Almost every person using a digital camera thousands, maybe tens of thousands of different photographs have accumulated on the computer. Everyone has this huge archive stored in different ways. Someone, in one directory, has a lot of different folders with names or dates corresponding to photographs, and someone has them all stored on different disks, network storages, in different folders, and it is quite possible that some of them have long been forgotten in some some folder named "New Folder" :)

Of course, when photographs from several years are scattered all over the computer, the mere thought of organizing and searching for them causes negative feelings. But not everything is as bad as it seems at first glance :) Regardless of how you store photos - Google Picasa will help you with all this archive. I will try to describe in detail the process of organizing your home photo archive using Google Picasa.

In just one hour, you can achieve impressive results:

1. Find all the photos on your computer, even the ones you forgot about.
2. Organize them and learn how to quickly search for the photos you need!

Automatic search for all photos.

Let's start from the first point. As I already wrote, I use the very convenient Google Picasa program to manage my home photo archive. It is a free and very powerful photo manager. You can download it on the official page: //picasa.google.ru/. The installation of the program goes smoothly and calmly: we run the installation file and agree with everything that we are offered to do.

Before you get started with Google Picasa, remember two very important and useful things:

Picasa does not store photos on your computer: When you open Picasa, it simply searches the folders on your computer and displays the photos it finds. It displays files of the specified types located in the folders selected for search. Original photos are always kept: When using the editing tools in Picasa, the original files remain intact. Changes you make to a photo are only viewable in Picasa until you choose to save them. Even so, Picasa creates a new version of the photo with the changes made, keeping the original file intact.

So, when Google Picasa is installed, we launch it. If all the photos on your computer are located in different folders or on different drives, then I recommend waiting until it automatically searches for photos on your computer.

For example, I have all the photos stored in one folder, so after starting I immediately specified the folder with which the program should work. If you have the same situation, then I recommend that you immediately go to the menu Tools -> Folder Manager and tick only those folders in which photos are stored.

If you have photos scattered all over your computer, then you can do nothing but watch as Picasa finds all your photos and images.

When the program performs a full scan of your computer - on the left side you will see a lot of folders in which images and photos were found. Initially, Picasa finds absolutely every image on your computer.

Sort and organize photos in a collection.

You need to clear this list yourself. To clear the list of photo folders:

Finally, when the list of folders has been cleared of everything unnecessary, you can combine the remaining directories into a Collection. For example, in my archive I found several different folders from my vacation in 2012:

In this form, the names of these folders are not very informative for me personally. Therefore, I combined them into one collection. For this:

Now you just have to look through the entire list of folders and organize them into your collections.

During our trip across the Southern Dzungaria, the shutters of our four cameras worked at least 6,000 times. The shooting was absolutely diverse: people, mountains, flowers, lakes, panoramas, panoramas, panoramas... Many of us took pictures, each in his own style and with his own priorities. If you ask everyone to process their photos, you will get a very beautiful joint album of the best photos. I, in the head of the hike leader, had a slightly different task - to make one big photo stream, where pictures from various cameras complement, enhance and create a holistic atmosphere of the hike, where every possible moment is captured and can be a fulcrum when writing a report. As part of this post, I will talk about how a single detailed album was created from our hiking photos with accurate time references and coordinates.

To catalog photos, I use Lightroom and I will illustrate the processing using this program as an example. However, the reader using alternative software may benefit from the approach I have proposed and adapt it. It is assumed that the reader has processed more than one thousand photos before starting to read this post. Although, I am ready to answer any questions in the comments and supplement this or that point.

Since the message is up to 2500 words,

1. Collection of all hiking photos and batch processing

1.1. Post-campaign cleaning of garbage from flash drives

1.2. Primary batch processing with presets

2. Photo sync

3. Processing panoramas

3.1. Grouping panoramas

3.2. Panorama processing

3.3. Embedding JPEG panoramas in the catalog

4. Processing the rest of the photos

5. Mark photos on the map

6. Export photos

Conclusion

1. Collection of all hiking photos and batch processing

1.1. Post-campaign cleaning of garbage from flash drives

In the early days, all hiking “photographers” find a couple of exceptional shots, process them, post them on social networks and calm down. What would I like to suggest to anyone who brings any photos from a hike? Go through all your photos and remove explicit garbage. To frank garbage, I would rank those pictures that have a better alternative. For example, in a series of several identical portraits, you can remove frames with closed eyes or unsharp performances, if there is a good frame. It often happens that the photographer does not immediately guess with the exposure and takes several shots on the way to the desired result. All this background can also be sent to the trash. So, if each “photographer” cleans up their sources in this way, then the creation of a common album will be significantly accelerated, because otherwise the main photographer will clean up the garbage.

