[mdlug] OT: Photo Software

[Peter Bart]

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:34:14 -0400
David Relson <relson at osagesoftware.com> wrote:

> G'day,
> 
> My siblings and I just went through the parents' photo albums and
> there are many that each of us wants copies of.  Consequently, I've
> got a big stack to be sorted, digitized, and tagged
> (who/when/where/etc).  Have any of you done this?  What software did
> you use?  Did you scan them yourselves on your home
> printer/copier/scanner, use an online service, go to CVS, Meijer's,
> etc???
> 

FWIW I've installed Picasa for Linux and it seems to do a real good job
of finding and cataloging pictures. It also has some neat features that
let you index and handle the files in batches. Burn them to disc, email
them, etc. It also has some basic editing tools. I should mention I
only have enough experience with it to get my girlfriend up and running
with it. She loves it and hates Gimp. She's made collages, wallpaper,
screensavers with it. It seems to be very intuitive, or maybe because
it's basically a Windows program that runs on Wine she's more used to
the layout? Of course you have to have them scanned to do anything with
Picasa. Something I've heard is to save the pictures in a noncompressed
format, such as .tiff? IIRC everytime you open and save a .jpg, you
lose a little quality. So now that storage space is much cheaper than
even a year ago, save the master file in an uncompressed format, edit
that as needed if needed, resave in an uncompressed format and then
compress them to burn them etc. 

Good Luck,
-- 
Peter The Plumber sm
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