Since I am known as both a computer professional and a photographer, people often ask for my recommendations for software and web sites that may make digital photography easier for them. This is the short list of my all time favorites that anybody can afford and use regardless of your level of interest in digital photography.
These are basic file handling tools. The obvious category of photo editing is left out. Some of the tools listed here do simple operations like rotation and cropping. However, when choosing an editor for your photos there are too many variables to be generic. If you are serious and spend a lot of time at it, Photoshop is probably for you. However, if you are a casual user and normally don't do much editing then Photoshop is probably too much for you. You may be better suited with something like Microsoft's Digital Image Suite.
The goal of this list is to point to some very valuable tools for what is known work flow management. Work flow management is the process of copying the image from the memory cards to you PC, backing them up, viewing them, cataloging them and publishing them so others can see them. Sometimes there is also a step for editing them, however I have found that the editing step is best done after the initial publication or the proof so the customer can pick their favorites first before I spend too much time cleaning up images no one cares about.
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Fast Stone http://www.faststone.org/ |
Free |
One of the best viewers is Fast Stone which is also free. It allows you to do standard file operations and it remembers previously used paths so it makes repetitive tasks easier. It also allows you to see EXIF info, plus it allows for batch operations like rotation, resize, renaming, etc.
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Downloader Pro http://www.breezesys.com/ |
$30 |
Allows you to automatically download and backup photos from compact flash. It can name the files and folders based on Job (topic). You can easily change variables that are used for naming but you end up with a standard for where and how to save photos. Another thing it does is allows you to set the files to read only. That keeps me from accidentally messing up the originals. If you get this, let me know I and I can offer some lessons learned on usage.
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Archive Creator http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/archive_creator/index.html |
$60 |
This tool creates a backup of the image folders you select. It spans multiple volumes of either CD or DVD. The CDs/DVDs are readable without any special software. Each CD/DVD can have a html thumbnail view of the contents of ALL of the CD/DVDs. That way you can find out which CD/DVD has the actual file you are looking for. It burns directly and It is pretty quick. Having a backup off your disk is essential. I've had several failures. Now I am careful to keep backups. :-) It is the most expensive of the tools I am recommending at $60.
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J Album http://www.jalbum.net/ |
Free |
JAbum is a free tool for creating web based photo albums. The albums can be published directly to an FTP server or here is an internal web server that let's you share them right from you own PC. There are a ton of skins that change the look and feel of the output. Some are loaded with camera info from the EXIF tags, some are more user friendly. Some allow for user input and commenting on the photos. This is great for letting people pick their photos for printing. You can also let them download the original files so they can have them printed. Finally, you can protect the images with watermarks (text over the photo) so people cannot steal your images without paying you, if you wish to charge for your work. Again it's free but you can donate which I recommend.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/ Great site with forums for discussing photo issues.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/10 the best place to buy and sell used equipment
http://www.robgalbraith.com Another good site they also have a buy sell forum but it's not as good as the one above.
I hope this is helpful. I'm sure you realize there are many more tools and web sites available and that I use. However, this is the basic set of tools I recommend to anyone working with digital photography. Obviously, if you have more money or greater needs there are other tools like Photoshop, but these are good tools for managing the files themselves.
thom@pantazi.net