1.2. Primary batch processing with presets

It is assumed that at the end of the previous paragraph, all photos miraculously end up on the computer of the main photographer. Everything, now he is alone with all the photos and he has a lot of work ahead of him. However, having been in his place, I came to the conclusion that the correct sequence of actions from the very beginning can save a lot of time.

We load all the photos into Lightroom and go to bed while the previews are being rendered. If you have a slow computer, then it is useful to read the article and think about rendering 1:1 previews. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

Simultaneously with rendering previews, Lightroom can apply presets. I, frankly, am an amateur in this matter, so I can only advise " Auto tone ” from the main built-in lightroom presets (for night shots then I do “ reset "). For all my photos, I initially set the parameters for sharpening and noise reduction, ensuring the best display of photos taken with sufficient lighting (of which there are an absolute majority in the mountains, and for evening and night I twist the sliders separately). Since my only (nutyiloh.zhpg) lens gives significant distortion, I will definitely activate the lens geometry correction " lens correction » for all photos. Looking ahead a little, I’ll explain: lightroom (and, probably, photoshop?) When gluing panoramas, it will still take into account that I’m shooting on a lens with built-in distortions and will fix everything, but about the program PTGui I can’t say that (I don’t think there are built-in lens profiles, right?). In general, my instinct tells me that gluing panoramas in PTGui it will be better for “straightened” frames, however, if this is not the case, you can poke my nose in the comments.

Thus, at the end of step 1.2, we have imported all the photos in the catalog and even processed them a little. I would like to add another note - lightroom itself is a good file manager. In library mode, it is quite convenient to create new folders, transfer image files. In addition, this approach saves you from having to “ find missing files and folders".

2. Photo sync

Initially, I imported four large source folders - each camera has its own folder. First of all, this is convenient when synchronizing photos, because. time points often do not coincide and need to be synchronized. In the ideal case, before the start of the trip, the group gathers somewhere with cameras, sets a single time for everyone, and, for greater reliability, also takes a simultaneous shot from all the carcasses. (Since such a booze has gone, you can synchronize the recorder and everything that you plan to use for the chronology of the campaign). Our group certainly planned to do this, but something went wrong.

When I sorted the files in the library by “ capture time ” then, of course, found relative time shifts for each of the cameras. Here the group sits on the pass and writes a note, but after a couple of minutes the guys start climbing it, and so on. With photos from the Pentax, everything was simpler - there the date was stupidly a month later: P.

The link above also says how to reset the edited times Metadata -> Revert Capture Time to original . The end result of all your manipulations should be a single photo stream, where frames from different cameras are set in the correct chronological order and have the correct reference to world time. If you climbed the pass at 10:40 Kazakhstan time, the photos of this pass should have characteristic times. This will be critical if you want to automatically link photos to GPS tracklog.

3. Panorama processing

Panoramic shots became an exclusive feature of our hiking photos. Over 2000 frames combined by 3, 5, 40 pieces into one large canvas. Panoramas in the mountains are popular due to the fact that they allow you to embrace the immensity, provide rich information about the location of ridges, passes, glaciers, etc. Each hiking photographer is likely to easily find his panoramas, he will remember them. Things get much more complicated when someone else's panorama shots go to the main photographer - where do you start? Where is the end? Is this the second panorama gone, or is it the second row of the previous one?

While writing the post, the idea arose that every hiking photographer can not only throw out the garbage in paragraph 1.1, but also glue their panoramas. Then the source files for the panorama can be excluded, leaving only the final product. In my case, there was no such utopia, and I glued all the panoramas myself.

