Tagging with Keywords and Rating

[Poppyrob]

Like most photographers, my stored image count continually rises, to the point that I now have tens of thousands of images. Unless an image is totally out of focus or in some other way unusable, I keep them all. My method of storage is suitable for my needs, with images stored on external drives in a hierarchy of folders. But with time it has become increasingly difficult to locate a particular image I know lives in there 'somewhere'. For example, while on a bird shoot, images are taken of a farmhouse, road, landscape. Not exactly birds, but they're filed away within the bird shoot for that particular session. Easy to tag and/or rate at the time, but a few years down the track ... ?

What I am seeking is a method of tagging any individual image with keywords and possibly a rating, to enable ease of location. I always shoot raw files, using Faststone image viewer and CS5 for editing. Although Faststone has a simple tagging capability where the image can be flagged, there is no function to add keywords for later searching. Apparently Adobe Bridge allows tagging and rating, but these simple advantages are outweighed by disadvantages. I recall trying Bridge many years ago but quickly found it unsuitable for what I wanted to do. I should also state my computer is a PC, not Apple, and I run Windows 7.

A thread titled 'Image location software??' by bobt at the end of 2016 touches on what I'm trying to find, but surely software exists to enable the adding of keywords to enable simple searching.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

[ricktas]

Lightroom allows tagging on upload. So say you had been to a wedding as you import, you can bulk apply your keywords to all the photos as they are imported from your memory card. Rating them requires you to go through the images and rate each one with a single key press as you go.

Not sure if you want to look at purchasing new software (lightroom) and then learning how to use it. Or if you are seeking a way to simplify the process, with the software you have?

[Poppyrob]

Thanks Rick. To download my images, I've always used a card reader through Faststone Image Viewer. Fastone allows me to preview the images full screen from the card before I download to an external HDD. In this way I can cull out 'dead' images before downloading to a folder created for the shoot. My sons and grandsons are surfers and it's not unusual for me to arrive home with hundreds of images from a surfing session. It would be so handy to be able to tag images with the surfers name and rate the image say 1 to 5 if it is a 'good' shot or not. Motor racing is another area where this would be helpful, with say the drivers name and car type. At present (as far as I can determine) Faststone only permits a single tagging facilty, without rating, and no capability for keywords to apply to a particular image.

The reason I like Fastsone is that I can access files quickly and simply then preview images full screen before I select those I wish to work on in Photoshop. And CS5 is more than adequate for the image manipulations I require. I would definitely consider purchasing new software, pending cost of course, to be able to tag a keyword or description to individual shots. My subsequent searches for keywords would probably be made only on individual folders or groupings of folders rather than say an entire HDD.

Surely someone provides this facility, if only on jpgs as opposed to raw images. The more images I acquire, the more difficult it has become to find those individual shots I know are hidden there somewhere, but if tagged would save soooo much time.

Hope the above makes sense. It's a bit hard to explain things at times.

[Poppyrob]

Hmmm. I've spent a good deal of today searching the net for possible answers to my problem and so far I'm not turning up trumps.

Initially I thought I may be on a winner with Picasa but unfortunately it has been retired for the new, you beaut Google Photos. Google Photos is an app and as such is more-so designed for phones, pads and the like. Strike one.

OK, back to Adobe Bridge. My Adobe Bridge and Photoshop are the CS5 version and that's all well and good for my 'older' camera files .... but .... the CR2 (Canon raw) photos created by my Canon 7DII are not recognised by my Adobe software without prior wholesale batch converting to the DNG file format. I could do that, but prefer not to as Faststone does recognise the format and lets me preview the files as captured. Only those files I wish to run through CS5 are converted to DNG prior to photoshopping. The reason? Adobe do not provide updates for their older software to enable the recognition of 'new' file formats. Anyone with a 5DIV will have experienced exactly the same problem.

So what can I do? Not much apparently other than purchase Lightroom or equivalent to provide the functions I need. Does Lightroom attract an annual fee ass CC does, or can it be purchased 'stand alone'?

I'm still open to suggestions and would appreciate any ideas.

Thank you.

