How to organize photos into folders. How to easily organize your photo and video collection in Windows by date. Setting up the photo folder structure

An unbridled desire to photograph anything and everything is characteristic of any owner of a digital camera. Therefore, on the computers of the overwhelming majority of users (who among modern users does not take pictures?), An unthinkable number of pictures accumulates rather quickly, which are often located in randomly named folders and have meaningless names. Finding the desired picture in such gigabyte photodebryas is quite difficult, because every time it is unrealistic to look through the entire photo archive. As a result, unique pictures, which captured some memorable moments of life, are likely to be lost among the host of other images.
However, providing quick and easy access to specific photos is not that difficult. To do this, you will need to think carefully about the image storage system in your photo archive and involve specialized software tools in the matter.

Storing pictures on a computer

The first step is to clearly understand that storing all images in a digital camera is not the most convenient and certainly not the most reliable way. It is better to download photos to your computer after each photo session, 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, shots out of focus, etc. Of course, some of them can be improved by one or another software tool, but in the presence of the same images best quality wasting time on fixing shooting defects is clearly not worth it.

Of course, when importing photos to a computer, it is better to drop them not into randomly created folders - otherwise, in the future, you will spend a lot of time looking for the images you need. It is necessary to develop a kind of hierarchical image storage system (taking into account the nuances of possible search), and then save the images in accordance with own system rules.

There are many options for organizing the storage of images in a photo archive. Most often, when distributing pictures into folders, they are guided by the calendar-geographic principle (in this case, the date and place appear in the folder name - for example, 2011_05_27_Crete), or they divide pictures into folders, taking into account the events on which they were taken (say, 2011_07_31_Birthday), - fig ... 1. You can also take into account the subject of images 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 importance of certain criteria for him.

Fig. 1. Possible option
photo archive folder structures

It can also be useful for searching if you tag photos keywords(family, vacation, corporate, etc.), thus uniting them into virtual thematic collections. This will allow in the future to quickly identify (by filtering or otherwise - it depends 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 immediately 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 take some time and effort, although modern software 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 deliberately - with an eye to anticipated needs and relying on the software tools that will be used to manage the photo archive.

As far as file names are concerned, not everything is clear. It is advisable to use descriptive file names, by which it would be easy to navigate what kind of picture it is, since it is completely unrealistic to guess by the name of the type DSC_0705 that this is, say, a picture from a family vacation in Thailand. Therefore, it is better to rename pictures using a template. The type of template is determined by the nuances of the search. It seems to us preferable to have a date (possibly only year and month) and a 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 in September 2011 ) - fig. 2. It is also possible to add the name of a place or event to the name of the picture - the 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 to import files or immediately after loading them into the photo archive.

Fig. 2. Batch rename files

When developing a variant of the hierarchical division of photos, you should be guided by two important principles. First, if possible, place similar photos together - in the future, this will simplify orientation. Secondly, each image should be included in the archive in a single copy, otherwise the volume of the archive will noticeably increase, as well as 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 in terms of intended redundancy) to store your photo archive on separate disk or in its separate section (ideally on a separate external drive), where no other information will be saved.

Snapshot management

You can manage the photo archive after setting up a hierarchical system of storing images on disk using a variety of software tools. The easiest and most accessible way is to use the Windows 7 Libraries. Libraries are essentially virtual folders that combine files 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 better manage documents, music, pictures, and videos, although they can be used to organize other files as well. Viewing files in libraries is the same 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, assign 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 various media (for example, on a hard disk of a stationary PC and an external hard disk), 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 organize files by properties (for example, by date, type, etc.), sort and group them according to a number of parameters, including keywords (Fig. 4).

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

Fig. 4. Grouping images based on keywords through libraries
Windows 7

You can go the other way - use the vending graphics viewer, which has minimal functionality for organizing photo collections - as a rule, support for categories, tags and ratings (similar capabilities are provided in many solutions of this kind). Which solution 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 apps... As an example, let's call the well-known to most users paid program ACDSee and the increasingly popular free cross-platform XnView viewer. Both named software product are designed for viewing, organizing and easy editing of images.

