Leaving specific software solution aside and talking about image organization I would like to recommend an "inverted-tree" structure for people categories - it is especially neat for categorizing family photos and I know it can be done in IMatch and probably in other software packages, too. Of course, please excuse me if what I am writing about is well-known and was discussed before.
The idea behing the "inverted-tree" is to build "paths" to family members and acquintances. We start with a simple structure like that below: Family -me -my wife -our child1 -our child2 Then, we start expanding it in a way that for every member of family we add his or her parents, brothers, sisters and husbands/wives directly "under" him (except the family member which serves as a "path" to the member and is already "above" him in the tree): Family -me --my mother --my father --my brother --my sister -my wife --her mother --her father --her sister -our child1 -our child2 Here, my side of family expanded further (just note the actual family structure is completely artificial and invented just as an example; also in real database we would use people's real names of course): Family -me --my mother --my father ---his mother ---his father ---his sister ----her husband -----his mother -----his father -----his brother ----her child1 ----her child2 --my brother ---his first wife ----her second husband ----her child with second husband ---his second wife ----her mother ----her father ---his child1 --my sister ---her husband ---her child1 ---her chil2 That way categories containing photos of my grandfathers would be "me\my father\her father" or "me\my mother\her father" and category containing photos of my sister's husband would be "me\my sister\her husband". This attitude has two great advantages: 1) repeating names are not a problem, 2) it is very easy to group people by family side or groups as we relate to them in real life (for example, my side of family is "me" category with all the subcategories, my sister husband's family is "me\my sister\her husband" and all subcategories). Inverted-tree attitude is easily expanded to workmates, colleagues and acquintances, people we got to know during holidays etc. where we can initially group people by where we got to know them: Our buddies -me --my workplace1 ---Steve ----Steve's first wife ----Steve's second wife -----Steve's second wife child from her other marriage ----Steve's child ---John --my workplace2 --my holidays 2007 -our child1 --his primary school --his judo trainings ---John ----John parents General idea is to put people into tree by "paths" - that way if we think about "Steve's second wife child from her other marriage" more in context of Steve's wife we put the son under the wife; should we think about the wife's son in context of Steve we would put the son under "Steve". The only problem are people who should appear in more than one "context" (like a workmate with whom we worked in more than one place). In such a situation we have to choose one context over another or make "category reference" (supported by some software packages) so that we have a link to one category from several contexts. Please excuse the long post. I wonder if anybody have read it all. :-) Pawel Bruce Dayton wrote: > A big thanks to all who have offered information and advice on this > subject. A fair number indicated Lightroom as a possible solution. I > have used Lightroom a bit and I think that for my wife, all the extra > capabilities are going to be a bit daunting for her - there is so much > extra UI hanging around to confuse her. > > Since IMatch has a 30 day trial and sounds much like what I am looking > for, I think I'll give it a try and see how she does with it. If that > works out well, then we are on to the hard part (categorizing and > organizing). If she ends up not liking it, perhaps I'll have her take > a look at Lightroom. > > Again, thanks for your responses. > ____________________________________________________________________________ Czas wybrac dobra nazwe! www.nazwa.pl -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