3.1. Grouping panoramas

When searching for panoramas among other people's sources, automatic grouping of photos by the time they were taken is of invaluable help. The effect is very simple - Lightroom automatically creates groups if there are less than X seconds between adjacent frames, where X is the only parameter (I used X=8). Lightroom, of course, will unite a lot of superfluous things, but there will be no mistakes with panoramas. To do this, select all the photos from any camera and launch this powerful tool from the context menu. https:// helpx. adobe. com/lightroom/help/grouping-photos-stacks. html

Further - more, Lightroom also knows how to create panoramas and hdr straight from RAW -files of your library. He creates a new dng -file in the source folder, for which you can also turn all the sliders, as if when working with RAW . https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/panorama.html

3.2. Panorama processing

I created small panoramas up to 10 frames in lightroom, more than 10 - processed in PTGui . Lightroom is very convenient when gluing panoramas - you press one button, wait and you're done. The result of panorama stitching is a new "heavy" dng file, which takes up about the same amount of space as the sum of the original RAW images. The final dng-file can be processed "losslessly" by all Lightroom tools. If you have a productive computer, sharp pictures and a lot of hard disk space, then feel free to create panoramas in Lightroom. On my computer, gluing 10 frames already took about 5 minutes, and I could not stand it. When gluing panoramas in Lightroom, I remained within the folder with the source photos.

Before Lightroom, I managed to get acquainted with the program for gluing PTGui and I can confidently say that she was very helpful in creating panoramas. Of the minuses - you need to process and export JPEG - "puzzle" files of the future panorama, the final file is not RAW and it can't be edited lossless "lossless", as implemented in lightroom. The biggest plus is the ability to see a piece of which file is used in one place or another in the final panorama. If one of the files has lost sharpness, then its contribution to the panorama can be minimized using a mask or completely thrown out. From my experience, I note that this has to be done quite often. You can't draw a mask for an unsharp file in Lightroom - it will be very noticeable in the panorama. Well, then on large panoramas in several rows using masks PTGui you can fully control the result of gluing.

I made a small comparative table of these tools and in every possible way I agitate to master PTGui if you want to develop in terms of creating panoramas. Criteria not listed "Used hard disk space", where PTGui came off far ahead with 100-200Kb settings files. The size of the lightroom dng-file is approximately equal to the sum of the original images and in my case it was 100-300MB per panorama, which, in terms of the number of panoramas, eats up a decent amount of hard disk space. In the picture above, there is a completely egregious case: for a panorama of 5 frames of 25 MB each, Lightroom reserves almost 200 MB of a dng file. If it is rendered in jpeg Q=11/12, then the file will weigh a little less than 18 MB.

In conclusion, I would like to recall the existence of the Photoshop toolcontent-aware fill (not available in Lightroom or PTGui ). This tool perfectly fills empty spaces (especially the sky) in your panoramas and allows you to keep your panoramas informative without sacrificing aesthetics.

3.3. JPEG implementation - panoramas to the catalog

For processing in PTGui I created a separate folder for each panorama and moved it there RAW -files. Processed them, exported to JPEG 100% and carried out the gluing procedure. The output was one big JPEG - a file that was not in the lightroom catalog after paragraph 1.1 - which means that the integrity of the photo stream was violated. If you did time synchronization at the very beginning, then when you add the finished panorama to Lightroom, it will fall into the right place in time.

By and large, the source files from which the panoramas are glued together only begin to clutter up the directory and interfere with the process. I think that it looks quite logical to create a separate folder for panoramas and move all the "raw materials" for panoramas there, leaving only the final ones in the source files. dng and jpegs files. The folder with the "raw" should be at the source level. Now selecting all sources - 1927 files with panoramas are simply not displayed in the library - this is convenient.

4. Processing the rest of the photos

Now that the library contains processed panoramas and there is no “raw material” for them, you can start processing the rest of the images. In photo retouching, I have not gone far from the "Auto" button, so I suggest you draw knowledge about this in other places. From a technical point of view, I would like to encourage you to develop some kind of method for sorting photos and do this from the very beginning. Or maybe I'm wrong, and in the end it's much easier to run through the library and sort what you need.

In lightroom you can use 0-5 star rating, 6 colors and flags. In the process of processing, I almost never delete files from the directory (with the exception of the skipped garbage from paragraph 1.1.), I rate the processed files with 1 star, so that later I can easily form an array of photos for export (maybe it would be wiser to use the same flags here). https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/flag-label-rate-photos.html

In order to make it easier for you to come up with your system - a couple of examples. Painting panoramas blue, elements of flora and fauna green, red is something bad. Put 5 stars on group photos from the pass, and mark the maps for Google Earth with a flag. A similar organization of files in Lightroom is mainly needed to export certain images to separate albums. In the comments, it would be interesting to read who and how uses stars, flowers, flags in lightroom - especially interesting about stars, since the filter uses a cutoff at the lower border.

5. Marking photos on the map

It would be useful to mark photos from the trip on the map, this automates their geolocation in all kinds of services such as panoramio etc. Also, when used in reporting data, people will be able to understand where the photo was taken. You can mark photos in two ways, correctly and “like us”.

