TL:DR – Long list of software that might help you organise a large collection of photos. But, William Gunn suggests simply turning to Adobe Elements to get the job done quickly and well.
I have tens of thousands of photos in my archives, some stretching as far back as the pre-digital era (working in and touring the US in 1988, touring Australia in 1989, southern Africa in 1992, and so much more in between, mostly prints, but lots of scans too). My first digital camera (an Agfa ePhoto 307, provided by Agfa itself in 1997). It had a VGA sensor (one third of a megapixel) and no screen. After that I progressed to pocket digital cameras, notably the Canon Ixus 500 and from there to the digital SLRs (Canon 20D to 6D to 7D mark ii. Before you ask, I’ve not gone mirrorless and don’t yet feel the urge to do so given some of its limitations.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I have tens of thousands of photos and fundamentally they’re not very well organised. So, with a prompt from a contact on Mastodon, I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to help me organise my photos by asking it for software recommendations.
You are to act as an expert in software used by digital photographers. I need a list of the state-of-the-art applications in photo organisation. The software must be able to handle tens of thousands of photos and to be able to identify the dominant colours in them, to identify faces, and to identify the main object in the photograph. The software must be entirely free, no subscriptions, no freemium, no premium. It must work on Windows 10 and be intuitive and easy to use as well as very fast.
As an AI language model, I can provide you with a list of state-of-the-art photo organization software that meet your requirements. However, I must inform you that there is no free software that meets all of the features you mentioned. Some software may have a limited free version, but to unlock all the features, you may need to purchase a subscription or pay for a license. That being said, here are some options you could consider:
Google Photos – While not entirely free, Google Photos offers unlimited free storage for high-quality photos (up to 16 megapixels). It can handle tens of thousands of photos, and it can identify faces and objects in photographs. It is also intuitive and easy to use. However, it may not be able to identify dominant colors in photos.
Digikam – Digikam is a free and open-source photo management application that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It can identify faces and has some object recognition capabilities. However, it may not be able to identify dominant colors in photos.
XnView – XnView is a free image viewer and organizer that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some face detection capabilities but may not be as advanced as other software. It can also batch process images, making it useful for large photo collections.
Shotwell – Shotwell is a free and open-source photo organizer for Linux, but it also works on Windows. It can handle tens of thousands of photos and has some basic face detection capabilities. It also has some editing capabilities, such as cropping and color adjustment.
Darktable – Darktable is a free and open-source photo editing and management software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can identify some objects in photos. It also has advanced editing features like color correction and noise reduction.
FastStone Image Viewer – FastStone Image Viewer is a free image viewer and organizer that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can batch process images. It may not be as advanced as other software but is fast and easy to use.
Windows Photos – Windows Photos is a built-in application on Windows 10 that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic photo editing capabilities, and it can organize photos by date and location. It may not have advanced features like face or object detection, but it can be a useful tool for basic photo organization.
Mylio – Mylio is a free photo organization software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can organize photos by date and location. It also has a syncing feature that allows you to access your photos on different devices.
Zoner Photo Studio – Zoner Photo Studio is a free photo organization and editing software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can organize photos by date and location. It also has advanced editing features like color correction and noise reduction.
Capture One – Offers advanced features for photo organization and editing, including automatic organization by color, subject, and face recognition.
Amazon Rekognition – Amazon Rekognition is a cloud-based image and video analysis tool that uses machine learning to identify objects, scenes, and faces in photos. It offers advanced face recognition capabilities and can identify emotions and facial attributes as well. However, it is not a standalone application and requires an internet connection to use.
Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services – Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services is a cloud-based collection of AI tools that includes a computer vision API for analyzing images. It offers advanced object and face recognition capabilities and can identify emotions and facial attributes as well. However, like the other options, it is not a standalone application and requires an internet connection to use.
Adobe Lightroom – Adobe Lightroom is a popular photo editing application that also offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. However, it is not a standalone tool and requires a subscription to use.
ON1 Photo RAW – ON1 Photo RAW is a photo editing application that offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. ON1 Photo RAW can be purchased as a standalone application or as part of a subscription bundle.
ACDSee – ACDSee is a photo editing and management application that offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. ACDSee can be purchased as a standalone application or as part of a subscription bundle.
I’ve looked at some of these tools. Digikam looks promising, especially as I don’t want to pay for a Lightroom subscription. But, none of them are quite as advanced as I was hoping. More to the point I cannot see a simple route from my disordered collection to any of them working to give me a tagged and categorised gallery. I shall ask ChatGPT if it can give me a workflow to do that. Maybe there is a way.