PhotoAlbum or PhotoExplorer 8.5 ??

[nrmsmith]

I just bought PhotoImpact 10. It came bundled with PhotoExplorer 8.5; but the bundles also contain a product called PhotoAlbum.

Looking at the manuals, it seems as if these two products overlap each other in functionality, if not actually duplicating the same functionality.

Since I'd rather not install both, which do people here use in preference?

Thanks
Nigel

[keenart]

Yes they are similarities, but at the same time each is designed for a specific purpose, Image Viewer vs Database.

Photo Explorer was designed to manage images on your drive, find them and catalog them as Thumbnail references, so you would have quick access by viewing the contents of a graphic file. This is a much better File Explorer than trying to determine the contents of a file name. This is a great product for people who store a few family photos and want to send them back and forth by Web to other family members.

Photo Allbum was designed for storage of large quantities of images, it doesn’t look for images on the drive, you create an Allbum that stores Thumbnail representations of the image. In addition you can add volumes of information about each image. In the beginning days of this products creation, it was marketed as an Image Database.

Here is the real difference, beyond what each can do with images. I have 1,500 to 2500 images in each Folder, if I use PhotoExplorer to view the Folder, it takes about 3 to 4 minutes to load all of the Thumbnail images, and sometimes crashes my computer while running other apps. Photo Album on the other hand stores 3000 to 5000 images from several folders in one Album, and when opened takes about 1 second to load all of the Thumbnails. At present I have 76 separate Albums.

So my wilfe uses PhotoExplorer to find and keep track of the several hundred family photos she has in several Folders. While I an Artist have many 10’s of thousands of images and use Photo Album to keep track of all of the info that must accompany my Artwork.

As you said a matter of preference depending on your needs.

[2log]

I'd use PhotoExplorer. It's a personal preference. PhotoImpact Album simply creates links to the real images. It creates further confusion... specially when you move or delete the original files.

[nrmsmith]

Thanks both for your detailed comments.

I think I will try installing them both & try them both out before making a final decision.

Cheers
Nigel

[nrmsmith]

Thought you might be interested in my decision to use NEITHER of these products. I wanted a good database management program, so PEX 8.5 was the program best suited to my needs.

However, it can't cope with cataloguing a DVD I have of clipart (Masterclips 101,000) which has over 101,000 items of clipart & photos in hundreds of folders. It is very slow and was consistently crashing after 6-7 hours work (only part-way through the cataloguing job).

I have now bought a copy of ACDSEE v7 instead, which is considerably faster (though still slow in the initial cataloguing process); and did not crash!

Cheers
Nigel

[keenart]

All Database progs are slow in the initial stages of cataloging, especially when you catalog as many images as you are working with in one attempt. It is even more cumbersome and time consuming when you create a database with the highest Thumbnail quality.

I would add that you might consider making a backup of the initial catalog and store a copy somewhere else. This action would save you considerable restore time if your old database became corrupt or damaged. Even when restoring an older database, it is much easier to rebuild, relink and update, than completely recreate.

[MaryLouW]

I use PEX 8.5 as well. I did use ACDC at one time but PEX does so many things. I find PhotoAlbum to be klutzy and slow and as someone else said, a pain when moving things from one album to the other. After losing the catalogue index a few times and having to recreate it, I uninstalled it. I don't bother to install it when I get new versions of PI. PEX is my viewer of choice and it does everything else I want as well.

[2log]

Go for PhotoExplorer. It has cool features that may come in handy like batch rename or batch convert where you can resize a group of pictures with a simple command.

[heinz-oz]

And for some variety, I don't use either. I burn my images to CD when I'm done and use WIN Explorer to find what I need. Maybe I haven't yet got enough images to make me think of changing that.