[J.davis]

Update 'Adobe Camera Raw' in PS and see if that helps recognise the raw files.

[Tannin]

If you are used to Faststone, going to Lightroom will be like stepping out of a nippy little sports car and into a bus.

Just sayin'

[arthurking83]

.... I should also state my computer is a PC, not Apple, and I run Windows 7.

A thread titled 'Image location software??' by bobt at the end of 2016 touches on what I'm trying to find, but surely software exists to enable the adding of keywords to enable simple searching.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

Point 1: I hate Adobe software .. pretty much anti Adobe anything, but more so Lr, and their entire suite of keywording/catalogging etc.

Point 2: I like to keep things simple and as basic as possible.

So from point 1 and using point 2, I prefer my raw files to have their important keyword data embedded, so that when they move/migrate/transfer/delete the keyword data goes with them.
I prefer not to rely on proprietary third party software that basically locks you into their system.
Adobe tagged raw files metadata is only readable(in effect) by Adobe software. That keyword data stored in an xml file separate to the raw file is not known to other programs, like FSViewer etc.

What camera system do you use?(scratch that I just noticed a mention of Canon .. so CR2 or whatever.

As you use Windows, you could try a method I've written about in a thread titled something along the lines of keywording tagging or something.
Basically you need to download a MS program called Photo Gallery. If you use Win7 Photo Gallery will work.. but finding the download file may be hard.
It comes in a suite of various other software to help users maintain connectivity with the outside world. It's called Windows Essentials .. and it's anything but.
if you are curious to try it, just be sure not to install everything as it likes too by default. untick everything other than Photo Gallery.

The program itself is pretty hopeless, other than it's ability to keyword/tag.

I won't run through the entire process, but:

1. you need the most current version of your camera makers codec for the latest camera model you have.
ie. if you have a 7DII then as long as you have the codec from Canon for that one, that'll do. ONLY update the codec if you NEED too. (like I said, Photo Gallery is hopeless in many ways, and breaking compatibility with newly installed codecs is one of them. Doesn't happen all the time, but I've seen it a few times.

2. Install Photo Galley from the Essentials software. If you can't find any copy anywhere give me a holler .. I may still have some links

That's it!

What it does: As long as the codec is working, what it does is that as you keyword/tag raw images, it embeds the data into the raw file itself.
Photo Gallery's usefulness for tagging is quite ok. I've yet to find any limitations with it.
The bonus. Those raw files with tagged data are also now viewable on the PC via Windows 7 itself(ie. Windows Explorer) go to a raw file select properties and then the details tab.
In that view you see a property column and a value column.
All data is viewable on the value column, and editable.
if it has no tag data you can edit and add it there via Windows Explorer.
This is ok to do on some files here and there, but on a wholesale level or large job lot .. highly discouraged.. this is where Photo Galley is handy.

Note that the inputting of tagged data in this manner add the data to the IPTC field, so it's a commonly accepted standard.
Any software that can read the raw file, will also see this tagged data .. ie. FSViewer will also see it.

I've written about it in my tagging/keywording thread.

it' snot hard, the software isn't ideal .. but it's about the only way to do large lots of images easily AND embed the tag data into the raw file.

One thing to be weary of with Photo Gallery. Don't link all the directories of all the images you have. If you have one main folder of all the images you have and have bgackups/syncs of that entire directory of images, just link the one main one to Photo Gallery, and not the backup folders of the same images.. gets confusing really easily and makes muck ups easier to do!
So if you do use it, do it on the main folder of images, and then backup/sync that to the backup directory.

Finally, I'm a Nikon user, but more importantly a geek. I've trialled it in a Canon environment, but very limited. Only about 10 CR2 files freely downloaded off the net(sample files) and I've used DPP to confirm that the tagged data is also set into the CR2 file. But I know nothing of CR2 files in general.
All I know is that the things I could do in my Nikon world, I could also do on the few canon files and programs I have access too.

