How to Archive Your Images Effectively

When it comes to storing and keeping track of images, a regular database program is a poor choice. Those are well tuned for handling text data, and they store everything within the database document itself. But when it comes to pictures you need something that works in a different way. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent image oriented database products available that can help you handle all your digital photos, scans, and more. Both iView Media and Extensis Portfolio are more than ready to track many thousands of images and help you find your photos quickly. They both work in similar ways, and they can track and organize sounds and videos as well. Extensis Portfolio and the Pro version of iView Media are equally adept at cataloging and sorting many other kinds of files including page 'layout documents, fonts, and word processor and spreadsheet files.

Of course, these features go way past what's needed in an image archive tool, but if you want a very flexible alternative to the normal Windows Explorer or Macintosh Finder methods of managing your documents, these products can be a great help. When you've found the picture you want to use, you can open it in another program from there or even just drag and drop it into a page layout.

There are numerous other products around, from the ultra basic to the slick and fully featured. Mac users should look first at Apple's iPhoto that comes with new Macs as standard and as part of the iLife software suite. This only works with images and video clips; it won't catalog other kinds of documents, but it does provide "photo albums" for grouping images in different sets and basic keyword tagging and searching to help track down items. It also offers extensive publishing options, from printing cards and ordering bound albums to Web photo galleries and sending by email.

Windows users can start by looking at the photo oriented Light box or, for handling many other kinds of files as well, Image Works. Image Works is designed to provide many of the features found in Portfolio and iView Media, including slide shows, Web photo galleries, batch conversions, and catalogs of removable media such as CDs.

Once you've chosen your image archive tool you'll have to set it up, add your pictures to it, and make sure keywords are added to the appropriate items. These things can make it much easier to manage large collections of images, but only if you start out properly. Fortunately, it isn't hard at all to get started with a product such as iView Media.

When it is launched, you can make a new "media catalog" from your Pictures and Movies folders. The media is imported and presented in the catalog window, with tabs for showing the items in detailed list view, an array of thumbnails, or in close up "media" form. An Info panel shows exhaustive details about selected items, a Caption panel lets you add information to them, and an Organize panel lets you tag and filter items by date, event, author, location, people, and other keywords. To add a keyword to the People list, click Organize, and then click People. Now click the cogwheel icon in the People bar, choose Add, and type a person's name. Finally, drag an image onto the new name. Now when you click that name you'll see just the items that have been linked to it. You can add many different keywords, so it makes sense to tag your photos and movies with all the different names of the people in the shots.

Once you've found the items you want, you can open or move the images themselves, create a photo gallery for your website, run a slide show, or make a printed version of your media catalog. If you have files on a CD you can include these too; the catalog remembers where the originals are and lets you browse the database for media even if the disc isn't in your computer.