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Best Free Digital Photo Organizer
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Introduction
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We don't all have the same requirements when it comes to organising our digital image collection. Some people, like me, want a quick way of importing new images and viewing a large assortment of existing images in various formats. We want the software to show our existing directory structure and allow us to amend add and change it easily. Then we want to be able to export images to email, publish them to the internet and resize, crop and change images without destroying the original image file. Buried within digital image files are a series of 'tags' which can be used to find and classify images according a whole series of criteria - from date of creation to camera settings and even GPS settings. There is also a huge demand for software which hunts through a user's drives and finds all image files and, without moving the original, creates an index with predetermined parameters. In the first group, my best in class list has four choices: FastStone Image Viewer, Zoner Photo Studio Free, XNView and, for those who use a Linux operating system, digiKam. In the second group Picasa and Windows Live Photo Gallery are my top picks. I don't happen to like the Picasa approach. I find that my computer 'hunts' for images every time I edit or move a single image and this is yet another demand on my processor which I can do without. But there's no denying that Picasa is hugely popular and may be the ideal solution for many. My screen grabs below are all taken from the same files on my PC: hence the programmes at this small size all look very similar. That's no accident. You could easily live with any of these programmes and they can be set up to work in a similar way. Finally, if you are completely new to this category, you could do worse than read the Wikipedia article on image organisers, which also has a useful table of some of the vast array of free and commercial software: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_organizer Other offerings which I have assessed include: Anti Chaos; Ashampoo photo commander 7.6; BelieveIT Photo Organiser; Bluemarine Photo organiser; Cam2Pic; DigiBook 2005 Light; FxFoto; HP Photosmart; Imagic; iTag; JBrout; Jet PhotoKestrel GX; Kodak Easyshare 8.2; Magix Photo Manager; Myphotoindex; Photome; Photoscape; Photozig albums; Phraseanet; PicaJet; Pictomio; Preclick Gold; Prostockmaster; Roxio; Serif Plus Starter Edition; SSuite; Stoik Imagic; Studioline; Sunlit Green; Viewer 2; Visipics and WildBit viewer. I am always happy to learn of other programmes. |
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Discussion
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The only negative side I can think of is that it does not have the automatic upload to the Internet features of some of the other packages on offer. But it is easy to resize images for email, or for the web, make moderate adjustments etc. It also has an easy-to-use batch processing facility. There is a 18- language help and all major file types are supported including a good selection of RAW image formats. And if the image editing features are not sufficient for all your needs all of the time there's a handy software linking facility which allows you to couple Faststone with your favourite image editor so you can easily switch between the two. Version 4.6 brought out at the end of June 2011 has an improved import function All-in-all a first class piece of software.
(To be honest there is not much to choose between any of the four packages mentioned here.) I really like the look of Zoner: it has a professional feel. Within the software you can organise, edit and share your images and there are German, French, Italian and Russian versions. It is a slimmed down version of the "home" and "pro" versions which are available at a cost. I like the three major functions within the package - manager (organiser) viewer and editor. Personally I use a separate software package to do all but the simplest image manipulation as an "edit" function, but for basic operations Zoner is fine, quick and intuitive.
There's a XN View sister program, XNView MP in Beta 0.35 (which I presume stands for multi-platform) which is less fully featured but runs on a Mac and in Linux. It can import more than 300 graphic file formats and export to about 50 formats. Other features include image IPTC, EXIF metadata support, editing facilities, slide shows and support in 44 languages. Excellent.
Like my other top picks, it is packed with useful features. It is very much work in progress: new features and add-ins are on offer all the time and even if you didn't choose it right now, you might want to bookmark the link to the didiKam website because I have a feeling it will be offering even more very shortly.
It is ideally suited for easy integration with web albums and on-line sharing of images. Simple highly automated features offer image correction, full-screen slide shows and you can now see your pictures arranged on a global map. Picasa can also organise your photos based on the faces of people in your snapshots. It's not foolproof but it works remarkably well. Picasa is free to download and is coupled with Picasa Web Albums which provides users with a gigabyte of free online image storage.
You can edit images, email or publish them, print them, make slide shows, etc. It is less fully featured than most of the other packages, but for some that might be a definite advantage! |
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Related Products and Links
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The Windows version is available for download here.
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Editor
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This software category is in need of an editor. If you would like to give something back to the freeware community by taking it over, check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here |
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Tags
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| photo organizer, free photo viewer, best free photo organiser, organize photos, view photo free. |
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Comments
yes! "FastStone Image Viewer" is the BEST!
Appreciative of the time spent gathering real-time real-life information about the several softwares discussed above.
My experiences do not cover all the reviewed softwares and eased my search.
The quality of the reviews indicate to me they were performed by somebody who knows what they are doing.
I believe I shall include a link to this page in an upcoming blog entry that is intended to assist those in seeking free or try-now-buy-the-full-version-later photo editing softwares.