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

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

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

Typically, an even more convenient option for managing your photo archive is provided by photo organizers, which are designed to organize and sort digital photos. Therefore, it is not surprising that these products have more advanced features for organizing photo collections and quickly finding pictures in them. There are many solutions of this kind 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 offer 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 - all you need to do is place each photo directly into the logical category intended for it (Fig. 7) or first in a common storage, and then assign categories to the pictures (often with the ability to highlight different categories with icons), ratings and also assign keywords (this will determine the belonging of images to specific logical groups). Note that it is possible to assign keywords to all selected images at once and not one keyword at a time (Fig. 8) - this significantly reduces the complexity of this operation.

Fig. 7. Adding files from disc to the PicaJet category

Fig. 8. Assigning 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. It is especially worth noting the possibility of accounting for 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 easily find in the bowels hard drives all pictures with a sunset on the river, a son on a bicycle, temples during restoration, flowering apple trees, etc., even if you took pictures of such objects along the way, many times and at different times.

Fig. 9. Quick search based on keywords in Zoner Photo Studio

Briefly about the products

ACDSee 14.3

Developer: ACD Systems

Distribution size: 71.8 MB

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

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

Price: US $ 29.99

ACDSee is an internationally renowned graphics viewer (Figure 10) aimed at both professionals and home users. Includes toolkit for quick and comfortable viewing 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 exchange, etc.

Fig. 10. Working with snapshots in ACDSee

The 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; categories are highlighted with different icons for better orientation. 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. Images from the most different devices: hard disk, CDs, digital cameras, flash drives, scanners, etc. Supports batch renaming of files. With one click, you can send files selected from different places according to some principle to the so-called 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 using a "magnifying glass". Get more fast access It is easy to access the images you want using sorting, grouping and filtering based on image size, date, rating, tags, EXIF ​​data, categories and keywords.

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

Zoner Photo Studio 14

The 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 days 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 recently launched, but already well-established program for managing, editing and sharing images (Figure 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 features of the free edition are limited by the basic functionality. In addition, this edition does not have a 64-bit version and does not support GPU acceleration, nor does it support dual monitors.

Fig. 11. Organization of 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 and dropping 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 memory cards of a camera, scanner, etc.), as well as by receiving images from websites, PDF-files, etc. Images during viewing 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). There is a possibility of batch renaming of files according to a template.

The editing capabilities are also impressive and will appeal to both novice and advanced users. The former may be limited to basic functions (rotation, cropping, straightening, automatic image enhancement), while the latter may be interested in such advanced editing functions as adjusting levels, correcting color, improving exposure, reducing noise, 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 raster formats and EXIF ​​data editing. Selected photos can be easily combined into a PDF slideshow or converted to a postcard, even 3D and HDR images are possible. As for the publication, it is worth noting the creation of web galleries, recording DVD presentations, printing (using templates and photo calendars), sending by e-mail as well as uploading 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 days demo (http://www.picajet.com/en/index.php?page=download)

Price: PicaJet FX - 490 rubles.

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

Fig. 12. Photo Collection Management in PicaJet

To organize a photo archive in PicaJet, categories are used, which are created automatically during the addition of images based on the existing folder structure and / or based on IPTC data, or manually. The nesting level of categories is not limited. You can add pictures to your 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 using drag and drop. In order to better identify categories, they can be assigned a variety of icons. Categories are assigned during import or manually by dragging 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 .; it is possible to display pictures during playback in the form of a slideshow.

The editing plan includes operations such as cropping and rotating, removing red-eye, correcting sharpness, auto-correcting, and more. Supports quick correction of multiple images with one click, as well as resizing and converting 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 edit metadata (EXIF and IPTC). As for the exchange, it is worth noting the availability of functionality for creating photo galleries for publication on the website, recording photo collections on 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), best known in no small part for its tight integration with Picasa 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 way of organizing images, implemented by the developers, in our opinion, is not very successful. In addition, the application is quite resource intensive and is accompanied by a very mediocre help system.

