Digital photo software is designed for people who want to organize and share personal and family photos, but don’t want to spend a lot of time editing them. In addition to helping you browse and sort through your image collection, they also allow you to catalog your media with keywords, descriptions and categories. These tools usually do not offer pixel-level editing capabilities, but they do provide easy, one-click corrections plus printing and photo sharing features.
1. Picasa (Windows, Mac and Linux)
Picasa is a flashy and functional digital photo organizer and editor which has improved considerably since its first release. Picasa is excellent for beginners and casual digital shooters who want to find all their pictures, sort them into albums, do quick edits, and share with friends and family. I especially like the Picasa Web Albums integration which gives you 1024 MB of free space to post your photos online. Best of all, Picasa is free!
2. Windows Live Photo Gallery (Windows)
Windows Live Photo Gallery helps you import your photos and videos from digital cameras, camcorders, CDs, DVDs, and Windows Live Spaces. You can browse the pictures on your computer by folder or by date, and you can add keyword tags, ratings and captions for even more organization. Clicking the “Fix” button gives you easy-to-use tools for adjusting exposure, color, detail (sharpness), and for cropping and removing red eye. All edits are saved automatically, but can be reverted at a later time. There is also an automatic panorama stitching tool.
3. Adobe Photoshop Elements (Windows and Mac)
© Adobe
Photoshop Elements includes an outstanding photo organizer (Windows only) along with a full featured photo editor for the best of both worlds. The user interface is friendly to beginners, but not “dumbed-down” to the point that it frustrates experienced users. Elements utilizes a powerful, keyword-based system of tagging your photos that allows you to find specific photos very quickly. In addition, you can create albums, perform quick fixes, and share your photos by email and the Web, or in a variety of photo layouts.Note: The Mac version of Photoshop Elements does not include the Organizer, but it comes with Adobe Bridge for managing images, and also integrates with Apple’s iPhoto on the Mac.
4. Apple iPhoto (Macintosh)
Apple’s photo cataloging solution was developed exclusively for Mac OS X. It comes pre-installed on Macintosh systems or as part of the Apple iLife suite. With iPhoto, you can organize, edit, and share your photos, create slide shows, order prints, make photo books, upload online albums, and create QuickTime movies.
5. ACDSee Photo Manager (Windows)
ACDSee Photo Manager packs a lot of punch for the price. It’s rare to find a photo manager with this many features and options for browsing and organizing files. In addition, it has integrated image editing tools for some of the most common tasks such as cropping, adjusting overall image tone, removing red-eye, adding text, and so on. And after organizing and editing your images you can share them in a number of ways including slide shows (EXE, screen saver, Flash, HTML, or PDF formats), Web galleries, printed layouts, or by burning copies onto CD or DVD.
6. Shoebox (Macintosh)
Shoebox lets your organize your photo collection by content and quickly find the photos you want by creating categories which you assign to your photos. Shoebox allows you to view metadata information embedded in your photos and you can search based on metadata and categories. It also includes features for archiving your photos to CD or DVD and backing up your photo collection. It doesn’t offer photo editing or allow you to share your photos, but it looks like a worthwhile tool for organizing photos if iPhoto isn’t doing it for you. It also imports iPhoto albums, keywords, and ratings.
7. Triscape FxFoto (Windows)
FxFoto has been recommended often by my readers, and looks like it is especially appealing for users who are into digital scrapbooking and creating photo collages. But FxFoto also has features for organizing your photos, performing quick touch-ups, and embellishing photos with effects, frames, text, shapes, and art work. You can also use it to create slide shows and archive your photos to CD. Several editions are available so you only need to purchase the features you want.
8. Serif AlbumPlus X2 (Windows)
With AlbumPlus X2, you can import and organize your photos and media files with tags and ratings. You can correct photos with a one-click auto-fix, or perform common corrections such as rotating, cropping, sharpening, removing red-eye, and adjusting tone and color. You can share your photos in printable projects like greeting cards and calendars, or electronically in slide shows, by email, and on CD. The software also supports full or incremental backups to CD and DVD.
9. PicaJet (Windows)
PicaJet Free Edition is a powerful organizer for your digital photos. Its printing and sharing options are quite limited, but for organizing, browsing, and light editing of your digital photos it is very impressive. The FX version adds more features for managing, searching, editing, sharing, and printing your photos. PicaJet Free Edition gives you a nice way to preview and sample some of the features of the PicaJet FX upgrade, but if you stick with the free version, you’ll probably become annoyed with the embedded teasers urging you to upgrade.
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