Remember that while your folder filing systems will be the same for whatever software you use, albums and collections exist only within that specific application. You get more organisational capabilities but only by committing to a single software solution.
Image organisation and cataloguing is important!
Everyone talks about editing, nobody talks about organizing. That's how it seems to me, anyway. Yet how you organize and manage your photographic work has a huge impact on your your creative development as an amateur, an artist and a professional photographer. Can you find your best images right now or are they buried in a sea of random experiments, duplicates and endless burst sequences? How do you make sure you don't sell the photo to two competing publishers? How do you create stories and not just single images, and how can you possibly condense tens of thousands of images into a handful of compelling personal portfolios? Photo editing is fine, but if you want to properly curate and develop what could prove to be an important body of work (if only to you), then image cataloguing is a vital skill.
Here's a selection of articles about image organizing and cataloguing, some of these are software-specific, many offer broad advice on how to manage, explore and properly enjoy the results of all your work.
Adobe Lightroom review 2023
Verdict: 4 stars Lightroom is Adobe’s bold vision of a cloud-based photo organizing and editing tool where all your images can be organised, edited and viewed anywhere on any device. For mobile users and content creators it’s a clever and effective proposition, but for regular photographers, while its editing tools now include AI masking, A lens Blur and the rest of Adobe’s latest Lightroom features, its restrictions, the closed nature of its editing ecosystem and its cost remain a major barrier.
Adobe Lightroom Classic review 2023
Verdict: 4.5 stars Lightroom Classic is the traditional, desktop-based version of Lightroom. Its editing tools are powerful and versatile, aided by new and steadily improving AI masking tools. Lightroom Classic continues to be the professional cataloguing and editing tool by which all others are judged, though it’s not always the best.
ON1 Photo RAW 2024 review
Verdict: 4.5 stars If you want a single, all-in-one, do-it-all photo organizer, editor and effects tool, look no further. ON1 Photo RAW 2024 is in a class of its own. Other programs might give you better cataloging tools, better raw processing or a wider range of effects, but never in one place like ON1 Photo RAW does.
Lightroom adds local storage, but is this quite the game-changer it seems?
The October 2023 Lightroom update brought an important change to the way Lightroom (that’s the ‘web’ version, not Lightroom Classic) handles your files. Now you can browse and even edit photos on your local drives without having to import them into Lightroom and its cloud storage.
DxO PhotoLab vs Lightroom Classic – using PhotoLab for cataloguing
That’s an interesting question. PhotoLab 6 offers better RAW processing and noise reduction than Lightroom and more extensive local adjustment tools, but with the improvements to the PhotoLibrary in PhotoLab 6, can it also do the same job as an image cataloguing tool?
Swapping from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom: 6 things you need to know!
The web version of Adobe Lightroom (now just called ‘Lightroom’ by Adobe), is a very compelling tool for photographers who want to view, edit and share their images across a range of different devices, and to have all their images available everywhere. But before you take the plunge and swap to Adobe’s cloud-based version of Lightroom, there are six things you need to be aware of to avoid nasty surprises.
Referenced vs managed files in cataloguing software: what’s the difference?
Well, there’s quite a lot, as it happens, and it affects the way you store, access and organize your photos
ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 8 review
Verdict: 2.5 stars ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 8 is the MacOS version of ACDSee’s all-in-one Photo Studio application. From its features, it looks like a strong rival to Lightroom or ON1 Photo RAW, for example, but the reality is very different. It’s both basic and technical at the same time, it’s missing features many might take for granted, and it looks like a Windows program ported on to the Mac, even if it isn’t.
Lightroom locks you in, in ways that other programs don’t
Lightroom exists in two versions. Lightroom (the web version) is the big villain of this piece, but Lightroom Classic isn’t entirely guilt-free. Both use a one-time import process that copes badly with subsequent external changes. This effectively locks you into using them as your sole digital hub from then on.