The correct way is to create a tracklog along the route. This is a file that contains marks about your location at a particular point in time. In fact, as soon as you have synchronized all the photos from the hike with the world time, you can automatically link them in the module “ Map ” lightroom. It will take quite a bit of time and you will just have to wait. For that, all files will be written GPS -coordinates, it will be convenient. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/maps-module.html

If you do not have a tracklog, the marking of photos on the map is done manually, "as we" did. You will need a group navigator who will draw a thread of the route traveled. The timekeeper of the group, who will describe in detail at what point in time where the group was. However, any other participant who can identify the place from the picture will do.

And then you take it, open the route thread in Google Earth on one monitor, open Lightroom on the next one and place the photos on the map as accurately as possible. You can accurately place photos from, photos from parking lots (when sending satellite messages). Everything else is “by eye” and conscientiously.

By the way, from kmz -Threads obtained in Google Earth can be made approximate in time gpx -file, which is fed to Lightroom, then you can work without a second monitor. For example, take the coordinates from the thread and set a time shift of 1 minute to each point. Do not do automatic binding, but the track will be visible at least.

6 . Export photos

The last step is exporting the photos. From the finished files, I first of all wanted them all to go in chronological order, so that they were all in one place and did not have to search in different folders, so that the date information was in the file name - this would help when writing a report.

All of these problems are solved by the correct file name specified during export. The first thing that came to my mind was the use of auto-numbering: 001, 002, 003. In general, this is a slippery slope, I do not recommend doing this. If you want to replace some file in the album, you will need to manually rename the new file later. If you suddenly want to expand the album with new photos, you will have to wedge yourself into the sequence again by manually renaming files like 062a, 062b, etc., because. 063 was taken from the previous export. Of course, you can do the export again every time, I update the numbering, but I find this impractical when the album size is more than 1000 files.

I would suggest naming the files with the above preset. In this case, the same file will always have the same name and be updated automatically. And the correct time synchronization will give the desired chronology. With this approach, it will be possible to first export all files with the desired resolution, and then, for example, export all panoramas in high resolution to the same folder. I don't like all this Medjik pornography with shooting parameters in the file name, nafik-nafik.

Conclusion

If you look back and wonder if it was worth it, I will no doubt answer that it was worth it. I believe that only within the framework of such an approach to photo processing can one squeeze out the maximum of useful information from the accumulated material. Taking into account the fact that some passes were passed by us for the first time and any information on them is of value for hiking, we didn’t want to do it anyhow.

During the campaign, the idea of ​​compiling campaign statistics arose, and I think it would look good here. For a group of eight people, we had four SLR cameras and 5 glasses.

After sorting the garbage, 5278 photos remained, 1927 of which with the help of PTGui were glued in 140 jpeg - panoramas. 103 more were glued together in lightroom dng -panoramas, where the number of raw files per panorama did not exceed 10. 60 were shot hdr -photos. The final album contains 20 group photos. On average, the group took 240 shots per day, 86 of which were large jpeg panoramas.

Well, that’s all, we haven’t made an art album yet, and it’s simply indecent to show an album of 1500 photos. Watch the slide film again and dance better.

11
Jan
2012

Easy Photo Sorter 3.1

Release year: 2012
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.fastsortfiles.com/
Interface language:
Build type:
Bit depth: 32/64-bit
Operating system: , 7

System requirements:
- Processor Pentium 3 or higher
- 512 MB RAM
- Video adapter with 32 MB memory
- Sound device compatible with DirectX 7
- DirectX 7
- Free disk space: 5 MB

Description: Easy Photo Sorter is a program for automatically sorting photos by date. Based on the EXIF ​​data on the date of shooting - the program can decompose your photos into folders of the form YearMonthDay or in accordance with one of 13 sorting options (output folder structures). The program is also capable of automatically renaming photo files. Whether you're not in the habit of sorting your footage initially or need to sort an old collection, this program will save you hours of time.

The process of setting up the program is extremely simple:
1) Select folders with photos to sort.
2) Selection of a sorting and (or) renaming template.
3) Selecting a path for saving (moving) sorted photos.

17
Apr
2011

Easy Web Animator 3 3.0.1 Portable

Release year: 2011
Genre:
Developer: CYBERFRONT CORP.
Developer site: http://www.easywebanimator.com/
Interface language:
Platform: Windows 2000, XP, 7
Description: Easy Web Animator is a program that allows you to create animations for your site quickly and easily. Several new features have been added to this version. No installation required, works from any flash drive. Key Features - Easy Web Animation simplifies the animation process. - We have eliminated unnecessary buttons, and the minimum number of buttons required for use is pre...