As for image locating software: as long as you tag the images in a standard format, you can use either Photo Gallery(I don't).. or you can use Windows Explorer(search) to find it.
I prefer the Windows Explorer option.
In Photo Gallery tho, you can search by keyword. It can be set up to display all the keywords it has located on all the files in the main directory you point it at. (eg. D:/Photos) it will search all sub folders and find all keywords.
It then gives you a list of keywords. You click that keyword and all images with it are displayed in the main screen.
Another note it to keep keywords consistent with their naming.
Do do Birds and birds .. two different keywords, so you'll get some images in Birds and others under birds. Easy to fix, but better not to do in the first place .. don't ask me how I know this!

[Poppyrob]

If you are used to Faststone, going to Lightroom will be like stepping out of a nippy little sports car and into a bus.

Just sayin'

That's the thing Tony, I've used Faststone for many years and find it to be a fantastic program to use either stand alone or in conjunction with any photo editing software.

Just wondering, with the many shots you capture, do you use a method of tagging or file renaming to enable finding 'older' obscure files?

I've previously updated my Adobe software John and still had zero success opening the newer CR2 Canon type files. Adobe has closed the door as far as I can determine, unless one updates to their latest CC cloud software.

And wow, thank you Arthur for your comprehensive reply. I recall trying to utilize Windows Live or Essentials some years ago (email??) and found the whole show to be quite a headache. Having said that though, I might spend a little time investigating your suggestions and see where it leads.

After today's investigations and web searching though, it appears I will probably maintain the status quo with my current software and file management systems.

[Tannin]

Cheers Rob.

I use an ancient but much-loved image viewer called PMView. It's broadly similar to Faststone. It doesn't read raw files of any kind, but that's of no consequence to me as I always shoot raw + JPG. I view and sort the JPGs and use a custom-written little program to automagically do the same with the raws. (Sorting JPGs is a lot faster as, no matter how nifty your software, the sheer size of raw files makes them slow to read on (almost) any system.)

I archive everything just by date, with a key word or two as part of the folder name. (E.g., 2016/02-February/17 Alice Springs".) That folder is divided into a series of numbered sub-folders: "x9" is the throwaway stuff, then "x8" and so on, up to the top folder which is just the best ones, together with others I want to keep for the sake of the memories - e.g., if I saw a rare bird but only got poor shots, I'll usually keep the least-worst one in the top folder just to remind me of it.

So no key words: I rely on my memory for that. In most cases I can find a particular picture in less than a minute. I nearly always know where the shot was taken, so it's easy to find (say) my 2009 Queensland trip, and from there the day I was in Townsville, and having found te folder, the picture I want is pretty easy to spot, so long as I have been a good boy and sorted that folder down to a reasonable number.

In many cases, I can short-cut the process by just going to my website which is database-driven, meaning that I can search almost instantly on date, species, location, habitat type, quality (on Dr Harsh's 7-point scale), and various photographic things such as lens, camera, shutter speed, and so on. Of course, this only works directly with pictures I have uploaded to the site, but quite often works indirectly by association. E.g., who was that bloke I chatted to once at the Cairns botanical gardens? I remember taking his picture. But when? Easy: that was the same day I took a nice picture of a Striated Heron. Jump onto the site, find the herons and egrets page, note that the name of the heron picture is 061209-something, which tells me that the day in question was 9th December 2006. All I have to do now is look on my hard drive at a folder of 50-odd pictures and find a creature without scales or feathers: it's probably a human, and quite possibly the correct one!

Oh, the file renaming system I use is largely automated via Downloader Pro. First 6 digits = date, next six digits the time (Eastern Standard Time no matter where I am, no daylight saving BS,no half-hour for South Australia nonsense). I manually add a suffix for post-processed images on a crude system: "c" = cropped, "r" = processed from the raw using ACR, "j" = processed from the JPG using ACR, "D" from the raw using DPP; "p" I used Photoshop; "a" made some adjustments not requiring Photoshop (such as a simple gamma correction in PMView, for example); "f" = Neat Image, and so on.

One last thing, do you use Everything? Everything is THE best search software on the planet. And it's free. https://www.voidtools.com/ It can find a file on your hard drive faster than you can type part of the name in. Brilliant!