No need to re-do what has already been done and obviously by somebody better qualified than me to make suggestions as to what is best in regards to photo editing softwares at the low-cost or free level.
as a dedicated image manager helicon photo safe is worthy contender
fully functional freeware
folder tree for easy excess of external drives
raw support
geo tagging
categories
optional dark interface
add your own choice of external apps for editing etc.
are a few of the features that appeal to me
you can check out the rest here
http://www.heliconsoft.com/safe.html
would appreciate a review of this software
You don't seem to mention IrfanView, (www.IrfanView.com) which used to be regarded as one of the best image viewers, and seems still to be actively developed
WARNING
windows live photo gallery 2011 degrades your images
each time you add a caption or tag
it resaves the image in a lossy format and the file size is reduced from the original
I advise you not to use this program with treasured original images
and I strongly recommend it to be removed from the list and a warning placed in the intro section
real nasty of microsoft for not fixing this issue
Please post your evidence
in answer to providing evidence Urbane.Tiger
there are a number of threads relating to various issues with windows photo gallery
you can read the problem I mentioned in more detail here
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1004&message=36518774&changemode=1
the problem seems to arise with the use of third party codecs released by the camera manufactures though they are obviously not at fault
as I can not replicate the loss of file size in Zoner, Picasa or any other software that adds tags or labels so the fault lies with windows photo gallery
if you are using this software then test your file sizes before and after adding tags to make sure you are not losing Data
Microsoft has been aware of this issue since the Beta stage it seems and has not provided a fix
I want an organiser that will allow me to sort my scrapbooking .png and .jpg files into categories such as Christmas, snow, red, flowers, buttons, ribbons, etc, so that when I am making a scrapbook page I can easily find something like "red Christmas ribbons" or "square blue buttons" for example, then upload my choice from that category to my page. I don't need image editing or bells and whistles, the simpler the better for a technophobe like me!
What would you suggest?
There is a programme called My Photo Index which claims "My Photo Index is a free open source photo organizer. It focuses on image tagging and cataloging and offers a clear & simple user friendly interface. My Photo Index handles major file types as well as Avi clips and can read and convert RAW image formats".
It includes mutliple layers of tagging (indexing) which I THINK is what you are asking for.
On My Photo Index's own page the link to the lastest version did not work today - but I have downloaded it in the past.
They claim that it is Windows 7 compatible but I have not checked this: it does work under Windows XP.
It appears to be what you need - so you may wish to give it a try: certainly from the install and auto import it seems to want to add tags!
Good luck - perhaps you could let us know how you get on.
DigiKam (now?) installs on windows from a single installer, making it no more difficult to install than any other program. http://sourceforge.net/projects/digikam/files/digikam/1.7.0/digiKam-installer-1.7-win32.exe/download
This I do not like "We would like to inform you that this port of digiKam under windows is not as stable as the linux version. DigiKam works mostly fine under windows, but some features are still broken due to some bugs in the underlying KDE libraries."
Thank you for your invariably helpful reviews. I use faststone but want a viewer which mimics a book (turning pages) I have seen your earlier review of digibook and agree, but it doesnt allow copying to disk. Suggestions would be very helpful after much trawling where "free" adverts turn out to be not free. Thanks
Hi, thanks for z very good summary of these programmes!
I'm looking for a photo organiser and wonder if you know any one that fist my needs:
I have a pretty good, albeit not yet perfect folder structure for my photos. Organised by photos\all\year\date-event. On an average photo session I take a few hundred shots. I'd like to keep all of these photos on my disc but only print/upload/send to iOS/android the really good ones. Hence I'd like a photo organiser that:
X) uses the current folder structure
X) can import new images from camera/sd card into folder structre
X) have the functionality to do easier image enhancements like the exposure/color of windows live photo gallery
Y) allows you to "tag" certain photos as "album photos", and then moves the tagged photos to photos\albums\year\date-event. This way I can use the photos\albums folder when I want to print the photos on paper or show them on my iPad, without removing any old pictures.
Z) sort through my current image collection and let me remove duplicates - sometimes the windows live photo "import all new photos" imports ALL photos in the memory card, so ive got heaps of duplicates all over the place!
Do you know of any software that includes all these x and y and z? If not, do you know any software that includes all theX? Or the the Y? Or the z?
The simplest way for X is obviously to just copy the "all" folder to the "albums" folder and then delete all the images that shouldn't be in it, but then I get duplicates when use windows live photo gallery to view the photos...
I prefer a program that uses the folder structure and the tag fields of the photos instead of some other database as this makes it more easy to move to another program in the future.
Thanks alot for any ideas!!
/anders
Several of the recommended programmes will do most of what you ask - Faststone for example will do all but the duplicate finder.
There are quite a few stand-alone duplicate finder programmes and there's a relevant section, best free duplicate file detector, in the "disk and file software" index on this website, which should help you choose the one which suits you best for this process.
I find duplicate file management somewhat daunting and very laborious - so I live with duplicates in these days of cheap storage!
Faststone's image tweaking may suit you - if not you could try Zoner 13 Free which will also do most of other tasks.
Hope this helps.
I am currently almost at the end of a long process of organising all my photos on my system. I have adopted the method of organising everything in folders on my system by date (a folder for every month), and adding keyword tags to the files.
Now I am wanting an organiser that I can now create albums by the tag I have assigned each photo. E.g. all holiday photos from my holiday in Sydney this year have the tag 'Sydney 2011' and I want all these photos in the same album.