06
May
2011

Photo Stamp Remover 3.1

Release year: 2011
Genre:
Developer:


Build type:
Bit depth: 32-bit

06
May
2011

Photo Stamp Remover 3.1 Portable

Release year: 2011
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.softorbits.ru/
Interface language: (Russian is present)
Build type:
Bit depth: 32-bit
Operating system: Windows 2000, XP, 7
Description: Photo Stamp Remover is a utility with which you can easily remove unwanted objects from your photos, for example, remove dust, scratches, logos, date stamps. The program allows you to remove objects and people that you do not want to see in your photos. Photo Stamp Remover does this automatically using a unique...

07
May
2011

Photo Stamp Remover 3.1 RePack

Release year: 2011
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.softorbits.ru/
Interface language:
Build type:
Bit depth: 32-bit
Operating system: Windows 2000, XP, 7
Description: Photo Stamp Remover is a utility with which you can easily remove unwanted objects from your photos, for example, remove dust, scratches, logos, date stamps. The program allows you to remove objects and people that you do not want to see in your photos. Photo Stamp Remover does this automatically using its unique highlight fill technology.

30
but I
2012

Zoner Photo Studio Professional 15.0.1.3

Release year: 2012
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.zoner.com/
Interface language:
Build type:
Bit depth: 32/64-bit
Operating system: , 7, 8
System requirements:
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 or compatible
Memory: 1GB RAM
Hard Drive: Minimum 350 MB free disk space
Resolution: 1024 x 768 High Color
Description: Zoner Photo Studio is an application designed for high-quality processing of digital images. One of the functions of the program is to extract information about the location of the photo from the pictures ...

26
Feb
2011

MAGIX Video Easy HD 2.0.1.3 + ENG

Release year: 2011
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.magix.com/

Platform: , XP, 7
System requirements: * Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ ab 1 Ghz * 512 MB Arbeitsspeicher * DVD- oder Blu-ray-Brenner
Description: MAGIX Video Easy HD is a program for editing home video. A simple and user-friendly interface, with many help functions, and numerous practical wizards will transform your recording into an unforgettable movie, in record time - no prior skills are required. Do not allow...

14
aug
2014

Photo Collage Max 2.3.1.2 + ENG

Release year: 2014
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www.photocollagemax.com/
Interface language: English + Russian
Build type:
Bit depth: 32/64-bit
Operating system: , 7, 8, 8.1
Description: - a program that can quickly make photo collages, albums, calendars, etc. It has a large set of templates, shapes, masks, photo frames. With support, you can easily create fun collages. The program offers a very easy way to create collages, postcards, sketchbooks...

08
aug
2008

Mediachance Photo-Brush 4.3

Release year: 2008
Genre:
Developer:
Publisher:
Developer site: http://www.mediachance.com/
Interface language:
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003,
Description: Photo Brush is a multifunctional graphics editor with the functions of drawing pictures and retouching digital photos. In Photo-Brush, you can create an original picture using texture, art, natural or 3D brushes. There is also a function of converting photos into paintings. The program supports many modern s...

20
Jan
2010

Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 3.10

Release year: 2010
Genre: graphic editor
Developer:

Interface language: Russian + English
Platform: , 7
Description: A program for optimizing and improving the quality of digital photos. The utility allows you to adjust the contrast, brightness, color balance. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer is easy to use, all actions are performed by pressing the necessary button on the toolbar. The program also provides batch processing of files.
Add. information:
Features: - The function of instant...

20
Feb
2010

Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 3.11

Release year: 2010
Genre:
Developer:
Developer site: http://www2.ashampoo.com
Interface language: (Russian is present)
Platform: , 7
Description: Ashampoo Photo Optimizer is an easy-to-use program for optimizing and improving the quality of digital photos. The utility allows you to adjust the contrast, brightness and color balance. All actions in the program are performed by pressing the required button on the toolbar. Also, this program provides batch processing of graphic files. With the help of e...

21
july
2010

Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 3.12.0257

Release year: 2010
Genre:
Developer: ashampoo GmbH & Co. KG
Developer site: http://www2.ashampoo.com
Interface language: (Russian is present)
Platform: , 7
Description: Ashampoo Photo Optimizer is an easy-to-use program for optimizing and improving the quality of digital photos. The utility allows you to adjust the contrast, brightness and color balance. All actions in the program are performed by pressing the required button on the toolbar. Also, this program provides batch processing of graphic files. With this...

