Photo Browser

I just found something out that is hampering my photo review...(hobby/advanced photographer)

Being that I don't have the time/money to buy/learn photoshop... I just need quick touch-ups and contrast adjustment mostly.

Microsoft Office Photo Manager 2007 does a pretty decent job because I'm just sharing the majority of my shots on facebook...

Well, it is only 32-bit (running win7 x64) and PM's performance is terrible with jpeg shots that are larger than 10mb (takes more than 5 seconds to render an image)

Now that I have a Pentax K-7 in my possession as a review unit, I have found that processed RAW to JPEG photos easily push 20mb... and PM has issues rendering them.

I'm tempted to try office 2010 x64, but what do you recommend for browsing large photos?

If you can afford a K-7, surely you can afford the 50 odd £ for Photoshop Elements 8. :

It includes an excellent organiser that keeps track of your images in a very convenient way. And you don't have to use more feaatures than required in Elements, wich also handles RAW images, btw.

The Office package must be more expensive than PSE8.

Try Fastone, always found it very good.

If you want a simple program to adjust exposure, rotate, crop etc. you could try Picasa 3 which is free. If you get more into post processing there are plenty of options. The k-7 comes with quite competent software though not to everyone's liking. Programs such as RawTherapee are free (though a donation is appreciated) and there are trial versions of the bigger commercial programs such as Lightroom.

Microsoft Office is more a business suite of programs rather than aimed at photographers.

Archie

Picasa 3 is good, as is Paint.net (Gimp is horrible)

Personally, I'd recommend ACDSee Photo Manager 12 - it has pretty much everything you've mentioned:

- it's a photo browser, sorting and viewing by whatever criteria you throw at it,
- it can catalogue images very fast,
- it can import images direct from the camera or SDCard (though I still do this by a drag-drop file-copy myself),
- it creates a database of quick-loading thumbnails,
- it has limitless category and tagging options,
- it has some basic (but powerful) editing tools (red-eye removal, heal, etc)
- it can burn everything to a CD/DVD (either as a backup filestore, or a playable slideshow for watching on TV/sending to grandma)
- it can upload to Flickr, Facebook, etc in a couple of clicks, optionally resizing and tagging on the way, too,
- its editing tools are non-destructive (originals are kept safe)

I first read about it in a couple of photography paperbacks, but eventually downloaded the trial version from CNet, and loved it. I use it in preference to Adobe CS4's Bridge app, which I get the distinct impression is trying desperately to be ACDSee! I may be wrong, but they do similar jobs - though I think ACDSee does them slightly better.

I think when I analysed the differences, the clincher for me was that ACDSee could 'remember' photos that were held in offline storage locations, such as CDs and memory sticks that you might not want plugged in all the time (but which would call for the disc/stick when you attempted to view the actual photo, rather than its 'browser' thumbnail).

Give it a try - if you hate it, don't buy it! They seem to be doing some sort of bundle at the moment, with some other software that I know nothing about... but it might be worth it. The whole lot is on at about 70 dollars (about 45 quid), but you might be able to find an older version which is freeware, perhaps - see http://www.oldversion.com/ACDSee.html - not sure.

If you just want a simple and fast (and free) viewer:

http://www.irfanview.com/