Fig. 13. Organizing your photo archive in Picasa

Albums are used to catalog images in Picasa; sub-albums cannot be created. Albums are filled manually, by sorting the images found after scanning or by importing images, which takes a lot of time from the user. Scanning hard disks is launched when the program is first launched, while by default all hard disks of the computer are scanned, which is quite a long time - it is better to interrupt this process, manually adjust the list of scanned directories through the folder manager and start scanning again. Photos from hard drives are added to photo collections automatically as they are scanned, and you can manually add photos 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, the cataloging of images by the people depicted on them is provided with the connection of face recognition technology. Created this collection in semi-automatic mode - faces in all pictures are automatically recognized, and then the user must indicate the faces of interest in the pictures to create their corresponding albums. During playback, images are displayed in normal mode or as a slideshow, taking into account the specified sorting option (by title, date, etc.). To speed up access to the pictures you want, you can tag your favorite photos with tags, as well as use tags - they resemble keywords and later make it easy to find photos through the built-in search. You can also enter geographic data to link images to a map. Google earth.

Built-in editing tools allow you to resize, rotate, crop, and perform a number of image correction operations (removing red-eye, straightening, adjusting contrast and color balance, etc.). In addition, you can rename multiple 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 from selected images, burn the photos to CD, create a video by combining photos into a slideshow, or post 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 (currently 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 presence simple tools for organizing photo collections.

Fig. 14. Working with a collection of images in XnView

Photo archive management in XnView is based on the use of categories, the nesting of which is unlimited. Assignment of 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 disk, as well as from scanners and digital cameras. In addition to supporting categories, they can be assigned ratings, color-coded, and tagged to simplify orientation among multiple images. When viewing photos, it is allowed to include sorting by date, rating, format, width / height, orientation, description, comment, etc .; the selected pictures can be viewed 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. There is a possibility of batch converting and batch renaming of files.

The utility is equipped with a basic set of functions for editing images (including resizing, rotating, cropping), allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, gamma and color balance, has tools for automatic tuning levels, removing red-eye, applying simple filters and effects, and others. Many operations can be applied directly to a group of images in batch mode. Editing of IPTC data is possible. 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, but for all users it takes a lot of time to find the necessary images in the archive. It can only be drastically accelerated correct organization photo collections, 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 images and their own priorities - the main thing here is that you feel comfortable. As for the software tools, it all depends on the user's requirements in terms of cataloging and the complexity of the intended search. Someone will have enough opportunities Windows libraries 7 or a simple free viewer, others will prefer more functional paid solutions: the popular ACDSee viewer or one of the photo organizers reviewed, among which Zoner Photo Studio seemed to be the most convenient for cataloging.

The beginning of autumn - it's time to sort out summer photos, and at the same time organize your family photo archive. Over the years, millions of users have used the free Picasa software... But this year, you may have to rethink your habits - starting May 1, Picasa is no longer available to download. Popular program suffered the same fate as previously Google Reader, and now its support is discontinued. You can work with Picasa only if you downloaded it earlier, 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 imaging applications, find full replacement Picasa is not that easy. Mainly because, for all its simplicity, this program was multifunctional: with its help it was possible to organize photos into albums, and select images 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 exclude programs whose main function is to view images. Our goal is to find solutions for organizing large collections of images and uploading photos to the Internet.

⇡ Google Photos is the successor to Picasa

For creating backup A photo archive in the cloud, there is hardly a better solution than Picasa's successor, Google Photos.

First, all web albums uploaded using Picasa are automatically transferred to the new service from Google. Secondly, as in the case of Picasa, users of the new service get unlimited storage space for photos, the size of which does not exceed 16 megapixels. For most people who use their smartphones for shooting, this means the ability to download the entire photo archive for free, because the number of smartphones with better cameras is not so great (even the iPhone 6s has a 12-megapixel camera, and Samsung Galaxy S6 - 16-megapixel).

To upload photos to the cloud from your computer, you need to use the Google Photo Backup app. Like Picasa, it allows you to automatically download all photos from memory cards, from the desktop and from standard folders Windows for storing pictures. In addition, you can add any number of additional folders that store your photos.