[arthurking83]

I archive by date too.
On all drives I have a top level folder named Photos
primary folder within - year.
sub folder - camera
sub folders - event location starting with date

So if I went for a drive out to Rainbow in June 2010 my folder structure is something like Photos/2010/D300/20100613_Rainbow for the D300 images, and Photos/2010/D70s/ ... for the D70s images.

I got caught out a while back with file naming where I'd overwritten some older D70s files with newer D300 files when placing images randomly into whatever/wherever directory structures.
On some cameras you can rename files(limited but at least doable) but for some cameras, you can't .. you I've learned to archive my stuff based on the lowest common denominator(that is the D70s).
Another possible important aspect of file 'cross contamination' is when you're camera starts to clock itself with it's file names. I guess birders will get this a lot too.
Your file names will reset back from DSC_9999 to DSC_0001, which will be the first exposure that camera has made. If you don't rename files on importing you can easily overwrite older files with newer files not knowing that the older files were different images .. why I changed my processes.
On the camera I change the file names based on the first three letters ie. the DSC part before every reset ... so the reset comes with a change in the first three letters. So DSC_ is changed to DSD_ and DSE_ .. etc.

On import to the PC hard drive I also add a camera model prefix to those altered names as well.

[Poppyrob]

I guess we all use similar type filing systems generally for ease of finding files at a later date.

My method works like so ..... PHOTOGRAPHS / YEAR / sub folders for categories ie BIRDS, FAMILY, GRANDCHILDREN , SURFING, WEATHER etc / then sub folders in each category starting with date then a description eg 04.28.2017 ROSELLA BACKYARD (28th April 2017 rosella/s probably at the birdbox in our backyard) 09.15.2017 BOYS POINT (15th September sons and/or grandsons surfing at our local pointbreak) These 2 examples would be in different root subfolders for their particular categories. Finally, I create a folder under each sub folder and name it MODIFIED where photoshopped images are stored for that particular shoot.

What makes things difficult, is when it comes to recalling particular images from particular days, especially with the surfing. I could come home with 200-300 or more images from just a couple of hours shooting, particularly with the 7DII as it rattles off crazy frame rates per second. And although these photos are usually concentrated on my boys, there are plenty of shots of 'other' surfers. OK, so 2 years ago Joe Bloggs was surfing at the POINT and I might have a fair idea where that image is, but without a tagged keyword, it makes it time consuming and frustrating to find the shot of Joe Bloggs amongst the mix, without looking at each and every folder of the POINT and the hundreds of images within each of those folders.

Using windows explorer I did a properties search on my PHOTOGRAPHS / 2016 folder and it revealed 27,442 files in 264 folders. With more than 2 months of 2017 remaining, a similar search on the 2017 folder, has revealed 24,269 files in 251 folders. I could use Tony's method and create a range of sub folders under each shoot, and sort accordingly and that would work fine. And that is what I might try for the next few shoots. Or I could tag each image with keywords to allow a search to locate the shot/s for me.

Arthur's idea with Photo Gallery could work too, and I am going to try to download Photo Gallery ONLY a little later this afternoon and see how it goes. I have a strange suspicion though that the program will not recognise the later CR2 files of the 7DII. But without checking, I don't know do I?

Wish me luck.

[Steve Axford]

I guess I'm the odd man out because I use Lightroom and Phototshop CC. It costs a little but it is very good and the only product that I have found that will handle the volume of photos I produce. I usually have over 100,000 photos active at any one time and I have archived photos probably totalling around 500,000. I always import my photos with their original name and file them by date under separate folders for different cameras. There is some double up of file names, but this has never been a problem as LR knows that they are different and they are filed under different dates. I also put all of my best still photos on Smugmug, which has good cataloguing and display facilities. If I want to locate a photo, I take the filename of smugmug and do a search on my active and/or backup disks. I think I failed to find one photo by this method and that was very old and wasn't an important one.

Tanin comments that lightroom is like a bus, but I don't find it so at all. In fact it has made life so much easier because it interfaces with everything I use (Helicon Focus and LRTimelapse mainly) and saves lots of time and also disk space as I never need to keep any TIFF or DNG files, just the RAW and the processed jpegs.

