Your questions: Tech & Gadgets asks “Is your digital photo collection under control?”

MSN Tech and Gadgets is asking the question I have heard numerous times:

“Is your digital photo collection under control?”

“OK, so you’ve got tons of digital pictures on your computer — how do you actually organize and share them? Are there any features “missing” from your camera or computer that would make it easier for you to organize your collection?”

Although only a few people have added their thoughts to the thread, but I’ll add my relatively basic, low-tech approach: I recall images temporally, and store them by folder accordingly, by month and year. For instance, our summer pictures of the kids are stored in various sub-folders folders in My Pictures, starting with the “2006-06” folder. Images are then backed up to an external USB 2.0 hard disk using OneCare’s incremental back-up software (as well as drag copy archive to CD-Rs, and more recently to DVD-R discs). Each image from our Canon PowerShot SD500 Digital ELPH (7.1 Megapixels) runs about 3 to 4MB.

Using the the MS Office Picture Manager provided good basic editing features ’til I upgraded to Digital Image Pro 10. I archive all photos in the original format and then also save a smaller thumbnail in a simple format of “eventname_date_sm.jpg” — and any edited photos are saved in Digital Impage Pro .png format to preserve quality.

For more info and help on managing pictures, check out on Windows Vista, the Memories subsite on Microsoft.com Windows Vista site. Windows Photo Gallery makes it even easier to store, sort and search your photo library. 

Also see  public discussions in Windows Vista Music, Pictures, and Video forum.

Also, see the Windows XP Digital Photography site on Microsoft.com (snippet below)

Capture Manage Edit Share Print Take great pictures Explore your digital camera, learn to take great photos, and start transferring images to your PC. Manage and back up your photos Take advantage of digital technology to organize and archive every precious image. Enhance and fix Windows XP and photo editing software help you get the looks you want, even from flawed photos. Share your photos Share photos via e-mail, over the Web, in print format, or as one-of-a kind creations. Print and scan your photos Print crisp, clear photos from your desktop?plus scan your old photos and bring them into the digital age.

Also see the “Manage your pictures” in the Photos and digital images section in the Windows XP Online Product Documentation.

And here’s a link a review of the Canon PowerShot on Steves Digicams.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows, Vista, Digital photography