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

While everything is more or less clear about uploading images online, many other Picasa features have not migrated to Google Photos. The online service has quite 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" it is worth looking for a desktop application with the necessary 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.

You can view images by catalogs, by albums, or in such a favorite Picasa users' Timeline mode, when the photos are automatically ordered by the program by the time they were taken.

You can use rating to sort images, and create custom albums. 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.

Filters can be used to sort images. They help to display only photos related to a particular album, with a specific title 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. The second mode makes it possible to work with a "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 rendition, 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, it is possible 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 interesting function to create 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 by specified folders, by custom albums, by specific 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 (analogous to 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 program ImBatch.

Unfortunately BonAView does not contain any means for sharing photos with other people. Perhaps this is due to the fact that latest version the program dates back to 2013, when social functions were not as in demand as they are today. 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 (there is a Pro version)
• Russian interface: no

JetPhoto Studio combines the capabilities of a cataloguer, 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 from different sources (from a memory card, from local folders, from a webcam, etc.) are added to the album. By sorting images in an 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 of this data can be used to find the images you want. And pictures marked with an asterisk can be quickly highlighted. It is convenient to use the calendar to find photos. Just click on the date you want and only the pictures taken on that day will be shown.

In addition to the usual mode of viewing photos in the form of thumbnails for similar applications, JetPhoto Studio offers an interesting opportunity to display images on a map. The program perfectly understands geotags and makes it possible to assign them both manually and based on the loaded GPS track. Integration with Google Earth, creation of KML and KMZ files is also provided. If information about where the photo was taken is not automatically available, you can easily add it simply by pointing to the location on the map. This can 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 wallpaper, flash gallery, screen saver, slideshow, web gallery in one of several formats.

But the image editing capabilities are more than modest. There are only a couple of the simplest effects, basic photo corrections and cropping tools.

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 to the site from the program. Agree that for the majority it is too difficult and expensive (especially since we are looking for an alternative to Picasa, which means free solutions).

But the 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. In this case, you can load originals or compress images to 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 disadvantages of JetPhoto Studio, it is worth noting the not very responsive interface. The program often "thinks" when performing some operations, and importing photos with default settings generally paralyzes the computer. However, if you switch to import in 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 actions, 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 better alternative Google's product, however Windows Photo Gallery is very similar in functionality to Picasa. The application can be downloaded free of charge as part of Windows package Essentials ("Windows Essentials"). In addition to the component we are interested in, the package also includes a blog editor, mail application, OneDrive, and video software. During installation, you can select only those applications to be installed.

Immediately after launching, 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 rewrite photos from a memory card, just connect the drive - the program will immediately offer to import the images.

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

A variety of tools are offered to organize images: ratings, flags, signatures, text tags, geotags, information about people present in the photos. To add tags different types convenient to use the side panel. In the course of work in the program, the user compiles a base of tags, and later you can quickly find photos marked with a certain keyword, or those in which the right people are present. It is interesting that Photo Gallery can help with the identification of people: the program itself finds the heroes of photographs and offers to indicate who they are.

All information about photos added to Photo Gallery can later be used in searches. For example, you can search for pictures taken in specific months and tagged with a particular tag. The AND and OR operators are used to define search criteria. The search criteria can also be the type of file (video, photo, raw file) and whether it has been published on the web.

Photo Gallery allows you to send photos and video files 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).

Photo Gallery also contains some image editing tools. There are several filters here with a handy function. preview, tools for color correction and noise removal, adjusting exposure and aligning photographs. In addition, directly from the program, you can rename files, change the resolution, edit information about the shooting date. Conveniently, all changes made can be undone by pressing one button.

