-automatic mode - the faces in all the pictures are automatically recognized, and then the user needs to specify the faces of interest in the pictures to create the corresponding albums. When viewing images, they are displayed in the normal mode or as a slideshow, taking into account the specified sorting option (by name, date, etc.). To speed up access to the desired pictures, you can mark your favorite photos with tags, as well as use tags - they resemble keywords and make it easy to find photos later through the built-in search. You can also specify geographic data to link images to google map Earth.

Built-in editing tools allow you to resize photos, rotate them, crop them, and perform a number of image correction operations (removing red-eye, alignment, adjusting contrast and color balance, etc.). In addition, it is possible to rename several photos and batch edit them, as well as online image editing using the Picnik.com service. There is functionality for printing photos in basic formats, as well as editing EXIF data. If you want, it's easy to create a photo collage of the selected pictures, burn the pictures to a CD, create a video by combining photos into a slideshow, or publish to Blogger. You can also share your albums with others after adding them to Picasa Web Albums.

XnView 1.99.1

Developer: Pierre E Gougelet

Distribution size: 4.36 MB

Work under control: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP/Vista/7; There are versions for Mac OS X and Linux

Distribution method: freeware (http://www.xnview.com/en/download.html)

Price: free (for private non-commercial or educational use)

XnView is a free cross-platform viewer for images and other multimedia files (Fig. 14) with support for a very large number of formats (on this moment- more than 500). The program allows you to easily view, process and convert image files, and is also equipped with a number of additional features, including the availability of simple tools for organizing photo collections.

Rice. 14. Working with a collection of snapshots in XnView

Photo archive management in XnView is based on the use of categories, the nesting of which is unlimited. Assigning categories to images is done manually and is possible for all selected or marked files at once. You can add pictures to the photo archive from a disk, as well as from scanners and digital cameras. In addition to category support, you can assign ratings, color labels, and tags to your many photos to make it easier to navigate. When viewing photos, it is allowed to include sorting by date, rating, format, width/height, orientation, description, comment, etc.; You can view the selected pictures as a slideshow. A built-in search is also implemented in the program, taking into account the basic parameters of images, including EXIF and IPTC data. You can batch convert and batch rename files.

The utility is equipped with a basic set of image editing functions (including resizing, rotation, cropping), allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, gamma and color balance, has tools for automatically adjusting levels, removing red-eye, applying simple filters and effects, etc. Many operations can be applied immediately to a group of images in batch mode. It is possible to edit IPTC data. If necessary, the XnView utility can also be used to compare images, print files, create panoramic images, take screenshots, generate multi-page files and web pages, and a number of other actions.

Conclusion

Photo archives are different for everyone, as well as the requirements for working with them, however, for all users, searching for the right pictures in the archive takes a lot of time. It can be drastically accelerated only by the correct organization of the photo collection, which implies a well-thought-out system of catalogs in the archive and the use of specialized software tools.

Each user chooses a hierarchical system himself, based on the subject of the pictures and his own priorities - the main thing here is that you feel comfortable. As for software tools, it all depends on the user's requirements in terms of cataloging and the complexity of the intended search. Someone will be quite satisfied with the capabilities of the Windows 7 libraries or a simple free viewer, others will prefer more functional paid solutions: the popular ACDSee viewer or one of the photo organizers we reviewed, among which Zoner Photo Studio seemed to be the most convenient for cataloging.

Storing pictures on a computer

Rice. 1. Possible option
photoarchive folder structures

Rice. 2. Batch rename files

When developing a variant of the hierarchical division of photographs, it is worth being guided by two important principles. First, if possible, place the same type of photos together - in the future this will simplify orientation. Secondly, each image must be entered into the archive in a single copy, otherwise the volume of the archive will increase significantly, and difficulties will arise if it is necessary to edit images that have duplicates. It should also be noted that it is more convenient (both in terms of orientation and from the point of view of the intended backup) to store your photo archive on a separate disk or in its separate section (ideally, on a separate external disk), where no other information will be saved.

Snapshot management

After setting up a hierarchical system for storing images on disk, you can manage the photo archive using a variety of software tools. The easiest and most affordable way is to use Windows 7 Libraries. Libraries are, in fact, virtual folders in which files are combined, regardless of their physical location. This makes it easier to find, use, and organize files on your computer or on the network. By default, Libraries are designed to help you manage your documents, music, pictures, and videos more efficiently, although you can use them to organize other files if you like. Viewing files in libraries is carried out in the same way as in ordinary folders.

Rice. 3. Determining the range of folders for the created library in Windows 7

Rice. 4. Grouping pictures based on keywords through libraries
Windows 7

You can go the other way - use the graphics viewer you like, which has minimal functionality for organizing photo collections - as a rule, support for categories, tags and ratings (similar features are provided in many solutions of this kind). Which decision to choose is a matter of taste and wallet, since on the market you can find both recognized commercial products and quite worthy alternative free applications. As an example, let's name the paid program ACDSee, well-known to most users, and the free cross-platform viewer XnView, which is gaining popularity. Both named software products are designed to view, organize and easily edit images.

Rice. 5. Using custom color labels to highlight pictures
in ACDSee

Rice. 6. Quick access to images from two categories at once in XnView

Rice. 7. Add files from disk to PicaJet category

Rice. 8. Assign keywords in Zoner Photo Studio

All this will allow you to quickly find the necessary photos in the future by searching, filtering, sorting and grouping. Of particular note is the possibility of taking into account when searching and filtering keywords, which makes it possible to perform complex search queries (taking into account not only one, but also several keywords) - fig. 9. In particular, by manipulating keywords, you can effortlessly find in the depths of hard drives all the pictures with a sunset on the river, a son on a bicycle, temples under restoration, apple trees in bloom, etc., even if the shooting of such objects you passed along the way, many times and at different times.

Rice. 9. Quick Keyword Search in Zoner Photo Studio