Image / Media Management

[Eclipse]

I have probably in excess of 50,000 photos, some taken from cameras that did not support EXIF, not to mention graphics, insignia, video, etc., at least 1/2 of which are CAP-related.  This mess is growing at an exponential rate as the pixel-depth of cameras increases each year.

What I'm looking for is a professional-grade media catalog application so I can get these things into some kid of reasonable order.  I'm not interested in online nonsense like Flickr or Picasa, I need something that the pros use as this will likely become the defacto application for my units archives as well.

Something that can do some reliable duplicate identification would be great, too.

The production houses I have worked for in the past have used home-grown "big-iron" apps, or MAC-based catalogs, neither of which is an option in this case.

We're probably talking about several hundred gb to start.

What have our resident photogs used with some success?

[isuhawkeye]

I have grown to love iPhoto, but you said mac is out.  Sorry thats all ive got off the top of my head

[Eeyore]

I use Aperture 2 to catalog and make minor tweaks to my photos and for advanced editing I use Adobe Photoshop with the OnOne Plug-in.

If you don't have a Mac I can't really give any good suggestions. I don't know of any decent PC program for high end photography management.

I find the iPhoto gets a little sluggish and irritating for cataloging a large volume of high quality photos.

[LoyalNine]

I am a PC user in and amongst a sea of Mac users at my college.  (I am an art/photo major).   I absolutely love Adobe Lightroom2.  Its very fast even if you shoot RAW+jpg. Although a photojournalist friend of mine swears by a program called PhotoMechanic. Thats what his paper issues him and he said its the goto program for most paper/AP guys.  I have never used it -- but he is the pro, not me - so I'll take his word for it.  Back it all up to an external hard drive (500gb - 1TB can be had cheap even at Circuit City) and then for redundancy back it up to an online storage service such as Cabonite, Mozy or Ibackup (www.ibackup.com)... just in case your house burns down or something crazy. 

[Eclipse]

If you don't have a Mac I can't really give any good suggestions. I don't know of any decent PC program for high end photography management.

I find the iPhoto gets a little sluggish and irritating for cataloging a large volume of high quality photos.

Its possible I'm SOL on the PC side - as I recall we had photographers (fashion & model, etc.) who would try and use iPhoto but would complain because of performance.

[wuzafuzz]

Extensis Portfolio might do the job for you.  They have a free trial available on their website, both for Mac and PC.  I haven't used it in years so I can't give the current version a thumbs up or down.  Thought I'd throw it out there anyway.  Good luck! 

[BigMojo]

Lightroom2

I have over 45,000 images for work cataloged using it. I use external HDs but also have DVDs in a fire safe.

[LtCol Hooligan]

Not sure 100% if it will do what you want, but you could try Windows Live Photogallery.

[CAP.is.1337]

Picasa: It's free and easy to use.

[Eclipse]

Picasa: It's free and easy to use.

And does, or does not, do things to your photos without your knowledge, depending on your settings.

I've checked the above suggestions, and nothing fits, which is where I started - most are workflow managers with image management as one feature in a host of others, which is why they are so expensive.

The MAC ones are no go, and the consumer ones like iPhoto and Picasa, have "issues" I'm not interested in dealing with.

This is why they production houses I've worked for have home-grown image media management applications.

Still looking...