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 As you can imagine with the popularity of digital cameras these days, the number of photos that you can take in one day has become cheap and almost free with most storage cards holding a maximum of 4GB these days (which can translate to 500 RAW quality images) - a huge step up from a 36 exp. film. The big question is how do you effectively manage your photo collections, you can always layout it out in a neat directory structure on the PC and give the photos descriptive filenames. However this is not always appropriate.
The advent of cheaper solutions to scan print, negatives and slides
these days has meant digital archiving is possible freezing the
deterioration process of scratches, fungus and colour loss through sepia toning. This has also meant that you may end up with thousands of photos on the PC on no easy way to search through them unless using finicky Access databases or even Text Files (and then using Windows Search to find it). Fortunately in the last few years a number of companies release software packages to help with the cataloguing process including ACDSee, Irfanview, Windows Vista (with it's built-in photo tagging), and more usually expensive solutions.
Google has come to the rescue with the powerful, yet completely FREE!! Picasa Photo Organiser, which is feature packed with a number of goodies to help you catalogue your massive photo collection. Google lists all the features of Picasa on their website (http://www.google.com/picasa), however we will have a look at a number of key features that may assist you in cataloguing your collection.
Captioning & Keywording
Picasa supports a standard used with JPEG, RAW and TIFF Files known as IPTC (http://www.iptc.org/ ). IPTC is used by the press around the world including Reuters, Associated Press, etc. to help track various details about the photos taken by the large press photographer community. The IPTC format is able to store details such as Captions, Photographer, Descriptions, Keywords, and more. The main two fields Picasa supports is Captions and Keywords, which Picasa can use to power it's search function. So the more detailed you make the caption and the more keywords you enter, the easier it can be to find the photo in future.
Captioning is as easy as opening a photo, and then clicking on the grey bar just below the photo where it usually says 'Enter a caption here'. Enter the caption and press Enter.
Keywords can be entered by selecting a photo or multiple photos with similar content and then pressing Ctrl+K to bring up the Keywords box. Type in a list of keywords that describe the photo (ie. locomotive numbers, location, etc.) and then press OK.
Now try searching for one of the keywords you entered using the Search box at the top right of the program. You will notice it will gradually drill down to find photos that match the search term entered.
Now the big advantage of this feature if you are a contributor to the QRIG Gallery is that any photos you upload will automatically fill out the Caption and Keywords areas in the QRIG Gallery, saving time trying to sort out where the photo was taken and when.
Cleaning up your Photos
Picasa comes with a range of effects and filters to help make your photos look the best from simple Sharpening tools, Brightness and Contrast settings to AutoColour fixes which helps to get rid of any red or green tones in the photo. Another feature is called 'I'm Feeling Lucky', just like Google's search feature it analyses the photo and finds the best combination of filters to fix the photo up. Its a gamble at times, but the results turn out rather good.
Conclusion
This is only a quick run down of what you can do with Picasa for quick cataloguing, however there are many features to explore in the software (why not make your own railway screensaver or DVD).
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