Photo Management

Bloodrayne · 19 Jul 2019 at 14:09

Hi all,

I have a Google Drive currently set up that has been looking after my photos online, but as I have them arranged into neat folders I tend to view via the Google Drive app, which isn't that great as a photo browser to be honest. On my local version on my PC I have the last version of Picasa as it was a good browser and the facial recognition comes in handy occasionally.

However, I've had this set up for years now and wondered if there was a better piece of software to use for either of these, either a decent web app (should I just embrace Google Photos?), or an alternative desktop photo management tool (one that is still updated would be great...)

Thanks for any thoughts!

Russinating · 19 Jul 2019 at 20:08

Google Photos is great, what are you missing? Facial and object/place/even emotion recognition is awesome, for example.

You can also have photos in multiple albums (aka folders) which is far more useful.

Bearjamin · 19 Jul 2019 at 22:27

Russinating said:
You can also have photos in multiple albums (aka folders) which is far more useful.

Very useful. Much like lightroom collections. It a link to the photos rather than a location in a folder.

Bloodrayne · 20 Jul 2019 at 09:56

Okay - maybe I should just go all in with Google Photos, although I take it there's no fully-fledged desktop version? Or am I living in the past by wanting such a thing?

I'll have a read up on how to sync Drive and Photos, shouldn't be too hard..

Russinating · 20 Jul 2019 at 17:53

Bloodrayne said:
Okay - maybe I should just go all in with Google Photos, although I take it there's no fully-fledged desktop version? Or am I living in the past by wanting such a thing?

Pretty much. What do you want a desktop version for?

Bloodrayne · 21 Jul 2019 at 17:32

Good question... just to be accessible offline I guess, I know we're pretty much 'always on' these days though.

Russinating · 22 Jul 2019 at 12:52

Bloodrayne said:
Good question... just to be accessible offline I guess, I know we're pretty much 'always on' these days though.

Yeah, I'd say it's far more useful to NOT have a desktop version for example. I'm able to access any photo from any device, which is where the search functionality comes in super handy. To give you an idea (once you've got some photos uploaded), try searching for locations - an obvious one - but also try some inanimate objects like "boat" or "sofa" etc, and stretch it by searching for "love" or "fear" etc. It's amazing.

Couple of tips that aren't obvious:

Attach a name to recognised faces, makes it easier to search for people by name
Following that, you can automatically share photos of people with them. As an example, any photos I take of my nieces gets shared instantly with their parents

Bloodrayne · 23 Jul 2019 at 19:35

Thanks - will give it a go, looks like facial recognition isn't turned on (and I can't see the easy option to do it), which may have put me off previously - a quick Google suggests the best way is to go via a VPN...

Russinating · 25 Jul 2019 at 16:28

Ah yeah, I think I enabled it before they changed the rules in the EU and it's stuck.