Does a program like this exist.

[The_Leo]

I suppose lots of people in game and media development studios might have come across something like this;

I require a program that will help in organizing, sorting, and fast recollection of my massive collection of images. I have one Pictures folder and in it is almost every useful image found on the internet. Every time I come across an interesting, funny, or otherwise creative image on the internet I save it in to that Pictures folder. Every time I save the images, I give it a file name filled with key words, conveying the main idea of the image. So then windows search could be used later to search for the required image. The image collection 1GB +, I require it for my media related stuff.

Now, what I need is a program that I can name the image some simple and short file name, but then that program can attach tags to that image, so they can be sorted in to subjects, categories, key words, and such. I want to give each image many, many tags. So when I need certain images, I could use that program for supper fast image sorting. Sort of like having a massive library for a game you are making, and then having this program that can access that reference library, and give you images that fall withing the subjects you choose, or key words you type in.

This program has to store all the key words and subject tags in to the image file itself, so when that image is moved from one PC to another PC, the program on that other PC can now have that image as part of it's database, without you having to re enter the tags in to the program, since all the tags are embedded in to the image file, somehow.


Does such a program exist?

[Fender]

http://picasa.google.com/features/index.html

Write captions that stay with the picture.

Picasa makes captions the way journalists do – using the IPTC standard. That means your captions are saved within their pictures and stay with them, whether you export as a web page or make a CD presentation. Picasa captions are fully editable and searchable, and you choose whether to display them or not.

[R00k]

I also found and used this last week, which helped me clean up the thousands of images I have on my PC:

http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/download.html

It compares the actual data in the image to find duplicates, instead of just file names. I was able to get rid of half a gig of duplicate files.

[mancubus]

Picasa 2 is very good and freely available from Google. Sorted out about 3000 images and was very impressed.

[The_Leo]

Sweet, I will have to check out the duplicate finder. Probably have a gig or two of duplicate .zip files all over the PC.

I downloaded Picasa and I like it, it has a pleasant to look at interface, it is clean and organized, however it is a little to simplistic. Seems to be targeted at the casual home user. I need something with a little bit more features, specially on the organizing and previewing side. I am willing to buy a good program if I can find one.