Unfortunately, Photo Gallery support for Windows 7 will be discontinued soon. This is because Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 have a built-in Photos app for viewing, organizing, and posting photos online. This application allows you to view your photos in different modes: by album, by folder or by date. Photos is integrated with OneDrive, and all photos that the user works with in the app 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 have deliberately placed Zoner Photo Studio at the end of the review, leaving this app for dessert. Despite the fact that the program is the younger 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 tools for image editing: masks, filters, gradients, selection tools, for removing noise, adding frames, perspective correction, working with HDR, as well as tools for capturing the screen , batch processing, video slideshow creation. However, the list of what is in the program is much longer than the list of missing options.

Zoner Photo Studio Free can work 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 photographs, you need to import them into the program from any folder, from a memory card, etc. Photos stored in the database can be displayed in the form of 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, and to "tiles" (with the ability to flexibly adjust the size of thumbnails). In addition, you can display several photos side by side, as well as view geotagged images on the map.

Sorting images is also great: photos can be sorted by title, rating, date of creation or last modification. There are also great amount extended criteria involving 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 data about the 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 parties cloud services, however, offers unlimited photo storage on its own photo hosting, Zonerama. After creating an account and a gallery, the Zonerama item appears on the navigation bar with two folders: "Shared Albums" and " Hidden albums". It is easy to guess that all photos uploaded to the first one become publicly available, and the pictures uploaded to the second folder can only be viewed by the owner. To upload photos, you just need to select them and move them to the desired album with the mouse.

Despite the fact that the editing options are limited compared to the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, their set is quite impressive for a free program. You can not only change the resolution of the image and the size of the canvas, 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 free programs that can be considered a worthy alternative to Picasa have one common drawback: they are quite old. Therefore, you 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 developing and looks modern is Zoner Photo Studio Free. She, apparently, can be recommended as the most the best replacement Picasa.

Sorting photos based on the similarity of images on them. The application will sort all photos with the same meaning into separate folders, to which it assigns its own numbers;

Search for similar images / photos according to the sample. All photos similar to the sample will be copied to the folder designated for the output of the result;

Search for a fragment of a photograph. This function resembles whole image search. But here the program will look for matches with the selected area on the test photo. All photos with a similar fragment will be found. This search is useful if you want, for example, to find all photos with one person. Select a face, click find, Sortirovchik will do the rest for you;

Creation of a report on the similarity of photographs. The function is similar in meaning to the search by fragment, but with the difference that the found images will not be copied to a separate folder.

The photo sorting software will show statistics in the form of the number of matches, file names, color gamut similarity parameters, color spread, overall match and complete match. It can be useful if you need to compare the degree of similarity of one person to other people.

Putting things in order in the computer: programs that will make working with photos simple and convenient.

Since the advent of digital cameras and cameras in phones, we create, download and store hundreds of photos every day. Some of us have a natural gift for organizing and organizing information, while others have to rake gigabytes of files and folders with obscure names. And when you urgently need a specific photo, it can be very difficult, and sometimes impossible to find it.

The image libraries that we use for work deserve special attention. For example, designers can collect dozens of photos from photo stocks, textures and drawings in one project by copying pictures from one folder to another and creating backup after backup. This not only eats up computer memory, but also complicates further work with images, because then it will be difficult to understand where the source is, and where is the already edited image.

Fortunately, there is a solution. We will tell you about the most convenient methods and programs for organizing and storing images. With their help, you can not only quickly search and find the photos you need, but also put down ratings, form albums and much more without unnecessary copying.

Picasa

Free tool from Google. It shows all indexed photos in a convenient folder structure. You can let the program scan the entire HDD in the search for photos, or choose specific folders... By double clicking on any image, it will expand to Full Screen and basic editing tools will be shown: cropping, straightening, adjusting color and light, or removing red-eye, among other things.

There are some convenient functions like face recognition and geo-tagging. You can scan all photos and then search in the database specific people... And geo-tagging will allow you to search by location. Special attention should be paid to viewing photos - a user-friendly interface and additional tools for editing deserve to make Picasa your default viewer.

Zoner Photo Studio Free

Free version of Zoner Photo Studio photo editor. The program can copy pictures directly from the camera and allows you to process them using basic tools and effects. You can also create your own collection of photos, organize it the way you want, easily find the images you want, print them, send them by email and publish them on the Internet.

