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how do you organize all your graphics?


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I'm curious what you guys use to organize graphics into something that's searchable. For example, you need a "flat style 2d bird" or a "tree", so you use something to search your database of graphics that have been properly tagged, and volia, you have exactly what you need.

 

Do you use affinity's built in asset manager for databases of graphics that range over 1000? Or have you found another application that is better for organizing things?

 

I need to be able to find the assets quickly and (hopefully) be able to just drag them into an artboard to make mockups, but at the same time I need to be able to easily export (or already have exported) all the individual graphics as I only use affinity designer for making mockups.

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I would be interested to hear from people on this too.

Since moving back to Windows from Mac I've been looking - every now and again - for something that I can use to organise my media, not just photos but vector art and possibly fonts too. The vector and font organisation isn't a major issue but it would be nice to be able to organise more than just photos from the same place. (E.g. Look for the tag of "Celtic" and I get photos of Ireland, vectors of Crosses and fonts such as "Cry Uncial".)

I tried XnViewMP but I can't seem to figure out how to use it properly. E.g. I selected a photo, checked some categories, did some other stuff then went back to my photo and the categories were no longer checked. It's probably me not taking the time to learn but I want something that just does what I want.

digiKam looks quite nice but it's a 267MB download. I have no idea what it will be installing from such a huge download - it's bigger than LibreOffice - so I'm staying away from it for now.

DarkTable looks like it can do some of what I want but I probably won't be using most of the functionality it provides so I don't want all of the other stuff getting in the way.

Konvertor looks interesting but I can't find any information about organisational functionality beyond the existing folder structure. MultiCommander looks much the same.

Shotwell also looks interesting but it's only available on Linux.

DataCrow looks like a possibility but there's not a great deal of information about it.

Adobe Bridge looks very capable but I'm wary of going down that route in case they decide it's not going to be free anymore.

One bit of software - that I can't remember the name of now - looked like it was going to be just fine until I saw that it created an extra metadata file for each image. I don't like the idea of having a whole bunch of extra files hanging around just so I can tag things.

I even saw one bit of software - again, that I can't remember the name of - that renamed the files using the tags you gave them. An interesting idea but, personally, I like to keep filenames as they are. (If I decide to do any tag reorganisation I don't want my backup system to go nuts.)

It's worth saying that I've only been looking at free software. My media collection isn't very extensive - a quick scroll through thumbnails in some fairly-well-organised folders generally does the job - so I don't feel like paying for anything just yet.

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I use ACDSEE. I have graphics all over the place. It has a database and yo can tag and deal with metadata to your hearts content. It also has a "shortcuts" folder where you can view a tree of ... well .. shortcuts and have a tree of your favorite folders at hand. Once you set it up, it will do some fast edits and resizing. You can also highlight several images and load them into your default external editor such as Affinity Photo with a keyboard shortcut

 

ACDSEE only got layers last year and an inpainting tool this year. They are building a house of cards on their design platform and price wise , they are starting to get real proud of their products. It is not a real contender for Affinity photo rather something that overlaps in certain areas. If you really need something like that, try their lowest trial. The top end product has pinch tools and lens correction but if you use AP you probably won't want to do it in ACDSEE

 

I have yet to find a shareware product that meets my needs ... but your needs may be different

Affinity Designer 2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212 Affinity Photo 2.2.2075  beta 2.3.1.2212Affinity Publisher  2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212

Windows 11 Pro Version    22H2
OS build    22621.1928
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.90 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

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I also use ACDSee as my DAM, but not for photo editing. It has a good, drag-and-drop gps facility and a handy image viewer.

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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1 hour ago, John Rostron said:

I also use ACDSee as my DAM, but not for photo editing. It has a good, drag-and-drop gps facility and a handy image viewer.

Pretty much agree. I am so used to it's edit mode that I occasionally make a quick adjustment but for anything more than a click or 2 I load it into AP.

It is a decent organizer. I may drop from the top edition to  the basic next year as I never use their kludgy layers and if it removes an edit that I use ... I can do it in AP

Affinity Designer 2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212 Affinity Photo 2.2.2075  beta 2.3.1.2212Affinity Publisher  2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212

Windows 11 Pro Version    22H2
OS build    22621.1928
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.90 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

yoda.png

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