Just returned from the BWCA with lots of great pictures. I have used Picasa in past. Got a new computer and noticed Picasa has made some changes. Can anyone recommend a good photo organizing software? Hopefully one that is free. And then is there a good movie maker software package available? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Rick

To you question on movie making. I have made many movies with my cell phone or iPad. It is very easy to do. I can take pictures with my cell phone or iPad, or import them in. I can buy music or use my music to go with the videos with my cell phone or iPad. I also do all the editing with my cell phone or iPad. After the video is made it is very easy to share with others. The programs I have used are “iMovie” that is loaded on every Mac product, and “Splice” from GoPro. Both are free and very easy to figure out for those making their first movie.

I was in Europe last year and made about a 10 min long video every day of our visit. Just select the pictures and video you want to import, edit each video and picture, add music, and email or import to social media. Save them to the cloud because videos take a lot of your computer storage space.

I will be going to Ontario on a fishing trip next week and taking a lot of video and pictures. I will be sending each guy in our group a video to summarize the trip.

Try Irfanview It has been around forever. Haven’t used it in a long time but it has lots of features.

Thanks.

I use XNViewMP, It is free, or shareware, depending on how you choose to use it. I pay for it.

I use that tool for multiple things. I like to add unique meta tags to pictures, based on what they are. Then I batch rename the pictures using the EXIF Date Taken information. so I create something like Crooked Lake trip - EXIF YYYY-MM-DD:hh.mm.ss. That tag gives me a uniquely identified picture, and if I have my buddies synchronize their cameras to the "same time", then, when I take all their pictures, and combine with mine, they are all in chronological order.

I then create folders in my media server based on year and content.....

Yea lots of detailed CRAP, but that really helps me keep it organized.

Once you have a system like this, you can use Windows Media Player, or about 18 billion other tools to group/view/organize pictures. Some better tools will allow you to use the meta tags, if you create them.

So, in my system, even though I've got stuff grouped by year, I can use Geo Boundary Waters Fishing and get every single picture of me fishing in the Boundary Waters.

I can also group by pretty much any other meta tag. So when I wanted to get every picture of my daughter Natalie for her graduation collage, I was able to put in Natalie and boom, every single picture.....

It is work, but I like it :) .

Well, thanks Geo. I always appreciate your posts.

GeoFisher: "I use XNViewMP, It is free, or shareware, depending on how you choose to use it. I pay for it.


I use that tool for multiple things. I like to add unique meta tags to pictures, based on what they are. Then I batch rename the pictures using the EXIF Date Taken information. so I create something like Crooked Lake trip - EXIF YYYY-MM-DD:hh.mm.ss. That tag gives me a uniquely identified picture, and if I have my buddies synchronize their cameras to the "same time", then, when I take all their pictures, and combine with mine, they are all in chronological order.
I then create folders in my media server based on year and content.....
Yea lots of detailed CRAP, but that really helps me keep it organized.
Once you have a system like this, you can use Windows Media Player, or about 18 billion other tools to group/view/organize pictures. Some better tools will allow you to use the meta tags, if you create them.

So, in my system, even though I've got stuff grouped by year, I can use Geo Boundary Waters Fishing and get every single picture of me fishing in the Boundary Waters.
I can also group by pretty much any other meta tag. So when I wanted to get every picture of my daughter Natalie for her graduation collage, I was able to put in Natalie and boom, every single picture.....
It is work, but I like it :) .
"

are you available for hire? i could send you all my photos and you could organize them for me. Boom! it's done!

Mocha: "

GeoFisher: "I use XNViewMP, It is free, or shareware, depending on how you choose to use it. I pay for it.



I use that tool for multiple things. I like to add unique meta tags to pictures, based on what they are. Then I batch rename the pictures using the EXIF Date Taken information. so I create something like Crooked Lake trip - EXIF YYYY-MM-DD:hh.mm.ss. That tag gives me a uniquely identified picture, and if I have my buddies synchronize their cameras to the "same time", then, when I take all their pictures, and combine with mine, they are all in chronological order.
I then create folders in my media server based on year and content.....
Yea lots of detailed CRAP, but that really helps me keep it organized.
Once you have a system like this, you can use Windows Media Player, or about 18 billion other tools to group/view/organize pictures. Some better tools will allow you to use the meta tags, if you create them.


So, in my system, even though I've got stuff grouped by year, I can use Geo Boundary Waters Fishing and get every single picture of me fishing in the Boundary Waters.
I can also group by pretty much any other meta tag. So when I wanted to get every picture of my daughter Natalie for her graduation collage, I was able to put in Natalie and boom, every single picture.....
It is work, but I like it :) .
"

are you available for hire? i could send you all my photos and you could organize them for me. Boom! it's done!"

Actually, I do quite a bit of consultation training for folks. Being an IT guy with a DBMS background, my organizational skills with regards to how to keep all this junk together seems to be a marketable skill.

I also regularly consult on various other things, like "my windows crashed", "my mac crashed", my whatever "crashed", and I have no backups of xyz......can you help me recover my "stuff".

I can nearly always recover stuff, and in most cases, recover OS's, depending on "damage". It keeps me busy.