Photo/resource Organization

Mar 29, 2012

Kate Hoelscher
By Kate Hoelscher

I know this has been discussed before...but looking for a little more on the organization aspect of photo storage.  I am looking for a good way to organize thousands of photos, images, clipart, PowerPoints (templates), 'callouts', etc. and have them easy to find.  I am working with another area of our organization that also has many, many resources and we are hoping to find 'something' that will make it so we can share across a network and make everything easy to find.  Some images are organized in PowerPoint files, and some are image files with a generic name.  I'm thinking something that makes it so we can tag items with a standard naming convention would work.  However--I am also hoping to decrease the duplicates to make the storage space required smaller and to make it easier to find exactly what you are looking for.  On top of all that--I would love to make it so we can limit access so some people can only add but 'administrators' can delete as well since those who need access will likely grow over time. 

I feel like this might be a significantly larger project than I anticipated...  It looks like I am looking for 'digital asset management' software upon many Google searches.  I also found this software: http://www.br-software.com/photo_library.html.  Anyone work with this or hear of it?  Now that I have rambled enough....advice anyone???

Thanks!

12 Replies
Rich Johnstun
12 years ago03/30/12 at 7:51 am (UTC)

SharePoint 2010 does have an Asset Library template type in it. I personally haven't used it so I can speak to it too much. The only reason I know about it is that one of my projects is pulling together SharePoint 2010 training for our company .   Here is a nice video that will give you more information about it. 

Using a Sharepoint 2010 document center to manage digital assets

We use a shared storage area and Adobe Bridge. We all run the Adobe CS so we all have the Bridge application. I really like it because it so flexible and provide so much information about your assets.  We are pretty religious about our metadata tagging to make sure we can find things. The downside is that you can't buy Bridge, it only comes as part of the suite. 

Here is a little bit of a demo of Bridge. He is using it in regards to PhotoShop, but you can see how it would be useful all the way around.

David Anderson
12 years ago04/02/12 at 3:43 am (UTC)

Hi Kate -

I'm a big fan of Bridge and Extensis Portfolio. I use both but for different purposes.

Bridge is great for browsing folders. It gives a live update of folder contents and recognizes nearly every file format. I like using it to preview temp folders and for searching folders that aren't formally part of my asset library. Bridge, IMO, is much slower for previewing folders with 50+ images--even with its cache setting at 100% previews and higher storage settings.

For assets that are grouped, organized and cataloged, I prefer Extensis Portfolio. Once the files are loaded into Portfolio, they're instantly available upon preview.  Portfolio is pricey ($200) but I am measurably faster using it over other products.

Both products have great meta data options, but I rely more on folder organization than meta data.

One more thing I like about Portfolio is you can copy images to multiple catalogs. Maybe you have a single folder with 1000 "paper" style graphics. You might then have sub topics like: notecards, post its, ruled paper, legal paper, grunge paper and so on. You can drag one image to multiple folders based on your needs. Sometimes you need a grungey notecard that looks more like a post it--put it in all three catalogs without needing to duplicate the image three times--great space saver.

Here's a snapshot of Portfolio:

David Anderson
12 years ago04/02/12 at 3:47 am (UTC)

Oh, I almost forgot. One of the best features of Portfolio is it can catalog subfolders! With Bridge, you need to drill down into each subfolder to preview contents, but with Portfolio, you can add root folder and all subs in the catalog--they all preview as if they were in a single folder.

This enables you to maintain granular groupings in your Windows Explorer or Finder while viewing the big picture.

Eric Rohrer
12 years ago04/02/12 at 8:56 am (UTC)

As a Mac user, I simply tag all my images (or any file, for that matter) with metadata using "Spotlight Comments". In OS X, simply right-click a file and select "Get Info". There is a section at the top of the "Info" window called "Spotlight Comments". Here you can enter as many keywords as you want. When you search your computer using any of theses keywords, the images will be listed.

Not sure if there is a PC equivalent to this functionality, but I rely on it heavily.

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