Which of these would be the best at doing this? I do not need bells and whistles, this album creating by tag is my main priority. A nice looking interface wouldn't go amiss though!
Hi,
I have tried the same methodology as you, however, I noticed I am not able to label a PNG image, only jpeg-jpg within the Windows built-in Explorer function.
Anyone knows how to overcome this or have a work-around?
Thanks a bunch
Adrian
Which software did you use to add the keyword tags to the files?
I just used the built in function of Windows 7.
Assuming Windows Explorer, Windows Live Photo Gallery will recognise these tags.
It will not create albums for the tags, but you can set it up to show the tags (read from your photos) in a tree structure, so when you click on the Sydney 2011 tag it will display all the photos with this tag.
You might also read the review here, to check the software is otherwise suitable.
I'm trying some of the candidates from this article and the Wikipedia article you reference. My comments:
- I'm a big fan of FastStone Image Viewer but can't see how this would do keywords. Can it? If so, does it keep these in a database or write to the image files themselves?
- Zoner seems very capable including keyword treatment and access to XMP and IPTC edits but it changes file modified date when I assign keywords; it must be writing them to the file itself; not sure I want that.
- Shutterfly Studio v1.7 is pretty impressive. It keeps a database of keywords and allows you to search for combinations of keywords and other attributes (such as folders and dates). There is a way to re-structure the keyword menu (by dragging within the tree structure to the left). The keywords can be written to the image files themselves as XMP without changing the file modified dates. I'm not sure yet whether it provides any access to IPTC fields. Still experimenting. No longer available from Shutterfly directly I guess. Downloaded from here and a few other sites found via search: http://www.shutterfly.com/downloads/install_st.jsp
I like it better than Picasa, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Adobe Photoshop Album for a simple database tool.
[Moderator's note : Commercial software mention removed]
One advantage of Windows Live Photo Gallery is that it reads the keywords from IPTC data (including nested keywords) and then displays them in a tree structure. It will also write keywords to the IPTC data.
If you wish to write or edit the IPTC fields, have a look at Microsoft Pro Photo Tools.
The two work well together and so provide a good way to organise your photos.
I have recently tried Shutterfly and while I agree that iT offers keywords, I don't like the way it operates - it seems to have a mind of its own when coming to finding folders and it displays them in a rather odd way.
That said, I don't use keywords myself, so it is not a feature I have been particularly keen to use. I keep pictures in a hierarchy of standard windows folders.
But we are all different and I am sure that the features of some programmes will have a significant effect on their suitability.
Sorry, I had to delete your comment with the link to brothersoft, since it is rated orange on WOT, and we allow only green rated sites. The download is available on Download.com though.
Came across this one :
Kestrel GX : http://www.kestrelfly.com/
Do any of your recommended viewers allow the user to put photos in nested albums? Thanks in advance, and thanks for the article, it's very useful.
You can try My Photo Index, which claims to have unlimited nesting. I have tried this software on my XP PC but although it seems quite straightforward it does not run smoothly. It is set up to create new indexes and you can in theory you can import and tag pictures into your own structure.
If you can make it work for you perhaps you could let us know what you think in due course.
You will find the programme at http://www.myphotoindex.com/
The free version of Ashampoo Photo Commander is better than any of these mentioned. It's light, opens quickly and have a ton of options available.
Thank you for alerting me to this software.
Ashampoo Photo Commander 9 is the current commercial software version. There is a totally free version available - Ashampoo Photo Commander 5 - which runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista but NOT under Windows 7.
I don't agree with you that this is better than other programmes... it does have quite good functionality but thumbnails load slowly and I can see nothing in it that is not available in my preferred selections above.
There is a free version of Ashampoo PhotoCommander 7.6 as that's what I'm using on my computer which runs Windows 7. Here is a link to the softpedia page where the program is given away for free-
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/Ashampoo-Photo-Commander-Free.shtml
I like it because it loads much faster than Zoner and has some of the basic options I need. Plus it plays videos pretty well.
Thank you for pointing this out.
Having followed your link I agree that Ashampoo PhotoCommander 7.6 is a big improvement on Ver. 5 (the free version which I identified).
I can see why you might like it. I don't use these organisers for video but I will use it for still images over the next few weeks and update this page accordingly if I think it warrants a mention.
The download from Softpedia (above) gave me a 44.9Mb download - whereas Faststone is 5.13Mb and Zoner is 22.5Mb. I'm not sure what Ashampoo is doing with all this extra programming, and as you says it seems to run quickly and smoothly (at least in XP).
At first sight, though, I do like the layout and functionality of the programme. Thanks again.
I have encountered an issue with Zoner Photo Studio Free. If you install it, and you're the administrator, your're in for a mess of trouble should you ever want to, or accidentally uninstall it.
If you try to delete the root folder (which in my case is in program files/x86, it won't let you. It will put an error message on screen that you don't have permission. I've tried uninstalling the root folder called Zoner using Revo uninstaller, and a number of pieces of software suggested on Gizmos site, all with no luck.
Other than that I found it to be very handy, and I would use it again if I could.
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