The beginning of autumn is the time to sort out summer photos, and at the same time organize the family photo archive. Over the years, millions of users have used the free Picasa program to do this. But this year, you may have to reconsider your habits - starting May 1, Picasa is no longer available for download. The popular program suffered the same fate as previously Google Reader, and now its support has been discontinued. You can only work with Picasa if you have downloaded it before, but keep in mind that no updates will be released for it anymore.

It would seem that there is something, but there are enough programs for organizing photos on the market, both paid and free. But despite the huge selection of applications for working with images, finding a full-fledged replacement for Picasa is not so easy. Mainly because, for all its simplicity, this program was multifunctional: with its help it was possible to organize photos into albums, and select pictures according to various criteria, and perform basic editing operations, and quickly upload albums to the cloud.

Let's not forget that Picasa was a free solution, which means that commercial programs should not be considered as an alternative. We also deliberately do not include in this review programs whose main function is to view images. Our goal is to find solutions that allow you to organize large collections of pictures and upload photos to the Internet.

⇡ "Google Photos" - successor to Picasa

For backing up your photo archive to the cloud, there's hardly a better solution than Picasa's successor, Google Photos.

First, all web albums downloaded using Picasa are automatically transferred to the new service from Google. Secondly, as in the case of Picasa, users of the new service receive unlimited space for storing photos, the size of which does not exceed 16 megapixels. For most people who use their smartphones to take pictures, this means that the entire photo archive can be downloaded for free, because the number of smartphones with better cameras is not so large (even the iPhone 6s has a 12-megapixel camera, and the Samsung Galaxy S6 has a 16-megapixel one).

To upload photos to the cloud from a computer, you need to use the Google Photo Backup application. Like Picasa, it allows you to automatically download all photos from memory cards, from the desktop, and from standard Windows folders for storing pictures. In addition, you can add any number of additional folders in which photos are stored.

When automatically copying photos to the cloud from memory cards, you can also select the folder where a local copy of the images will be saved. Google Photos Backup can download images at their original resolution or automatically compress them. RAW files are supported, but their loading is disabled by default (this can be changed in the settings).

If everything is more or less clear with uploading images online, then many other Picasa functions in Google Photos have not migrated. The online service has rather modest image editing capabilities (and, frankly, the editor's interface leaves much to be desired), there are no tags, captions and comments to photos familiar to Picasa users. Therefore, if you have used Picasa not only as a tool for uploading photos online, but also as a cataloger and editor, in addition to Google Photos, you should look for a desktop application with the desired functionality.

⇡ BonAView 1.9.0

• Developer: High Motion Software
• Operating system: Windows
• Distribution: Free
• Russian interface: yes

BonAView is not the most famous program for working with photo archives, but it is undeservedly overlooked. In terms of functionality, it is close to Picasa, and in some ways even surpasses the recently closed program.

Viewing images is possible by catalogs, by albums, or in the Timeline mode, so beloved by Picasa users, when photos are automatically sorted by the program by the time they were taken.

Ratings can be used to sort images, and custom albums can also be created. BonAView is suitable for working with photo collections of any size, as it supports an unlimited number of albums (including any number of nested albums). The number of photos in each album is also not limited.

You can use filters to sort images. They help to display only photos related to a particular album, having a certain name or a given rating.

Viewing photos is possible in two modes: in the form of thumbnails, the size of which can be easily controlled using a special slider, and in 3D view. The second mode allows you to work with the "carousel" of pictures, rotating and even editing them in the course of viewing.

By the way, about editing. There are a lot of functions for enhancing photos in BonAView. There are options for adjusting color reproduction, correcting levels and removing red eyes, tools for automatic adjustment, tools for sharpening and blurring, about a dozen effects (sepia, negative, shadow, etc.), a good set of frames for different occasions. It is interesting that, as in "large" photo editors, there is an opportunity to apply editing tools not to the entire image, but to its part, having previously selected the required fragment.

It is also worth paying attention to an interesting feature for creating visual annotations. Using it, you can add various graphic elements and text to the picture.

We also mention the excellent built-in search engine. BonAView can search for photos by specified folders, by user albums, by certain properties (size, resolution or file type, last modified date, rating).

