Tagging photos

[Poider]

G'day, Can anybody suggest a good easy way to tag photos, Preferably in windows, or a program that can tag photos and have the tags movable between computers??
Peter

[GrahamS]

Adobe Lightroom.

[Poider]

thank you

[dennybeall]

Lightroom is good for that and that sort of jobs but you do have to be aware when you move things to other media since Lightroom never changes the original, it just keeps the changes in another file. That said Lightroom will copy the file with the changes included if you ask nicely..................not sure if that includes the tags????

[GrahamS]

Lightroom includes the tag in the metadata where it belongs, and will embed the metadata in all exported files if required. You only have to tick the box "Include all metadata" in the export dialogue.

[Poider]

I don't have lightroom. Maybe I should look at getting it.
Peter

[NorthernFocus]

If you set LR "catalog preferences" to write changes to XMP files, then all metadata and edits are recorded into a "sidecar" file with the same name as the image file and suffix .xmp. By doing this if you somehow goof up your LR catalog and/or want to import the files to another, different catalog, all edits etc. will show up. The only thing you lose is file associations (aka stacks). If you decide to add this preference to an existing catalog it takes a few minutes to write all of the XMP files. But on an ongoing basis there is no perceptible change in performance.

[pnodrog]

I use Lightroom but you can tag photographs other ways. Here is a LINK to a simple way of doing it. I assume when you say movable between computers you mean embedded in the image file.

[Poider]

Basically, I have 50,000 plus photos on my laptop, currently they are in folders from each holiday, event, day out, photo shoot etc, but the problem I have is anytime a folder has a couple of hundred photos, it takes a long time to load, and as i am scrolling down they keep refreshing and changing the order etc, what I would like, if it is possible I would like to keep the folders in a photo folder and when I want a certain photo I would just type in to a search box that i want a photo of Stratford upon Avon or Auckland I just type in the tag word.
I know I have certain photo but I now go into the pictures folder, then search each separate folder, when I find the folder that I think it is in I start scrolling as I go through the photos they seem to keep updating to get into the order of shooting or the order of name etc, it seems to rearrange the photos as I go through them so that if the photo is halfway down then as I scroll it rearranges them and the photo is suddenly up the top somewhere,,,, very frustrating!!!!
Peter

[Mike Buckley]

Tagging photos is just one capability of the product category, Digital Asset Management (DAM). There are lots of programs that specialize in being a DAM program, unlike Lightroom which tries to be a one-stop program that both post-processes images and acts as a DAM. Some (many or most?) of the programs that make their name as a DAM program have lots more DAM capabilities than Lightroom, so they do lots more than provide only the basic tagging capabilities. If you're interested in those possibilities, consider the list of programs in this article.

[pnodrog]

Basically, I have 50,000 plus photos on my laptop, currently they are in folders from each holiday, event, day out, photo shoot etc, but the problem I have is anytime a folder has a couple of hundred photos, it takes a long time to load, and as i am scrolling down they keep refreshing and changing the order etc, what I would like, if it is possible I would like to keep the folders in a photo folder and when I want a certain photo I would just type in to a search box that i want a photo of Stratford upon Avon or Auckland I just type in the tag word.
I know I have certain photo but I now go into the pictures folder, then search each separate folder, when I find the folder that I think it is in I start scrolling as I go through the photos they seem to keep updating to get into the order of shooting or the order of name etc, it seems to rearrange the photos as I go through them so that if the photo is halfway down then as I scroll it rearranges them and the photo is suddenly up the top somewhere,,,, very frustrating!!!!
Peter

Yep, Lightroom or some other "DAM" software is needed.

[Poider]

I use Lightroom but you can tag photographs other ways. Here is a LINK to a simple way of doing it. I assume when you say movable between computers you mean embedded in the image file.

Thank you pnodrog, that was pretty much what i needed
Thank you

[NorthernFocus]

Basically, I have 50,000 plus photos on my laptop, currently they are in folders from each holiday, event, day out, photo shoot etc, ...very frustrating!!!!

Do yourself a favor and get some DAM software(no pun intended). It will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. I'm currently in the process of doing the same thing. Finally paying the price of not documenting thousands of images in the past. Now doing it in bulk is very painful. Lightroom is making it only just doable. Though it is interesting going back down memory lane in the process.

[Dave Humphries]

This is an interesting thread, I'm a bit like Dan, the 'payback' for years of no keyword tagging on 'imports' and no DAM is catching up with me.

I'm considering giving LR another try, but now may consider one of the applications in the article Mike provided a link to, because I'm happy with ACR and my workflow will likely always end in PS anyway, so the output options of LR are of no use to me.