www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

As there are lots of expert photographers around here, and as Picasa is driving me slightly mad, I would be interested to know which software members are using to organise and edit their images. It needs to be idiot-proof, I'm afraid.

Rob

I use different software for organising and editing.

If you have a large number of images that you want to put into categories, then Asset Management Software is ideal. I use Media Pro, now marketed by Phase One, though it used to be called Microsoft Expression Media. This software makes it very easy to make lists of categories (e.g. butterfly species) and place your images in these categories. The real plus of this product is that searching is virtually instantaneous, even with a large number of images. There are also tools for renaming files and other useful functions. You can try it for free before committing to buy

For editing, I mostly use Photoshop Elements. I have a very old version (V.2), which still covers my needs, as I prefer manual controls to the larger degree of automation which has increased through successive later versions - I think V.10 is current.

The free 'GIMP 2.6' can do virtually all that Photoshop does but is not as user friendly. Also, the free 'Irfan View' has lots of useful features for re-sizing and various other photo manipulations. These are easily found n the web.

Mike

The best of the free software progs is PhotoScape. I let Picasa import the files from the camera because it wants to and then I edit with PhotoScape. I have given up with Photoshop.

John

Thanks to both for the advice so far.

John, I find Picasa quite friendly except that it seems useless for organising lots of butterfly pics into species folders. I don't do much editing (yet) but must have things neatly filed! What do you use for that part of the job?

Rob

Adobe Lightroom is good for organising, and much more. It's not cheap, but they have reduced the price in the latest version (which I haven't tried yet). I'm a fairly recent convert so haven't mastered it yet, but it does make browsing, cataloguing and tweaking photos very easy. Previously I used the organiser in Photoshop Elements which is also good. (I still use PSE for editing).

For a free organizing software have a look at Helicon Photo Safe. The rather off-putting blurb talks about safe storage so that no-one else can see your photos but it really is an organizing program. I have it but haven't really used it, though I do use some of their paid for software. There are both stable and beta versions at http://www.heliconsoft.com/downloads_all.html - worth a try since it's free, you can always un-install it.

Hi Rob,

Also consider View NX, although it's Nikon's own organising software it also has reasonably easy to use editing properties that would suit many people that don't want to get technical or too serious, it's free too and can be downloaded from Nikons website. There are literally hundreds to chose from nowadays and it can take a while to find one that suits your needs, give the trials a go and then if your not happy nothing is lost, it can be great fun

Bill

I use Photoshop 6 for editing - old but does the job and has more tools than even the latest versions of Elements. I've never used organising software as such. All my photos are stored on an external hard drive (and backed up), I just created folders within folders using windows and allocate pictures to folders with windows. Each butterfly species has a folder, each group of moths, each area for landscapes, each group of plants, each one of my dogs etc......