To quickly select photos stored in different folders and albums, it is convenient to use the ImageBoard tool (analogue of Photo Tray in Picasa). Once photos are placed on the ImageBoard, they can be added to albums and other operations as a group. But there are no full-fledged tools for batch processing in BonAView - for this, the same developer offers a separate ImBatch program.

Unfortunately, BonAView does not contain any means for sharing photos with other people. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the latest version of the program is dated 2013, when social functions were not as in demand as they are now. However, BonAView can be used in conjunction with Google Photo Backup.

⇡ JetPhoto Studio 4.15

• Developer: Atomix Technologies Limited
• Operating system: Windows/Mac
• Distribution: Free for non-commercial use (pro version available)
• Russian interface: no

JetPhoto Studio combines the capabilities of a cataloger, viewer, graphic editor, and also contains tools for publishing photo albums on the Internet.

To start working with the program, you need to create an album. Then photos are added to the album from various sources (from a memory card, from local folders, from a webcam, etc.). By sorting the images in the album, the user can mark them with an asterisk, add keywords and notes (that is, a text description of the photo). It is also possible to edit information in EXIF. All this data can be used when searching for the desired pictures. And pictures marked with an asterisk can be quickly highlighted. It is convenient to use the calendar to search for photos. Just click on the desired date and only pictures taken on that day will be shown.

In addition to the usual mode for such applications to view photos in the form of thumbnails, JetPhoto Studio offers an interesting opportunity to display images on the map. The program perfectly understands geotags and makes it possible to assign them both manually and on the basis of a loaded GPS track. It also provides integration with Google Earth, the creation of files KML and KMZ. If data about where the photo was taken is not automatically available, it can be easily added by simply entering the location on the map. This can also be done for a group of photographs, having previously selected them.

JetPhoto Studio offers many different ways to conveniently view images. For example, based on the selected photos, you can create a wallpaper, flash gallery, screensaver, slideshow, web gallery in one of several formats.

But the image editing capabilities are more than modest. There are only a couple of the most basic effects, tools for basic image correction and cropping.

Like Picasa, this program allows you to not only work with photos locally, but also publish them on the Internet. There are two main ways to do this: using the Flickr service and the JetPhoto Server. The second way involves creating your own website with web albums based on the templates provided. The user needs to purchase hosting, deploy JetPhoto Server on it, and then upload web albums from the program to the site. Agree that for the majority this is too complicated and expensive (especially since we are looking for an alternative to Picasa, which means free solutions).

But integration with Flickr is very interesting, because on this photo hosting you can store photos with a total volume of up to 1 terabyte. In order to be able to upload your photos to Flickr, you need to authorize JetPhoto Studio to access your account. After that, you can upload both entire albums and selected photos. At the same time, you can upload originals or compress images to a specified size, manage privacy settings, add geotags. Keywords and notes added to photos in JetPhoto Studio will also be transferred to Flickr. For the convenience of users, the amount of available free space is shown before each download.

Among the shortcomings of JetPhoto Studio, it is worth noting a not very responsive interface. The program often "thinks" when performing some operations, and importing photos with default settings generally paralyzes the computer. True, if you switch to import in the background, you can work with other applications. In an age when even many web applications can simultaneously load data and respond perfectly to any user action, this looks like archaism. However, JetPhoto Studio is in a sense a relic of the past, because the latest version of the program is dated 2013.

⇡ WindowsphotoGallery ("Photo Album") 2012

• Developer: Microsoft
• Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
• Distribution: Free
• Russian interface: yes

Perhaps someone will consider the Microsoft application not the best alternative to the Google product, but Windows Photo Gallery is very close to Picasa in terms of functionality. The application can be downloaded for free as part of the Windows Essentials package ("Windows Essentials"). In addition to the component we are interested in, the package also includes a blog editor, mail application, OneDrive and a program for working with video files. During installation, you can select only those applications that should be installed.

Immediately after launch, Photo Gallery picks up all the photos stored in the image library (by default, these are the My Pictures and Public Pictures folders). To add other images, you just need to show the program where they are stored by changing the library settings.

If you need to overwrite photos from a memory card, just connect the drive - the program will immediately offer to import pictures.

In the Photo Gallery window, photos are sorted by the time they were taken. At the same time, as in Picasa, photos stored in different folders can be nearby. Their location on the disks does not matter. If you wish, you can choose one of many other sorting options: by folders, by rating, by drive types, by people shown in photos, by name, by geotags. The appearance of the application workspace is highly customizable: you can enable the display of additional information about the file, rating, signatures, quickly change the sort order, etc.

