Organizing Photo Storage

[DRM]

I have been using Photoshop Elements for a very long time and have recently bought Affinity, mainly because it has more complete capabilities to edit Raw files. Unfortunately there is one key item missing. 

Adobe seems to have put together much of their product range by buying existing products or companies, and so there is a lot of overlap which seems very messy to me. However, one of the products which they bought is the Organizer, in which I now have  almost 24’000 pictures (multiplied by two if one includes the edits). This feature I could not possibly do without, as having full database capabilities with multiple tag classes is an enormous improvement over using a simple folder hierarchy. I can search for photos by date, place, person, activity and much else. Moreover, the capabilities of file Versions and Stacks I find brilliant, and the albums and events features are also very useful.

 Thus, in the workflow I have set up I still import my photos into PSE and then use Affinity as an external editor. Thus, looking at your product range, it strikes me that what is missing is a product which replicates the features in the Organizer, especially if it allowed to import the Adobe’s tags. Such a tool would certainly be worth as much as the editor because, for a serious amateur, a proper tool to manage one’s images is essential.

[Pšenda]

Try search "DAM" on forum. 

[DRM]

Thanks. I wondered if this topic had already come up under a different heading.

I think that the key to a powerful and simple implementation is to work with pointers independent of where the files are actually stored. The implementation should allow for the user top create classes of tags (keys) which can in turn contain sub-tags. The user is then able to create instances of tags of a particular (sub) class, which may then be associated with (the pointer to) a particular image file. A feature to import and rename external files is useful but not essential.

PSE organizer has some pre-defined classes of tags, plus the concept of stacks and the automatic creation of edited versions. With this structure I have never been in a situation where I was unable to create a feature I needed. Adobe has linked the Organizer with a gutted version of the Photoshop editor for commercial reasons, but this is not logically necessary so long as external editors are available as "plug-ins" of some sort.