Not the "you're it" kind, but the labeling kind
I have ACDSee Photo Manager. I've had it for almost 2 years now I think. I think they have upgraded a couple times since I bought it but I'm happy with what mine does & would rather spend the $35 upgrade on digi supplies.
That's what I use it for most - tagging digital scrapbooking supplies. I have about 28GBs of digi scrap stuff (which is NOTHING in some digi circles, I know people who are maxing out 250GB EHDs with stuff) and I have it all neatly organized in folders by type and everything is tagged in ACDSee so I don't have to keep opening all those folders in search of the elusive doodled star shaded slightly blue that would look perfect on my layout. I just click the tags for doodle & star and up they all come. I did intend at some point to go back and add the 'blue' tag but I'm good with how I have it now.
What I had not been using the Photo Manager for was um..managing my photos.... well,that would be too obvious now wouldn't it?
I have a very good visual memory and a pretty good one for dates so if I was thinking of using a photo of Mayhem in his yellow jacket down by the river, I'd probably go right to the Nov 04 folder, or possibly the Feb 05 folder, but I'd find it fairly easily. I can remember just about all my photos, if not specific expressions, general location activity & feel. But Havoc was born 6 years ago and that's a lot of photos.
It's even more photos when you add in my 365 Project this year which focuses on the boys' play. Then there are the random photos which seem to have really exploded in number this year. Oh, and I got that new camera Tuesday? Yeah, I've taken almost 200 photos since then.
Fortunately I had decided a couple weeks ago that my memory was not able to keep up any more and had started tagging photos, beginning with 2002 and working forward. I just finished 2005 today.
Right now I am just tagging broad topics - inside play, outside play,Florida, Xmas, who is in the photo (in general) and some regular locations including the park, the river & this
It's our old lawn tractor. It had broken down & been replaced by the time this photo was taken in Oct 04. Yet it remained in the yard as a climbing toy and photo prop for almost 2 years. It is in so many photos I had to give it it's own tag.
Once I get everything tagged generally I'm going to go back at get more specific about what is going on, like painting, the sandbox or wrestling. I have a large number of 'scenery' photos.
I kind of have this thing about data you see. I really like data. Especially highly detailed data. It makes the data geek in me happy to be able to pull up all the photos of Havoc, with cousin Connor, on the tractor, in the snow, in 2005. It just took me awhile to connect data with photos. Now that I have I wish ACDSee would create graphs and pie charts so I could create a visual breakdown of photos taken of Havoc in the leaves vs photos of Mayhem in the leaves by percentage as compared to each other and to the total photos take overall over a 3 year period.
I don't know what I would do with the info, I just want to have it. I'd like to be able to say "You know overall 8% of the photos I have taken since Havoc was born are of him in the leaves. 17% of all photos taken in 2005 were of Havoc in the leaves." Absolutely no one, not even DH, would be interested in knowing this, but I'd still like to know it. Preferably in pie chart.
It's times like this that I miss my Access databases.
4 comments:
That is a big project, but you will be so happy when you are done. It must be fun to look at all the old photos too. Good luck with the rest of your taggin
That'd be a huge job! I was thinking of just using Picasa but I think I might give this one a go :)
This will pay of dividends in the long run, well done, I wish I had the patience.
You scared me with the "tag" thing I', not much on memes (though love the links).
Wow. I need a nap after reading this entry. That is a freakin' lot of work, lady. Hola. Way to go.
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