DBGallery: Photo DATAbase 3.5

Be part of the photo data evolution!  Photo data is typically underappreciated and under utilized.  DBGallery changes that. 

Browse photos by in a Windows Explorer-like tree view, but instead of folders the tree consists of years and months, camera models, keywords, titles, exposures, and many more practical layouts.

IPTC/XMP data editor with powerful, quick, and easy edit features (too many to discuss here).  Data is stored in your photos in an industry standard manor and read by most websites (Flickr, PhotoBucket, SmugMug, etc, etc) and software (PhotoShop, Windows Vista, etc).   Once data is collected for sets of photos it can be used in interesting useful ways for years to come.

Search via IPTC/XMP data (keywords, description, title, etc), Exif data (stored by camera, such as model, exposure, flash fired) and file names.  Use AND, OR, NOT, and IN to refine searches.

Reports show formal stats in professional looking layouts.  Includes reports such as number of photos per year, number of photos by camera, and others.

Share data and photos via extremely easy email as well as a website generator.  These are called EmailGallery and WebGallery respectively.

Collections of photos may be created using an area called “Handy Collections”.  This name may be changed to represent how you see these collections: Rooms, Drawers, Buckets, etc.

Holds data for status of photos at each agency and sales amount and quantity of each.  Search based on agency, status and sales.  Run reports like sales, acceptance ratios, sales by photo, by agency, and several others.

For office environments...everyone in the organization can use the same set of photos, organization, and data. This is due to the use of MySql as the central database plus client-server features built into DBGallery.

Major Features:

