Scrapbook Software Tips

If you’ve been into digital scrapbooking for any length of time, you probably have collected quite a few images, photos and know that managing these can become a problem.

What do people with this same issue do?

Here are some inside secrets that photographers and graphic designers know, that you may need to know. Of the many photo management programs available – one of them might be something that would help you. The Scrapbook Software Tips team has not personally evaluated all of these, but has collected these recommendations from other graphic designers and photography professionals. You’ll have to make your own decisions as to which of these solutions might be best for your situation, needs, or computer operating system.

In Part 1 of managing your photos/images, we’ll cover solutions that are free to download and use for viewing and organizing your photos or images. Then, in Photo Management Software, Part 2, we’ll cover the some software – also called Digital asset management systems – which many professionals use when they need to manage larger numbers of images and to keep track of and organize their pictures, graphics, and photos:

Let’s start with some of the free solutions:

Irfanview – Don’t let the strange name put you off; it is a very popular program. This is much more than a thumbnail viewer, it allows you to view, convert, optimize, scan, print, create slideshows and much more. Available in over 20 languages. Has extra plugins for audio functions and special effects (filters) that can be added to images. It really is a great tool and at this price (free!) it can’t hurt to try it.

Picasa – Google offers this program as a free download. With it you can organize, edit, create and share images. Manage your photos in one place, and find photos you forgot you had. You can turn photos into movies, collages, slideshows or create a web album to share online with friends and family.

Gallery – This free program for PC is a photo album organizer. Gallery gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether it’s a large, commercial site or a small personal one.

FastStone Image Viewer 3.6 – This freeware program supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA. The features include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, color adjustments, musical slideshow and much more. For Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista.

VitaminSEE – This is an image viewer for the Mac OSX with a clean interface and fast load times. VitaminSEE will automatically thumbnail your images, optionally saving them with the files, This program has a Sort Manager which allows you to organize your pictures into different directories, and you can tag images with keywords.

These are only a few of the helpful programs that are available, but it’s a great start if you need to start evaluating which of these photo managers will work best for you. We hope you will find a solution to save you some time with your photo organization!