Comments on: Picasa for Higher Ed Image Management

By: Susan Anderson-Bauer

Susan Anderson-Bauer — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:18:47 +0000

One more question – how do you share tags across multiple users? I’ve been playing around with this; we need for one user to be able to tag a photo and other users on the same network to be able to search on those tags. I’m referring to keyword tags, not the Name Tags feature.

I am interested to hear what solutions any of you have found success with, or ruled out. All the posts I’ve read sound like Picasa really won’t accomplish our need to share photos (with their edits and keyword tags) across multiple users, which is very disappointing. I’ve found a couple suggestions to try out (saving Picasa database to network instead of C: drive and rebuilding the database often). Neither of those sounds very reliable or desirable, but I will test out the network suggestion.

I can’t find any software that really meets our needs to share metadata across multiple users – without resorting to DAM software which is expensive and seems to have many dissatisfied users.I haven’t found a single DAM product that doesn’t have a lot of haters out there, so I’m reluctant to ask this non-profit to splurge $5,000+ on something like Extensis which has many dissatisfied customers.

By: Whitney Anderson

Whitney Anderson — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:27:37 +0000

Susan,

What we do is keyword something like this into all of our photos:

photographer: Whitney Anderson

That way, later when we want to use a photograph in the magazine, for example, we know who to credit.

We include photographer so that we aren’t confused with just a name that might indicate who is in the photograph.

Hope that helps.

By: Susan Anderson-Bauer

Susan Anderson-Bauer — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:30:54 +0000

I am trying Picasa as a solution for transferring a non-profit agency’s image library which is presently only organized through Windows Explorer folder structures. They need it to be much more searchable – by keywords, tags, etc.

I’m wondering if any of you have come up with best practices for storing copyright data Picasa. This agency uses different photographers and I need to capture data related to copyright permissions in the metadata.

Thank you!

By: Whitney Anderson

Whitney Anderson — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:27:22 +0000

Michael,

We didn’t like Portfolio because it was slow and clunky, and expensive. I do not remember what the cost was, but remember thinking it was too much.

By: Michael Bazeley

Michael Bazeley — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:15:28 +0000

Hi Whitney. Many thanks for the write-up. I didn’t know that tags in Picasa modified the original files. What did you folks not like about Extensis Portfolio? And can you give me an idea of what it cost for you? I’m searching for a good digital management tool. And although I’d prefer one that doesn’t require a local client, Picasa is appealing on some levels, especiallly the facial recognition. Thanks much.

By: Whitney Anderson

Whitney Anderson — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:55:31 +0000

Leila – You’re right. Albums does not sync back to Picasa that I’m aware of. However, tags will push from Picasa to Albums.

By: Leila

Leila — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:06:41 +0000

That helps a lot, thank you! I also tried tagging images in the Picasa Web Album, but it looks like that doesn’t sync back to the software. Is that correct or am I doing something wrong? Thanks again!

By: Whitney Anderson

Whitney Anderson — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:43:17 +0000

Leila,

The photos are saved on the network. The index of all the network images are local (but the same) for everyone. And, the keywords are saved to each picture on the network.

Here’s a good test for you. Open Picasa, have it point to a network location where you have photos. Keyword a few. Then open that same photo in other software, such as Adobe Bridge, and you will see those keywords.

I tested this before we ever started, so that I was sure if we ever wanted to stop using Picasa, all of our hard work would not be lost.

Hope that helps. If not, let me know.

By: Leila

Leila — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:39:52 +0000

I’ve been pouring over your article as we research a better image management solution, and it’s been an enormous help. The one thing I can’t seem to figure out is how the tagging info will be shared. If we’re pulling the images off of our network and we each have Picasa on our harddrive, how do one person’s tags transfer to another machine without loading everything to Picasa Web Albums? I downloaded the Picasa software and we couldn’t really figure out how to share as you mention above. You have 6 people using it- is that because of Picasa or because there are 6 people with access to the image drive?

By: Whitney Anderson

Whitney Anderson — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:36:47 +0000

@ Aldo,

No, you don’t. The database isn’t shared, but rather on each computer. It contains
* Location of the files
* Unsaved edits made to them
* Album organization
* Previews of the images

However, when you tag the photos, it saves that information to the photo directly, in the IPTC data…so that part is shared.

Hope that helps.