Image Databasing software?

[Krynn72]

My collection of images has gotten rather absurd in size, and I need a better way of managing them. It takes me forever to find any given picture, or a specific type of picture. For example, if I want to find "underwater animals" I have to search through my whole animals folder which includes folders within it for specific animals, mixed in with miscellaneous images of other animals which I can't (or haven't) categorized into further folders.

I need some better way, and I'm thinking there has to be some software out there that can make this sort of thing easier. If anybody knows of something that can do some, or all of these things, please for the love of god let me know what it is.

- Can apply tags to images. Probably the biggest component of what I need is an easy way to tag images with keywords that I can later search for and bring up all images with those tags.

- Directory management. I'd like to be able to set up folder structures within the software itself, rather than relying on Explorer.

- Thumbnails. I think this is probably a given for anything like this, but thumbnail previews are a must when looking for a specific image.

- Duplicate image detection. I've got tons of images, and I have no doubt that I've probably got several duplicates with different names and sizes hanging around wasting space. If it could seek out and delete exact copies that would be nice.

- Backup and Synchronization. This would be a godsend if I could find some databasing software like this that could backup my entire images folder on an external drive and sync with it regularly to keep it up to date.

- Batch processes. I have a couple bits of software that do some things like batch re-naming, but it would be cool to have it in this one package. Also, batch conversion would be shweet, but I think thats asking for a little too much.

So yeah. I figure theres a bunch of people on this site with hefty image collections, so maybe someone out there can help me. So... uh... please?

EDIT: Added a few things to the list.

 

[VirusType2]

Google Picasa!

FIRST!!!

 

[Krynn72]

All I see that it does is a bunch of web-related shit I don't want, and it says it organizes things, but doesnt go into any more detail about it beyond "automatically organizes" which sounds terrible.

EDIT: HOLY SHIT. I think I just found something that does EVERYTHING on my list. EVERYTHING. INCLUDING BATCH CONVERSIONS!

http://www.photools.com/imfs_0002.php

 

[VirusType2]

You'd have to try it. It's totally amazing. Seriously, you haven't heard of it because it sounds like you were describing it.

It can organize based on your tags or you can create your own groups. (Like playlists) "underwater animals", for example - it would organize them all in one group regardless of folder or disc locations. And the web feature is something I never used and you don't need to use.

I'm pretty sure it does everything in your list, not sure about batch processing.

It sorts any image and also sorts videos and you can play or launch any media through the very slick interface.

You're dumb if you pay $65 for that one with the horrible looking interface without first trying the goggle one for free.

 

[Krynn72]

We'll see. I downloaded the trial version for IMatch, and it seems very robust. Its even got its own scripting language. So far I set up a database for one of my images folder (10,000+ images in it) and it lets you set the thumbnail size and actually tells you how much diskspace will be used by the thumbnails. Awesome.

I've downloaded Picasa as well, and will see how that goes tomorrow. I've got a feeling this is going to be the OSX of image management, and be too simplified for my needs. Its at least going to have a hard time overcoming the sheer amount of features IMatch has.

EDIT: What the ****? Picasa, STOP LOADING MY ENTIRE COMPUTER'S WORTH OF IMAGES! I just started the thing and it automatically started getting shit off my desktop and all my other drives. WHY WOULD I WANT THIS?!

EDIT2: Now why the hell would it grab this shit? Am I really going to have to go through and clean up after it finishes grabbing any random shit it wants?

EDIT3: Dude, IMatch has a whole freaking tutorial built into it. Its like a video game tutorial. Every time you click on something, a window pops up telling you exactly what it does and how to use it. Thats ****ing brilliant.

EDIT4: HOLY JESUS ****. You can search for image by sketching them. HAHAHAHA OH GOD. Man, this bitch is crazy. I just sketched this:

And it returned these:

Alright, this program has kept me up long enough. I'm going to sleep. We'll see how Picasa fares tomorrow. Its looking grim.

 

[VirusType2]

Holy shit that sketch feature is awesome.

I was going to warn you about Picasa, you need to set the preferences so it doesn't show the file types you don't want, and so it only databases the folders you want. Otherwise it will add every single thing to your image library. To just try it out, just set it up for a few folders and see how you like it.

 

[StardogChampion]

Steer clear of Picasa. It's an absolute nightmare of a program. The whole Folders vs Albums thing is stupid, and have fun managing your Tags when you want to clear/change them. You can't collapse or tag folders either and it displays all the images flat, as if there are no subfolders.

The only organisation is in the Folders tree view on the left, which is just your Windows folder system so you might aswell just look at them using Windows as usual.

 

[No Limit]

Windows 7 has a tags feature (vista might as well). Doesn't do everything that you need but it is free and built right in so you don't need to install additional software.

It can also be backed up easily using windows backup.

 

[VirusType2]

Steer clear of Picasa. It's an absolute nightmare of a program. The whole Folders vs Albums thing is stupid, and have fun managing your Tags when you want to clear/change them. You can't collapse or tag folders either and it displays all the images flat, as if there are no subfolders.

The only organisation is in the Folders tree view on the left, which is just your Windows folder system so you might aswell just look at them using Windows as usual.

I haven't used it in a few years, but I think you are wrong on at least some of this and being overly harsh. "you might as well just look at them using Windows"... except that they might be in thousands of folders on 6 different HDDs. (in my case at least)

It has a search feature, for example, typing "Gentlemen" would turn up the same images that him drawing a picture did, were he can select any of the 'like' images.

If they are in more than one folder (scattered across your HDD), it will still display them together (what he wants).

And, if only one of the images in that folder is named Gentlemen (used the search feature to find it), you can "find this on disc" to open the folder containing that image, where you might have the rest of them (regardless of their names).


It's not a nightmare of a program. It depends what you need. It's very nicely done and it is free.

 

[PvtRyan]

For hardcore image databasing, that IMatch looks pretty damn cool. For general organizing of images, I quite like Windows Live Photo Gallery.

 

[Barnz]

why they don't have such basic tools on windows. whatever, I'm getting IMatch.