Zoner Photo Studio Free has four main control panels: Import for uploading photos, Manager for managing archive on your PC, Editor for processing and enhancing images, and Viewer for browsing available images. The Manager tab includes a tree-like system of displaying folders, navigation and information panels. If the need arises, you can purchase an extended version with more functionality.

StudioLine Photo Basic

Digital image editor and manager. With it, you can organize your photo archive and edit the parameters of photos. There is an integrated image format converter function, as well as elements of a graphic editor.

Supports IPTC standard, reads and edits EXIF ​​metadata, RAW support. To use the program for free, you need to request an activation code on the developer's website, which will be sent to your email.

Aperture

If you are on a MAC, then you need to look at Aperture - an advanced and more professional analogue of the built-in iPhoto editor. This program will allow you to catalog, rank and edit your photos.

In addition to its wide functionality and capabilities, another plus of Aperture is that only non-destructive file editing is carried out here. Instead of changing source file, the program records and reproduces the list of operations performed on it. Any change made in Aperture can be “rolled back” without problems, which eliminates unnecessary duplicates and errors. True, sales of Aperture will be stopped this spring, as Apple will release a new product for working with photos - Photos for OS X.

Phototheca

Free program for viewing photos and organizing personal photo libraries on your computer. Convenient interface in Apple style and a large number of varied functionality- not all that this software can surprise with.

In Phototheca, you can hide pictures, or rather, move them to sections designated as Safe. With the default settings of the program, images from the Safe section can be viewed only in Phototheca, in addition, the "safes" themselves can also be made invisible on the hard disk.

MAGIX Photo Manager 15

A powerful tool for organizing, editing and sharing photos. You can organize your images in a variety of ways, such as by name, date, or subject tags. There is a function to automatically organize photos by scanning and analyzing the content.

Among other things, the developers took care of the ability to recover photos deleted by mistake and find duplicates. You can also protect pictures with a password.

XnViewMP

Multifunctional application for working with graphic files on a computer, which is an extended version of the XnView program. In fact, this tool can be considered a kind of media browser with viewer, converter and cataloger options. Supports viewing more than 500 different graphic formats, and when saving (converting) - up to 50 formats.

In XnViewMP, you can convert pictures and photos into various formats, including in batch mode, which is convenient when working with a large amount of data, you can view and edit EXIF ​​information, take screenshots, upload data to an FTP server, website or send by email, organize your graphics library by specific parameters, and much more. Images can be cropped, rotated, resized, adjusted brightness and contrast, applied various effects, etc. The well-thought-out interface of the product, which is made like Windows explorer where everything is laid out and sorted for maximum productive use.

Regardless of which program you choose, you will get the desired order in your photos. No more painful searches among thousands of disparate files. A clear organization will allow you to enjoy your work or viewing memorable pictures without nerves and surprises. And the ability to edit pictures will save you from having to open Photoshop every time you need to tweak a little thing.

With the advent of digital cameras, it became possible to photograph absolutely any object and, most importantly, in any quantity. Digital technology imposes almost no restrictions on the ease of taking pictures. The immediate result of this is that the number of photographs taken by an amateur photographer, not to mention professionals, has increased dramatically. On an affordable and capacious memory card, you can easily place several hundred or even thousands of frames of the highest quality with the camera. Moreover, only a small part of these photographs are printed, while the complete photo archive is usually stored on the hard disk of the computer.

It is here that a very important pressing question arises before the photographer - how to store a huge number of digital images so as not to get confused in a huge volume of files and, if possible, quickly find the photo he needs? Almost every photographer is faced with such a task of cataloging and organizing a photo archive. How can you best organize your home photo archive so that you can easily find and quickly retouch your footage later?

Organizing your home photo archive

I must say that each of the photographers copes with the solution of the problem of organizing and managing photographic images in his own, individual way. But in any case, at first, all the captured frames are transferred by the photographer from various flash drives and disks to the hard disk of a computer, which can be used specifically for storing an archive and maintaining a catalog. The easiest way to catalog your photos is to rename all photos in advance and place the files on disk in separate folders with specific names. That is, the photographer in this case is engaged in cataloging the captured frames manually, renaming the file names and transferring them to the necessary folders.

