So what's the best software for managing photos when you have multiple cameras, people and computers?
In our house we have at least four cameras (including phones) and three computers. Most of our photos are in iPhoto on the Mac but as my wife uploads her photos to her netbook it's a right pain to transfer them across. My mac is home based and I have PC laptop which can get used for photo uploads/publishing if I am away from home - again a pain to transfer files across to the Mac.
I also hate the fact iPhoto is clumsy in how it works with a NAS drive. OK, now we have iCloud but that is even less help for my wife as she uses a netbook and a Blackberry.
I am happy to muck about with the technicalities of sorting etc., all my wife wants to do is upload, use some photos for ebay and some for photo books, facebook sharing etc.
What I want is the following:
- multiplatform software for uploading, organising and sharing
- ability to have multiple libraries
- ability to sync local copies of libraries to a NAS or cloud service
- ability to share libraries between people (e.g. me and my wife)
- ability to share photos and albums with friends etc. or fire off to Facebook
- easy link to value added services such as photo book printing
Picasa and Flickr spring to mind but not sure they really cover all the bases. Online file storage is also an issue as we have digital photos going back almost 10 years. Not only that but we have Apple TV, PS3 and internet TV - all of which will pick up photos from a library on a PC/NAS. It's also a pain if all your photos are online, you want to show a photo and have no online access. I also want to be able to have the original hi-res image plus sometimes lower res web friendly versions.
Online services are also tied to individual users. Flickr is tied to a Yahoo account, Picasa to a Google account - I want a generic service that can be linked to from multiple accounts so both my wife and I can upload etc. without having to log out of one Google/Yahoo account and into another. They are slow as well.
This is not a unique situation but I cannot seem to find a combination of software and online services that really suit how I want to do things. Any ideas/suggestions?
Alternatively, if anyone has some VC or cash to splash then I'll write the damn thing as there is nothing out there that I can see as a killer app/service. There is plenty of software out there that is multi-user, multi-platform, supports online and offline access, syncs etc. etc. so all the patterns are there - it's just not been done for photo management yet.
In our house we have at least four cameras (including phones) and three computers. Most of our photos are in iPhoto on the Mac but as my wife uploads her photos to her netbook it's a right pain to transfer them across. My mac is home based and I have PC laptop which can get used for photo uploads/publishing if I am away from home - again a pain to transfer files across to the Mac.
I also hate the fact iPhoto is clumsy in how it works with a NAS drive. OK, now we have iCloud but that is even less help for my wife as she uses a netbook and a Blackberry.
I am happy to muck about with the technicalities of sorting etc., all my wife wants to do is upload, use some photos for ebay and some for photo books, facebook sharing etc.
What I want is the following:
- multiplatform software for uploading, organising and sharing
- ability to have multiple libraries
- ability to sync local copies of libraries to a NAS or cloud service
- ability to share libraries between people (e.g. me and my wife)
- ability to share photos and albums with friends etc. or fire off to Facebook
- easy link to value added services such as photo book printing
Picasa and Flickr spring to mind but not sure they really cover all the bases. Online file storage is also an issue as we have digital photos going back almost 10 years. Not only that but we have Apple TV, PS3 and internet TV - all of which will pick up photos from a library on a PC/NAS. It's also a pain if all your photos are online, you want to show a photo and have no online access. I also want to be able to have the original hi-res image plus sometimes lower res web friendly versions.
Online services are also tied to individual users. Flickr is tied to a Yahoo account, Picasa to a Google account - I want a generic service that can be linked to from multiple accounts so both my wife and I can upload etc. without having to log out of one Google/Yahoo account and into another. They are slow as well.
This is not a unique situation but I cannot seem to find a combination of software and online services that really suit how I want to do things. Any ideas/suggestions?
Alternatively, if anyone has some VC or cash to splash then I'll write the damn thing as there is nothing out there that I can see as a killer app/service. There is plenty of software out there that is multi-user, multi-platform, supports online and offline access, syncs etc. etc. so all the patterns are there - it's just not been done for photo management yet.
