Anyone who opts to store their digital pictures on their home computer has two hurdles to jump — finding a way to store the photos safely while making them easily accessible.
Security dictates that at least one copy of the photos should be stored off the hard drive, either on DVDs or an external hard drive. As for making one’s collection accessible, there’s always archiving software.
A good archiving program will allow users to store their pictures efficiently and quickly, while making it simple to label them so they can be found easily later, says Nico Barbat of Digitalphoto, a German trade magazine.
It’s also important that the program stores the pictures reliably and that it support the RAW file format used by most cameras.
“It’s also good if it automatically organizes keywords and metadata, allowing the option to manually set customizations.”
iPhoto for the Mac and Picasa are both examples of free archiving programs. Both allow the option to categorize photos as they’re stored onto the computer, says Markus Linden of Foto-Magazin, another German trade magazine. For example, a user can create the category “kid’s birthday party” before downloading a new batch of pictures, making it easier to find the pictures later.
Like some other programs, iPhoto has a facial recognition function. Linden says it can be a useful feature for hobby photographers, because it’s easy to overlook photos, even when they’re labeled. “If, for example, the user is searching his collection for a picture of grandma and a grandchild, then this function can be really helpful for finding the right pictures.”
For a small investment — between 50 and 100 euros ($61 and $122) — there are options like Photoshop Elements and ACDSee Foto Manager, says Linden.
These stand out because of their hierarchical archiving options. Vacation photos can initially be stored in a “Europe” folder,…