What to use to organize pix and create presentations?

[rdwalker]

That topic has been probably beaten to death, but what the heck - I have an excuse: things are continually changing with software.

Here is is: What do you guys use to organize your pictures and create presentations?

Initially have been using software included with my digital camera ("Photoloader") to store and organize the shots, but that is pretty cumbersome as it only groups by date.

Then I added Adobe Photoshop Album, which organizes a little better, but is still very cryptic in how one goes through pictures. Photoshop Album also lets you create slide show presentations, but I am not too happy with ease of creation and of playback of that either.


I would like to be able to:
* store & organize pictures to be able to easily search by date, by topic, by keyword, etc.
* create easily encapsulated slide shows that can be stored/sent as one file (like Adobe's PDF).

I do not want to store pictures on line - I have my own storage space. And, I do not want to rely on on-line services creating presentations on-line on the fly - I want to be able to view off-line.

Any recommendations? TIA, Robert.

[strsout]

Google Picasa is a good one for what you wrote you want to do.

I use it to keep my pictures in events/data order and pretty happy so far with 35.000+ pictures. :)

[bonafidebob]

I use iPhoto to manage my collections (the new events feature is really nice) and for simple edits. ...of course, you need a Mac to use it... IMHO it's better than Adobe's collection managers or any of the other PC apps I've looked at. I haven't looked at Google's Picasa yet.

The best thing about iPhoto is my wife can use it too, the interface is really simple. She takes tons of photos of our daughter and imports them herself and I pretty much stay out of the way and do triage and cleanup every now and again.

[RVB1019]

* create easily encapsulated slide shows that can be stored/sent as one file (like Adobe's PDF).


As for your presentation of a slide show, it's hard to beat Powerpoint for ease and accessability. You can set the slide show to run automatically and change every few seconds.

You can save the presentation as a PDF using any free PDF converter. I use PDF 995 and I print out the presentation either 4 slides to a page or each slide as a page.

Some people love using the flashy transitions from one slide to the next but keep in mind that it can become tedious. I really like the ability to put it to a music soundtrack.

If you want to share the entire file so that someone else can view it as you created, Powerpoint is not your best choice. The files are just to big to email or post. I've played with Microsoft's Photostory (click here (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx/)) and have made some great shows but I'm not sure how "portable" they were.

Good Luck!

[good007]

+1 for Picasa as Elton says. The best part is that it is free from Google. Makes great Gift CDs and is a good organizer.

Mark

[jkersh1]

+1 for Picasa as Elton says. The best part is that it is free from Google. Makes great Gift CDs and is a good organizer.

Mark

Another vote for Picasa. It also has tools for picture editing; brightness, contrast, etc. And it automatically updates for pics as they are added to the PC.

[andy]

The two 'main apps' have already been mentioned.

Picasa for PC and iPhoto for MAC. Then there are a number of specialized apps on either platform that do certain things better, but you can;t beat the price of Picasa or iPhoto.

For even better presentations take a look at OpenOffice, (available for both MAC and PC for free) that can create presentations similar to PowerPoint, but again, can't beat the price.

[MickS]

Picasa and iPhoto both very good.

If you want more power, what pro photographers use, look at #1 Photo Mechanic #2 IView. More learning curve and pricey but absolutely the most powerful edit, sorting, search tools for images and fast fast fast. You will have to judge if overkill for your needs.

Link for Photo Mechanic: http://www.camerabits.com/
Link for Iview:http://www.iview-multimedia.com/

[car61]

You might want to take a look at ACDCee or ACDCee Pro, cost a few bucks but does a lot more than Picassa,