Cataloguing/managing images?

[ajf]

Hopefully someone here can help.
At work we have thousands of product photos on the network.
Currently the department who uses them files them in folders relating to the product and/or type of use.
This means that sometimes the same files is added to more than one folder!!

What we and I want to do is get rid of the duplicates and use something that can allow tagging/metadata to be added to the photos.

Obviously things like Bridge and Lightroom can do this but they are not supported over networks or across multiple users.

I looked at DAM packages but these seem complicated and excessively pricey for what they want to do.
There are no workflow requirements at all, just the ability to be able to find photos relating to the requirements from our sales staff.

 

[TheAlex]

It's not something I've had to do myself but I did look into it briefly. There are a few answers that might help here: http://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...ns-for-shared-cross-platform-photo-management

 

[Nexus]

Perhaps rather than messing around with the metadata of the photos, which typically can only be read by certain pieces of software, you would likely be far better off tagging and managing them using database software.

Personally I'd use something like Filemaker, as you can create an entire database which can be shared with everyone in your business. You can have it display or open the images and you can tag and catalog them however you please.

As for deleting duplicates, that should be fairly easy for somebody with a bit of coding/scripting/tech background to be able to write something to delete all duplicates. That said, thats largely based on your business using a consistent naming and directory structure for how they manage product photos.... if you aren't already doing that with something set in stone as to how things are to be named, that would be the first thing I'd look at doing before proceeding any further.