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Friday TechTip for May 2, 2008: Digital Photo Rodeo, Pt. 1

Posted by techtips on May 2, 2008 in Local Client

Now that May is upon us (and the semester is ending) most of our thoughts are probably turning to summer! That means summer vacations, family gatherings, weekend trips, etc. For many of you an essential item for these events will be your digital camera. When you think about how easy it has become to photograph all of your life events and the random things you come across, you also quickly realize how much you need a way to organize all of your photos! Like all other gadgets, digital cameras have become much smaller over the past few years and therefore easier to take with you everywhere you go. Also virtually all cell phones now come with cameras, so most of you now have a camera with you at all times. Because of this it’s very easy to quickly a mass a collection of thousands of photos. Once that happens it’s critical you find good software to manage your pics! This week I want to recommend a few of the best options to do this.

• Picasa - Picasa is my personal choice for managing my photos. During installation it offers several configuration options. You can let it search your entire computer for all photos, select only specific directories (such as your My Pictures folder on Windows PCs), or only load the photos you choose. Personally I recommend the first option, especially if you have a lot of photos. It could be that you may have forgotten where some of them are stored! Picasa also offers options for editing and touching up your photos. Picasa is free (and wonderful).
• Windows Live Photo Gallery (For Vista and XP computers) - Microsoft has done a good job of improving the photo management abilities they included in XP. Windows Live Photo Gallery does the same thing as Picasa. It searches your hard drive and creates a chronological view of your pictures based on the EXIF timestamp. Windows Live Photo Gallery is also free.
• Adobe Photoshop Elements - Elements will do all of the above functions but also offers a more editing options as well as the ability to create photo scrapbook projects, etc.  Elements sells for $99.99 unless you can find it on sale at an office supply store.

Of all these products, I highly recommend Picasa.  I think it will meet all of your management needs and also has some very easy ways to share your pictures with family and friends, which is what we’ll review next week. Keep in mind that managing a large collection of photos can quickly get out of hand, just like a large cattle herd (or cats for that matter)!

Enjoy your weekend! -Andy