Image Management

[petercook80]

Does anybody know of some free (or cheap) software that would enable me to keep track (via thumbnail type view) of images archived to DVD/CD without having to put the DVD/CD(s) into the drive each time? So it would need to build a database of thumbnails on the Hard drive of each DVD/CD and enable me to browse the thumbs and locate an image all without having to shove in each DVD/CD in the drive. I use PS CS and DNG for RAW processing so it would need to be able to read those formats as well. Google picasa does read these formats but as far as I can see it wont handle DVDs and CDs at all.

Any susgestions much appreciated.

[mouse]

What I do is create a directory/folder structure (on the hard drive).  One folder for each CD and named accordingly.  The folder contains "contact sheets" or the equivalent (CS5 outputs a pdf file with thumbnail images).  Naturally you can create subfolders by whatever category you choose, when a DVD holds a large number of images.

[petercook80]

Thanks, that’s not a bad suggestion if I can't find anything else, I will have a play and see how I get on.

[AFairley]

iMatch will do this, and more (it has amazing catagorizing ability), but at around $65 I'm not sure it meets your definition of "cheap."  You can index files on the HD and move them over to a CD (or a different drive) and keep the image database and thumbnails intact.