Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

56
The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
Comments
Baard Riiber, the Norwegian developer of PixFiler, is a keen photographer and understands
what is needed in cataloging software. PixFiler is his second-generation product,
the first being BR’s PhotoArchiver, which lacked the bulk update facility. Written in
C++, it appears to be a stable and reliable product from a vendor who is a member of
the Association of Shareware Professionals.
One recently added feature is the use of Exif-GPS information for displaying on a map
the locations where images have been taken. This feature works in conjunction with the
vendor’s PixGPS software that enables you to Geotag your photos using a GPS receiver.
Version: PixFiler 5.2 (2008)
OS: Windows 98SE, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, and Vista
RAM: 128MB
Supported file formats: All major RAW; JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and other image formats
Price level: Approx. $40
Address: BR Software, Nedre Frydendal 92, 1384 ASKER, Norway
www.br-software.com
Shoebox
Vendor: KavaSoft
Purpose: Catalogs photos on Mac by content, “who, what, where, and when”
Description
Shoebox is a Mac-only application that enables its users to organize digital photos by
content. It has categories that behave like virtual folders for people, things, places, and
dates, or “who, what, where, and when,” as the vendor puts it. You can create or edit
categories in the “category drawer” or import ready-made categories from the vendor’s
Website. For example, if you import the category called “United States” it comes with
all 50 states and their capitals as subcategories.
Once photos have been ingested to the appropriate categories, together with cross-referencing
between them, searching becomes very straightforward. You just type in the
first few letters of the category (or favorite, or date) to go straight to the correct folder.
You can also save a search to your favorites list and run it again later.
One of the benefits of putting photos into Shoebox is being able to surf your collection
by content. For example, if you are displaying a beach scene, you can click to see similar
scenes. Other features include password-protected catalogs, photo sharing by email
or save-to-the-Web, and backup to DVD. Supported languages are English, French,
German, Dutch, Italian, and Japanese. The Express edition limits you to two catalogs
of 10,000 photos each; the Pro edition is unlimited.