What is your prefered photo manager?

For years I enjoyed using (Live) Photo Gallery, but as we know it is discontinued and I would like to hear your ideas what is best photo manager that is not for professionals.

Thank you 🙂

Conversation 26 comments

  • goodbar

    Premium Member
    14 May, 2019 - 5:59 pm

    <p>As I'm heavily invested in Amazon's echo system I opted for Prime Photos. One nice take away was that since my wife and I share an amazon account, we can have our photos/videos all upload to a single place. It's easy to hook up to an Echo Show, and I liked the app and web interface as well. We actually paid for storage as well so we could upload ALL our home videos, so we have easy access thru a great interface on Fire TV.</p>

    • evox81

      Premium Member
      15 May, 2019 - 9:26 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428157">In reply to goodbar:</a></em></blockquote><p>All your photos to the same place? Man… your marriage is different than mine. lol</p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    14 May, 2019 - 7:04 pm

    <p>I would say Lightroom. In my view Adobe is the most trusted and won't be killing the service any time soon. Yes there is a fee, but I think it's worth it.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      16 May, 2019 - 2:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428176">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>I switched to Capture One. I find it better in some ways, worse in others, but no cloudy ties.</p>

  • Paul Thurrott

    Premium Member
    14 May, 2019 - 7:26 pm

    <p>Google Photos. </p>

    • kshsystems

      Premium Member
      16 May, 2019 - 12:30 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428180">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>What's the easiest what to export google photos to Windows or Onedrive for backup?</p>

      • kshsystems

        Premium Member
        16 May, 2019 - 1:56 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#428567">In reply to kshsystems:</a></em></blockquote><p>i noticed something called Google Takeout that appears to do this.</p>

  • AnOldAmigaUser

    Premium Member
    14 May, 2019 - 8:15 pm

    <p>It would have been nice if the Photos app had half the functionality of Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. That said, it doesn't , so I would recommend any of the online services. OneDrive, Google Photos and Prime Photos are all good. Pick the company or companies you trust most (because two services are safer) and and you should be fine.</p>

    • bill_russell

      15 May, 2019 - 4:30 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428188">In reply to AnOldAmigaUser:</a></em></blockquote><p>I used to have a separate backup on Mega, but then I just decided that it was a pain and I trust Google alone with the photos for my remaining 2-3 decades hopefully or whatever. They have like 3 copies and last resort tape backups, etc. Worst case, they tell you someday to download them all and shut it down. </p>

  • Dave

    15 May, 2019 - 6:39 am

    <p>Have a look at FastStone Image Viewer <a href="http://www.fastStone.org&quot; target="_blank">www.fastStone.org</a></p><p>This is freeware and is superb. There is also a tutorial which you can also download and is very useful. Although it is an image viewer the developer does himself/herself a disservice as it is a a photo-management and photo editing app foremost that happens to be an image viewer as well. You can view photos and video together or separatey and it plays the video within the app rather than relying on a 3rd party player. I've been using it for about 2 years and have made two donations because it is a cracking piece of software. Hope this helps.</p>

    • karlinhigh

      Premium Member
      15 May, 2019 - 9:47 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428257">In reply to Dave:</a></em></blockquote><p>FastStone sold me with their batch convert and resize features.</p>

  • BigM72

    15 May, 2019 - 8:45 am

    <p>Google Photos. Can use Apple Photos if you are all-in on Apple ecosystem (which you're probably not if you are here on thurrott.com)</p>

  • yoshi

    Premium Member
    15 May, 2019 - 9:30 am

    <p>I use both Google Photos and OneDrive. I find Google Photos to be the best though.</p>

  • bob_shutts

    15 May, 2019 - 10:03 am

    <p>Still using Aperture. Looking for a replacement. Apple's Photos app doesn't cut it.</p>

  • bill_russell

    15 May, 2019 - 4:25 pm

    <p>Google photos, all cloud for me.</p>

  • sharpsone

    15 May, 2019 - 10:16 pm

    <p>Anything not developed by Google or another terror group. </p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2019 - 2:16 am

    <p>I use Capture One these days. I used to use Lightroom, but the move towards the cloud and only putting new features in the cloud/subscription version put me off.</p><p>At work, I just use the Windows Fotos (Photos?) application.</p>

  • BeckoningEagle

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2019 - 8:00 am

    <p>I use Moments in my Synology NAS. That takes care of all the uploading from phones in my family to my local NAS. Then using the Google Sync software I upload all new photos to Google Photos. This allows me to have my full resolution pictures in the Synology NAS and then the High-Res no storage used free Google Photo for wuick access of all the photos. I've found that using Moments and Google's intelligence when indexing photos I've lost the need to go into my folders and keep things organized. I have over 15 years of digital pictures. They were all in a "To Catalog" folder that I was trying to organize and maybe finish it when I retired, but Google and Moments have made it unneccessary, I can just type things like "Disney Pictures" and it bring actual relevant results. </p>

  • goodbar

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2019 - 10:58 am

    <p>Are you only looking for a photo manager, or something to manage the videos you take on your phone as well? If it's just photos, google photos is the best, but if it's video too I think that changes the discussion a bit.</p>

  • Brazbit

    16 May, 2019 - 1:06 pm

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A well organized file system. I hate photo-managers. I don't want something that thinks it knows better than me, that goes through my images and tries making random edits and stitches without being told to do so. Reduces resolution or color depth or compresses the files also without being told to do so. </span></p>

  • scoop

    16 May, 2019 - 1:08 pm

    <p>Photo Gallery/Movie Maker is still available to download and install. You won't find it at the MSFT site, but it's easy to find other places. I always install it on Win 10, but I also use ImageGlass and the built-in Photos app. My photo/image needs are pretty basic, though. Photo Gallery will likely never be updated at this point, but it's fine for what I need. It was the best part of Live Essentials. </p>

  • Adlton

    16 May, 2019 - 1:11 pm

    <p>Thanks to everyone for their input and advice. I'm alredy using Google Photos and OneDrive for backup but I have rather large photo gallery becaus of my job. I'm not doing a lot of photo editing but I do a lot of batch editing and bulk management so i need offline editor. (Google photos is great for automatic detection of dates and places but I need that on my PC.</p><p><br></p><p>I have tried Lightroom but I found it a bit too much.</p><p><br></p><p>Thank you all :)</p>

  • earlster

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2019 - 1:46 pm

    <p>I used to use ThumbPlus from http://www.cerious.com/ when I still tried to control my photo library locally, it might fit your needs pretty well.</p>

  • Daniel7878

    16 May, 2019 - 2:02 pm

    <p>pro-tip. If you upload an 'old' photo, google photos sort by date.. so it will sort it way when. Use this url and it will sort by 'upload' date. <a href="https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_&quot; target="_blank">https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_</a></p&gt;

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      17 May, 2019 - 8:30 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#428607">In reply to Daniel7878:</a></em></blockquote><p>Nice.</p>

  • CobolPgmr

    17 May, 2019 - 2:52 pm

    <p>I still use Photo Gallery. I have a copy of the installer saved, and it's one of the apps I install on W10 whenever I do a clean install.</p>

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