1. Key Once and use for years to come. Once data is keyed and stored it is there for you for the years to come. This data describes the image for down the road and allows searching for groups of images, viewing this data, and generation websites which show the photos and their data.  You’d be surprised how quickly data can be entered using the “Edit Multiple Images” feature (see below).  The WebGallery allows data to be reused by generating web pages that include the photo and part of its data.  Other uses for this data will be found as new features are added.
2. IPTC Support: Excellent IPTC support! Picks up existing IPTC data as photos are added to DBGallery. Automatically writes data base to the file. Picks up changes made outside DBGallery. Supports editing as many photos' IPTC data as you wish. Has a "Differences" button when editing multiple images so existing data across all images can be viewed while editing. Deep under the covers DBGallery utilizes Adobe's IPTC/XMP Toolkit to do the actually writing of iptc/xmp metadata to files, providing superb metadata compatibility with Adobe's products as well as almost all other IPTC metadata editors.
3. Data Searching: Search data based on keywords, subject, author, notes, and description...or all at the same time.
4. Logical Views: Logical vs. Physical: A physical view of photos is how they are physically stored in folders (the old way of trying to find photos), whereas logical views are views of how photos may be organized by photo data. They may be organized by camera, for example, or year, month, ISO, number of views, etc. There are many interesting aspects to exploring a photo collection this way. For example, if you typically create a website (or upload your photos some other way) for each trip you take, exploring by year and month typically makes it very easy to go back over time to see find your various trip photos. Or view by keyword list and look for a given city or country (assuming that data has been keyed). These are just two of many more useful scenarios. It best to play with the various logical views to feel the benefits.
5. Build Collections: A fast and convenient way to build collections of photos. At any time you are viewing a photo that you feel would fit into a category or collection of photos, simply drag the image to a Quick Collection. To help grasp more clearly what they are, you may think of them as categories, buckets, holding areas, boxes, file cabinets, film rolls, etc. Because everyone thinks of such collections in a different manner like this, the Basic Configuration dialog allows these to be called anything. I.e. you may change "Quick Collections" text throughout the program by naming it "Film Roll", "Box", etc.
6. WebGallery: Search for a set of photos, or choose a set of folders and images, and press the “Generate Website” button from the main menu.  HTML is created, images copied and converted to the size you choose, thumbnails created, and data extracted.  You’re asked where to create the site and given a few options such as Title, etc.  Where to create the sites means where on a local hard disk, to be transfer to the web later, but it also includes the option of sending the site’s files directly to the Web via FTP!  Outside DBGallery, this site could be burned onto a CD and given to others who have slow or no Internet access.
7. eMailGallery:Send photos and a selection of associated data via email.  The email has data and the image in the body of the email, with the data just above the image.  Advanced options are available such as including the original full size image as attachment along with the smaller image in the body.  eMailGallery is a great way to send photos to family and friends(include descriptions to give a complete story), or to send a selection of images to clients for review(Exif data, file info, and other data may be included in the email).  (See more in the User Guide)
8. Reports:Given that the system has database core it can generate profession looking reports.  The reports included in this version include Counts by Camera, Author, Subjects, Year to Year, and Time of Year, as well as a number of Stock Agency reports (for those that sell their photos).
9. Edit Mulitple Images: Enter data for multiple images at the same time.  Example: I just took 300 photos for a “Coca-cola” marketing commission.  Set “Coca-cola” and other keywords on all 300 photos at the same time.  Then select perhaps 50 of those and key more detail data.  Then select 4 or 5 that have other similar attributes, and so on.  Done by selecting whichever images are from the shoot and selecting “Edit Multiple Images” in the main window, then keying data for all images at the same time.
10. Move Data Around: Once keyed, data and/or photos can be moved around via drag and drop to other folders.  This is useful, for example, when creating collections of images where one simply does drag’n drop of images and it’s data.  Another practical example is for re-arranging your photos.  For example, if initially photos are added to one folder and data keyed for those photos, you may move or copy the photos AND it’s data to other folders if you decide to re-arrange your photos.  Another usage is if photos are re-arranged outside DBGallery then data can be moved from it’s original location to the new location.  Also available is the Data Cascade capability: copy an images data to all photos that have the same filename (or the filename and it’s metadata for a more accurate match).
11. Photo Central: Drag’n Drop Images to Other Programs: When needing to find a photo to do something with like emailing, editing in a photo editor, or to print, pull up DBGallery, do a quick search, and drag’n drop the photo to the email client, editor, folder, etc.  While DBGallery doesn’t attempt to do everything that can be done with photos it is a great compliment to your photo software toolset and works in conjunction with them: find your photos easily in DBGallery and the simply drag and drop them for use in your printer software, photos editor, etc.  This works because photos are not stored in the database, but in their original locations.  DBGallery simply stores the location (e.g. c:my picturesMyHouse.jpg) and passes that location to the your other software tools when you drag’n drop a photo from DBGallery.
12. Flatten Folders: A rare feature not often found.  When showing a given folder, press “Show Subfolders” and all subfolder images are displayed as if it was one folder.  E.g. If a given trip’s images were organized by having each day in its own folder, pressing Flatten would show all the trip’s images as if it was one folder.  Or do a search for “Skiing” photos at the root folder and press “Show Subfolders” to have all images throughout the collection shown.
13. Quick Info Cards: Roll the mouse over a thumbnail in DBGallery to see the image and data summary. One Quick Info Card view is shown here although there are four: Overview(as shown), IPTC, File & Exif, and Agency data.
14. View Counts: Keeps tabs on an image’s popularity by tracking how many times it was viewed.  One of the search tabs allows filtering based on number of views.
15. Set Wallpaper: Right click any thumb and set it as wallpaper: centered, tiled, or stretched. Has an intelligent stretch, where if an image is within 15% of your image resolution ratio it stretches the image to fill the screen.
16. Get Photos and Data to Clients: Use either the WebGallery or eMail capabilities get photos shots to clients.  WebGallery generates a website which may be viewed over and over by anyone you let know about the site’s address.  Use email generation for a more private showing.  Both options include data about the photos.  And they’re a snap to generate.  About 3 minutes for a WebGallery, and nothing more than selecting the files to send photo emails. 
17. Off-line Photos: Drop CD folders or an entire CD of photos into DBGallery and they’re treated similar to on-line images: search based on keyed data and view the data as well as a small version of the image.  The main difference being that only a small version of the CD/DVD/etc. images are copied to the hard disk when added to DBGallery.  When viewing the thumbnail image and its data, press “Offline View” and the full image is display (after the CD with the full image is prompted for and inserted).
18. Client/Server Mode: The database may reside on the server with any number of clients accessing the same data and photos.  Used in environments such as a professional photography office.
19. Stock Agency: Various designs to make stock photography easier:

• Workflow mechanism:  Image move from on state to another as it goes from shot, edited, uploaded, approved, etc.
• Search: find photos based on stock criteria. For example, search for all photos submitted to iStockPhoto but not yet approved.  Or find all approved photos, or all that have sales quantity greater than 10.
• Reports: extensive reports, including pie and bar charts, such as Approvals/Rejections, and Agency Sales Summary, Sales by Agency w/Photo Breakdown, etc.  Reports may be saved in PDF and Excel format.

Enhancements:

• Update Summary: Improved install and uninstall
• many user interface improvements
• file format additions
• plus platform compatibility extensions.

Requirements:

1. Windows Vista(All Editions), Windows XP (Service Pack 2), or Windows 2000 (Service Pack 3).
   
   • DBGallery was developed on Vista, hence excellent support for that platform.
   • Full festing has been done for x64 Windows to ensure full compatibility for that platform.
2. 57 mb of hard disk space. More will be required if .Net Framework 2.0 installation is required(up to an additional 280 mb).
3. DBGallery generally uses about 40 meg of memory. Given a large collection of photos that amount will increase depending on usage scenarios.
4. 1024 x 768 minimum video resolution.

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