A variety of means are offered for organizing images: rating, flags, captions, text tags, geotags, information about the people present in the photos. It is convenient to use the sidebar to add tags of different types. In the course of work in the program, the user compiles a database of tags, and later you can quickly find photos tagged with a certain keyword, or those in which the right people are present. Interestingly, Photo Gallery can help with identifying people: the program itself finds the heroes of the photographs and offers to indicate who they are.

All photo information added to Photo Gallery can later be used in searches. For example, you can search for pictures taken in certain months and tagged with a particular tag. The AND and OR operators are used to define search criteria. The search criteria can also be the file type (video, photo, raw file) and whether it has been published on the web.

Photo Gallery allows you to send photos and videos by mail, as well as upload to various online services: Flickr, OneDrive, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo. Images can be compressed to the desired size before uploading. In addition to sending to the Internet, photos can be used to create panoramas, collages, videos (in the Movie Maker application).

You can also find some image editing tools in the Photo Gallery. There are several filters with a handy preview function, tools for color correction and noise removal, exposure adjustment and photo alignment. In addition, directly from the program, you can rename files, change the resolution, edit information about the shooting date. It is convenient that all the changes made can be canceled by pressing one button.

Unfortunately, support for Photo Gallery for Windows 7 will soon be discontinued. This is because Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 have a built-in Photos app for viewing, organizing, and sharing photos online. This application allows you to view photos in different modes: by albums, by folders or by date. Photos is integrated with OneDrive, and all the photos that the user interacts with in the application can be uploaded to the cloud. Albums are created automatically based on the best images or manually by the user. However, in terms of functionality, Photos is inferior to Photo Gallery (as well as Google Photos is inferior to Picasa - simplification is now in vogue).

⇡ Zoner Photo Studio Free 18

• Developer: Zoner, Inc.
• Operating system: Windows
• Distribution: Free
• Russian interface: yes

We deliberately placed Zoner Photo Studio at the end of the review, leaving this app for dessert. Despite the fact that the program is the little brother of the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, it has all the modern important functions for organizing your photo archive, as well as free uploading to your own photo hosting. It differs from the paid version of Zoner Photo Studio Free in that it lacks advanced image editing tools: masks, filters, gradients, selection tools, noise removal, adding frames, perspective correction, working with HDR, and screen capture tools. , batch processing, creating video slideshows. However, the list of what the program has is much longer than the list of missing options.

Zoner Photo Studio Free can work both as a simple tool for viewing photos stored on disk or on any media, and as a cataloger. In order to create a database of photos, you need to import them into the program from any folder, from a memory card, etc. Photos stored in the database can be displayed as a calendar, by folders or by keywords. There are a lot of viewing modes: from one in which the main part of the window is occupied by one image, to “tiles” (with the ability to flexibly adjust the size of thumbnails). In addition, you can display multiple photos side by side, and view geotagged photos on the map.

Image sorting is also great: photos can be sorted by title, rating, date created or last modified. There are also a huge number of advanced criteria that use all EXIF ​​data. In addition, the program can display RAW and JPEG images separately, giving preference to either the first or the second.

To the right of the viewing area, there is an information panel where you can easily edit all the information about a photo. So, it is possible to set a color label, add a rating, title, description, keywords, change EXIF ​​information.

Zoner Photo Studio Free does not work with third-party cloud services, but offers unlimited photo storage space on Zonerama's own photo hosting. After creating an account and a gallery, a Zonerama item appears in the navigation bar with two folders: Shared Albums and Hidden Albums. It is easy to guess that all photos sent to the first one become public, and pictures uploaded to the second folder can only be viewed by the owner. To upload photos, simply select them and move them to the desired album with the mouse.

Although the editing options are limited compared to the professional version of Zoner Photo Studio, for a free program, their range is quite impressive. You can not only change the image resolution and canvas size, but also add text, place one image on top of another, add some effects, perform color correction, improve sharpness, work with shutter speed and white balance.

⇡ Conclusion

In general, as our little research has shown, most of the free programs that can be considered as a worthy alternative to Picasa have one common drawback: they are quite old. Therefore, we still need to think about whether it is worth switching to an unfamiliar solution or staying on the abandoned, but still working Picasa for a while. The only program that stands out from the rest in that it is actively developed and looks modern is Zoner Photo Studio Free. She, apparently, can be recommended as the best replacement for Picasa.