What do you use to tag your photos?

[OctMtnWoods]

Looking for a method to tag 10,000 photos. Previously, I've tried Photoshop Elements. Played around with Picasa also. Never stuck with it. This time I'm serious to get the job done. Problems with those last 2 was I didn't want an application that I was locked into always have to buy or upgrade and would only work within that software.

Then I discovered Windows Photo Gallery was part of Windows Vista OS.
Watched this 14 minute screencast. http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/JonUdell/A-tag-oriented-tour-of-the-Windows-Vista-Photo-Gallery/
And decided Windows might be the way to go.

I did hundred photos, then discovered Windows LIVE Photo Gallery.
http://download.live.com/photogallery
The name is a little misleading. You don't have to do the LIVE part (online) at all if you don't want to. Its also sort of an upgrade from the Windows Photo Gallery that Vista automatically comes with. Also, if you have XP, you can use it. I like that you can identify peoples faces, not just tag the photo.

Here's a blog with tips & tricks that goes with their live site.
http://blogs.msdn.com/pix/default.aspx
Both windows apps have a neat feature. Sort to pics wanted, click & it takes you to a long list of online ordering sites & uploads. I don't know if they all do that today, but that is a HUGE improvement over a few years ago & mainly why I stopped printing photos. The time involved. This takes seconds. Amazing.

Now, one problem I've had, was that anything I tagged in Picasa, or Photoshop obviously didn't come over to Windows Photo Gallery. AND anything tagged in those 3 didn't come over to Windows LIVE Photo Gallery.

So, if these (or some) of these applications are putting tags into the metadata of the photo, shouldn't they show up in other apps?

Before I go crazy tagging 10,000 pics, what will be by best software to unsure that tags won't be unique to one & only one application down the road?

I found this iTag freeware. http://www.itagsoftware.com/
The guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about and he write software for a living. Been supported for 3+ years & recently updated. Since this is all new to me, is what he's saying on his site, what I'm looking for? Something where the tags will show up everywhere? He claims its compatible with a long list of apps & online sites. I downloaded it, its slow & tedious compared to the Windows Photo Gallery & Windows LIVE Photo Gallery that I've been plugging away in.

What do you use? Pros? Cons? Problems you've encountered?
Looking for a method for me to find my photos faster in my computer. Not as worried about tags for online, but it would be helpful. New to smugmug. I didn't care for flickr, it wasn't user friendly for family (or me) to view pics. I'm into geotagging (geocoding) pics too.

Sorry so long.

 

[mabas9395]

Personally, I was looking for something that could be part of my complete photo management solution. Tagging, editing, printing, uploading, backup, etc. So I went with Lightroom.

You might find another application that does one particular piece better than Lightroom, but there aren't that many that does everything as well as Lightroom does.

And since its part of the Adobe Photoshop family, I know that it will be supported for a long time. Then again, the company I used to work for was 119 years old and went under last year, so nothing is for certain.

 

[OctMtnWoods]

Well, you bring up a good point. Right now, if I tag in Windows Gallery (either version), say I want to print a bunch of pics of mom. I can sort to MOM. Say I want to do a quick auto-fix on them before sending to online printing. Well, I like Picasa's auto fix the best, but when I search mom in Picasa, I don't get any pics. The tags don't carry over.

For that matter, I don't think the tags carry over from one version of Windows Gallery to the other either.

Why can't anything just be standard? Going to take a closer look at that iTag link I posted above because he claims his tags work everywhere.

 

[jann1033]

i think that you could sort like that in lightroom as well. i keep tagging away but never use the tagsone thing i like is lightroom suggests tags, ie i take lots at an arboretum so it will suggest other terms i've used with "aboretum" ie "spring" " flower" etc automatically.

 

[mabas9395]

Lightroom will automatically upload to Smugmug (with a small add-on) and your tags will be visible in smugmug too.

 

[OctMtnWoods]

Thanks. I'll take a look at lightroom.

 

[boBQuincy]

IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) tags are about as much of a standard as there is, most photo editing software supports these afaik.

I use Adobe Photoshop and tag my images from within Adobe Bridge.

 

[Groucho]

Bob is correct; IPTC tags are what you're after. They're like the EXIF data that's attached to your photos, but used for storing things like keywords, credits, captions, etc. When you export your Lightroom photos to jpg, it stores the tags as IPTC keywords (unless you tell it not to!) Those can be used by many things - in Irfanview, I can search via them; and when I upload to my gallery on my website, they are automatically turned into searchable keywords.

The problem with most tagging problems is that they are very clunky - you may be able to apply a keyword to a group of photos, but as soon as you want to start applying some keywords to group A, some to group B, and some more to a mix of group A and group B, it gets very messy as they tend to overwrite all the previously-written keywords rather than appending them. Lightroom manages this much better than anything else I've tried.

If you've spent a bunch of time in the Live program (or anywhere else), it might be able to add the keywords to your photos, but it does require that the original photos be modified so it may not do it by default. (It won't affect the image portion of the picture at all, so there's no quality loss, but you are still changing the file.)

 

[OctMtnWoods]

I understand some use IPTC. And others use XMP. That's why I keep going back to this free iTag.com program. It does both at the same time. And its free.

Here is the compatability list.
http://www.itagsoftware.com/compatibility.php

I've been tinkering with Windows LIVE for about a month, on & off, while also completely redoing my folders. I had a very bad method previously of trying to store photos by subjects. Might work for some, but its never worked for me. So I'm doing chronological order folders & I think it will work just like my old photo albums used to.

I'm doing a basic who / what / where / some why tagging system. When will be date taken sort. I was going along fine in LIVE until I realized the tags don't carry over to Picasa. Last night l learned its only the PEOPLE tags (that you attach to faces) that don't. If I do keywords, they do. So people's names can be keywords too if I need to.

I played around with that iTag last night & found that if I tag (or just some tagging) in iTag, the tags are saved in IPTC & XMP at the same time. LIVE & Picasa & some others use XMP. So the iTags would work in just about ANY program & online like Flickr & Smugmug. Titles & captions for most part too. And its free.

I might just stick with a combo of LIVE & some tags in iTag. I've never been keen on using an app to find or store my pics. All these years & I'm still a drill down Windows Explorer type user. And Windows Vista has many improvements over XP for doing that & viewing.

I'm not hardcore like you guys. Just someone who takes a few pics here & there (even less lately), but has a huge mess of photos from 10 years that I let get out of hand. Now that I see, its one easy click to upload those pics to Shutterfly (or whereever), I plan on doing a bunch of printing and getting albums together again. That was one huge downfall for going digital for me. I never took the time to organize, print or put in albums.

What motivated me to get this done, is that my parents are up there in age, & I've been put in charge of everything when the time comes. I realized there was no way I could find pics for a funeral for instance in a hurry. I'm going to tag them, print a set & put with the important papers I have for them. Ready to go when I need. Just need to keep it up to date.

I think I'm all set. Lightroom is way more than I need I think but thank you for making learn about IPTC & XMP. Imagine if I tagged 10,000 + pics in a program & found out it didn't work for me after. Yikes.

 

[jann1033]

looking for shutter actuation info i stumbled across this....http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.microsoft.com%2Fwindowsxp%2Fusing%2Fdigitalphotography%2Fprophoto%2Fphotoinfo.mspx

 

[jfinke]

I use lightroom.