This approach can be used by an amateur photographer who does not shoot often, mainly for example, family photos. He does not need to resort to complex methods of cataloging. It is quite enough to create several folders for each year with subfolders for certain events - a camping trip, meeting with friends or a summer vacation. Thus, all folders with photos will be located on the hard disk in chronological order, which is quite convenient for finding the photos you need.

This simple home archive cataloging system works well when the number of photographs remains relatively small. But, as practice shows, even among ordinary amateur photographers, the number of captured frames grows at an avalanche rate. As a result, the whole process of renaming and placing files becomes rather tedious. But the most important thing is that at one fine moment the photographer has to remember with difficulty what year or event these or those pictures that he wants to find belong to. And with each new shoot, the situation will only get worse. Therefore, many photographers who shoot in large quantities prefer to use special programs for cataloging photographs. These photo organizers are based on the principle of physically breaking down into folders and sorting frames using keywords.

Cataloging photos using software tools

To cope with organizing and cataloging a large volume of digital images will help you special program- photo organizer. Today, you can find plenty of them on the net, some are distributed completely free of charge, while the use of others involves the purchase of a license. Some of the most popular and in-demand photo organizers include Adobe Photoshop Album, Lightroom, PicaJet Photo Album, Extensis Portfolio, iView, Photo Cataloging, Google Picasa, FotoAlbum Pro and many others. The cataloging of photographs in most of these programs is carried out by placing the captured frames in a kind of storage, in which all information is divided into certain categories. Subcategories and labels can also be placed within these categories. All photographs stored in such a repository are marked with so-called metadata, that is, data about photographs containing certain keywords, the date of shooting and a short description. Created by the program Logical folders with photos resemble regular physical folders, but the files displayed in them may not be in one specific location, but in a variety of physical folders on your computer's hard drive.

In the logical folder itself, only links to image files are stored. Accordingly, this means that in each photo collection created by the user, pictures from different sources can appear. Thus, the program automatically organizes some SQL database data with a preview of all photos placed on the hard disk. Such programs provide a convenient and quick search captured frames and their demonstration. Moreover, photo organizers often go beyond cataloging digital photographs and offer the photographer such additional features like quick image adjustments, adjusting brightness and contrast, cropping photos, and more.

It is clear that it is very convenient to use such a program with an existing archive with a large volume of photos. But in order to place photos in the catalog, you must first provide them with the appropriate data. It is not at all necessary to supply every photo detailed description... The keywords should be short enough, their main purpose is to facilitate the process of finding photographs. When placing each new batch of photos in the catalog, they are first viewed, then the missing images are deleted and the images are slightly corrected. Some photos can be immediately converted to black and white or the color saturation of the picture can be changed using the photo organizer capabilities.

Further, each photo image is assigned its own special tag - keywords. Moreover, such keywords in the catalog can have several levels, for example, "Travel" - "Country" - "Czech Republic" - "Prague". In addition to keywords, you can add some description to the photo, in particular, where and under what circumstances this photo was taken. Photos are also necessarily accompanied by a note about the shooting date. Using keywords and a tagging system, the program will very quickly find the photo you need or present a whole list of images searched for by keywords. Moreover, you can search not only by keywords, but also by the name of the album and the date of shooting. You can also quickly view all the photos taken during the period of time you are interested in. Photos in the catalog can be accompanied by your personal rating, so that you can immediately remember the most successful and interesting shots in a particular photo session. With the photo organizer, you can quickly transfer your collections to other media and record on DVD discs as well as create slideshows with subtitles and music.

So, it is obvious that cataloging photographs is a rather laborious process, requiring the photographer to look at each picture, supply it with keywords and description. However, the correct organization of the photo archive will definitely pay off a hundredfold, because it will significantly simplify the search for captured frames by plot, date and other criteria. Working with a catalog of photographs will provide you with significant time savings.