By the way, I don't tag anything as it is too time consuming. I do spend some time in loading files onto Smugmug and cataloging them there, plus maintaining backups and lightroom catalogs, but I have given up deleting unused photos as it was taking more time than it was worth.

[Poppyrob]

I've made up my mind .... I think. After spending more time today chasing info on the net, I've found that downloading Picture Gallery and then the probable codec update required to enable newer raw files to be displayed, could give me more problems than I already have. So although I think the idea is good in concept, I've placed it to the side.

When I complete my next outing, I think I'll give Tanin's idea a shot, separate sub folders I may deem necessary for better organization in the main folder for the shoot. MODIFIED will still live happily nestled within his bigger brothers. Or sisters. And I will continue to tag (highlight) the 'better' images in Faststone which also aids in a more rapid search. In an ideal world, Faststone would provide a keyword facility, afterall they update codecs for newer model cameras for the software to work. If necessary, I can always add a small text file to the mix to provide specific information for specific or obscure images obtained from the shoot.

Something I thought would be relatively easy to find to add to my existing workflow, appears to be almost non existent, but I guess that is to be expected when using 'old' software.

Thank you all for the ideas and suggestions. Although I didn't arrive at the intended destination, the journey was both knowledgeable and enjoyable.

[Tannin]

Rob, mate.

You just don't understand the industry. Were you standing behind the door when the instructions were handed out?

Remember the Photography Industry Creed:

Lightroom shall be thy god and thou shalt have no other gods before it. Though shalt not covet software other than thy lawful Lightroom. Shalt thou depart from the Holy Gospel of Adobe and demean thyself cavorting with lewdness or Software otherwise not Annointed by Adobe, thou shalt Boil in the Hells of 1000 fruitless searches untill the end of they days, which shall be few and miserable. In the name of the Lightroom, the Bridge, and the Creative Cloud, forever and ever unto Eternity or whenever the credit card runs out (whichever comes first).

[Poppyrob]

Rob, mate.

You just don't understand the industry. Were you standing behind the door when the instructions were handed out?

Remember the Photography Industry Creed:

Lightroom shall be thy god and thou shalt have no other gods before it. Though shalt not covet software other than thy lawful Lightroom. Shalt thou depart from the Holy Gospel of Adobe and demean thyself cavorting with lewdness or Software otherwise not Annointed by Adobe, thou shalt Boil in the Hells of 1000 fruitless searches untill the end of they days, which shall be few and miserable. In the name of the Lightroom, the Bridge, and the Creative Cloud, forever and ever unto Eternity or whenever the credit card runs out (whichever comes first).

Tony, I was standing behind the door when lots of things were handed out!

Your post just made me laugh audibly, or as today's language dictates, lol. And I always enjoy a good laugh. You're right about the credit card chompers 'cause they all want a bite from it. In one of my searches today, I came across postings to the effect that Sir Adobe initially launched their creative goddess of the shop, CC, at the extremely affordable price of $94.99 per month. Apparently few found her appealing, so she trimmed to $74.99. Nuh, still unloved. What about $49.99? To the point that eventually the current price of $14.29 per month was reached. I figure if I wait long enough, eventually they'll give it away! Unbelievable! My credit card is already melting, and if these roosters get a hold of it, it'll ignite into a puff of smoke.

I shouldn't be so harsh. Business is business, and everyone is out to make a buck. Or squillion.

Amen.

[farmmax]

I love Faststone, and nothing else seems to touch it for speed and ease of use. It also uses very little system resources and you don't need massive amounts of computing power to run it. I'd love to see them add tagging, plus more than just one flag, and the ability to view and edit the exif information more fully. Hopefully one day it will happen.

I batch rename files as they come off my card, and shift them into the appropriate subject folders set up on my hard drives. I create file names which are basically tags. I choose up to about 6 words to describe the contents of the photos in a group, and then Faststone adds consecutive numbers to each batch of files I rename. If I can't find a particular batch of photos in my photos, Windows or Faststone quickly finds them from the file names. I've never bothered putting dates into the file names, because Faststone already knows that from the exif information and can sort according to dates if I need it.