Which Photo Management Program?

[scottie]

Finally bought a new desktop and need to reload all of our pics to the new hard drive (approx 12K pics). On our old machine we always used Kodak EasyShare software to view/minor edit our pictures from our hard drive.

I was considering my options of either downloading EasyShare again on the new machine and using that or possibly utilizing another Free option. I had looked at some online sites but it seemed you had to pay if you wanted all your pictures accessible- at least when you got in the number we have?

We found EasyShare to be slow over the past year or two on our machine but I attributed that to our very old desktop and little hard drive and small amount of ram. I could be wrong though and it may just be a slow program to respond??

In the past we really have only done very minor touchup, crop, etc with our photos and the Kodak EasyShare software fit that bill. I suspect we will continue to be in the same boat for the most part but now that we have a D40, I could see myself maybe wanting some more options, which I understand may require a software purchase in addition to using a program or website to house/view our photos?

My main goal is to find something that is better then Kodak EasyShare and still a no cost option.

I am totally open to suggestions as to how to manage our pictures and possible video clips from our new Kodak Zi6!

 

[mom2rtk]

Do you have your photos backed up somewhere?

I've been using a couple of external hard drives. I keep one hooked up to the desktop and back them up to the second one, which I keep in a locked closet.

I do like knowing that if I get a virus on my desktop, my photos are not part of that system.

 

[scottie]

Do you have your photos backed up somewhere?

I've been using a couple of external hard drives. I keep one hooked up to the desktop and back them up to the second one, which I keep in a locked closet.

I do like knowing that if I get a virus on my desktop, my photos are not part of that system.

yep they are on an external drive and dvd. plus they will be loaded back on the new hard drive.

 

[boBQuincy]

IrfanView may just be what you need, and it is free.

 

[Zoesmama03]

I use adobe photoshop CS3 for editing but you have Irfanview(used in past before I tried out Paintshop pro in 98 or so and used that until last year) for crops and rotations etc. and there is always GIMP if you'd like to try out more adjustment tools for a free program I here it is fantastic.

I have my photos backed up on Flickr(full resolution) and currently most are backed up to my brother's internal 1T drive. I really should work on putting them on DVDs too. I love Flickr because it makes sharing so easy and if you purchase the unlimited use($24.95 a year) you can upload unlimited videos in addition to photos and share by email or whatever. Its well worth the yearly Pro account membership upgrade.

 

[scottie]

Thanks so far. So I guess my next question would be... What program to select to just basically sort/view my pictures on the computer. We always used Kodak EasyShare in the past to do this but I am open to other suggestions.