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Organize Your Images

by John Heckman

LARGE NUMBERS of images are hard to keep track of. There are a number of good and quick viewers available, either as shareware or as part of commercial packages, and there are some programs that will produce "catalogs" of images. Most of these programs, however, are tied to directory structures, and your options are still very limited even if the viewers are fast and will display a screenful of "catalogued" images. To really get things organized, you need images integrated with a database. One product I've found that does a great job of this is ImageAXS from Digital Arts and Sciences, a premier maker of graphics catalog tools, including high-end programs used by museums and professional slide repositories. ImageAXS will catalog and display images, movies, and sound files.

When you bring an image into ImageAXS, the program creates a thumbnail. When you open the database, you view the thumbnail, not the image, which means that viewing is extremely fast. If you edit the original, you can easily update the thumbnail. You can also determine the size (and with it image quality) of the thumbnail. To view the original image, you simply double-click on the thumbnail. I use the program to catalog my wife's paintings.

The standard version of ImageAXS, which is probably all most people need, is based on an Access database and offers seven customizable text fields to store information such as author and date the photo or image was made, title of the work, media used. There is an unlimited comments field and unlimited keywords by which the data can be organized, in addition to basic file information (size, location, creation date). Thus you can sort your collection by any field in the database, and you can make as many catalogs (i.e., separate databases) as you wish. ImageAXS is being bundled with the new Zip Plus drives from Iomega.

Display and Report Options

Each catalog holds up to 32,000 images and you can create any number of "portfolios" if you need a more fully customized subset of your collection. You might want to create a portfolio for all the images used in a particular article or project or slides submitted to an art gallery.

You can print out a customizable page of "slides" (Figure 1) in varying configurations: 4x5 looks like a page of slides, 3x3 gives a larger image, but because you are blowing up thumbnails and not using the originals, you start to lose quality. The images to be displayed or printed are selected simply by clicking on them. You can view the information one image at a time together with the database information (Figure 2), as a database table, or create customizable text reports on your data. You can also make a "slide show" of images that plays over and over.

To create or add to a catalog, simply select the images (or movies, or sound files) you wish to include and click Acquire. Items are added to the end of the catalog one at a time or in large batches, in the order in which you import them. The program can view 40 different file types, including TIF, GIF, JPEG, and PhotoCD. It cannot deal with Corel Draw images or the newer WordPerfect file format (WP versions 7.0 or above). It can store and view MOV, WAV and AVI files in addition to static images. To export images to HTML, you need the Pro version. While you can rotate images and copy all or part of a given image to the clipboard for insertion into other programs, you need an image editing program to do anything more than that.

A limited version, ImageAXS CE, is available as freeware from the Digital Arts and Sciences Web page (see URL below). The freeware version limits searching and sorting to a single field at a time, allows only the default thumbnail size, and does not allow the creation of portfolios. But the price is right!

A professional version, ImageAXS Pro, includes many more customization options, a database with 100 customizable fields instead of seven, including Date, Numeric and Boolean fields (ImageAXS allows only text fields), and allows HTML export and the creation of "eZ-Cards," so that you can send a set of thumbnails to another person without sending the entire database. The Pro version sells for about $240, the standard version for $45. All three versions are available both for Mac and Windows.

You can read about or purchase ImageAXS on the Digital Arts and Sciences Web page at www.dascorp.com. Or you can write or call the company at 1301 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, Calif. 94501, (510) 814-7200. Evaluation copies, upgrades, and full versions are available.

Organize Your Images

*by John Heckman*
LARGE NUMBERS of images are hard to keep track of. There are a number of good and quick viewers available, either as shareware or as part of commercial packages, and there are some programs that will produce "catalogs" of images. Most of these programs, however, are tied to directory structures, and your options are still very limited even if the viewers are fast and will display a screenful of "catalogued" images. To really get things organized, you need images integrated with a database. One product I've found that does a great job of this is ImageAXS from Digital Arts and Sciences, a premier maker of graphics catalog tools, including high-end programs used by museums and professional slide repositories. ImageAXS will catalog and display images, movies, and sound files. When you bring an image into ImageAXS, the program creates a thumbnail. When you open the database, you view the thumbnail, not the image, which means that viewing is extremely fast. If you edit the original, you can easily update the thumbnail. You can also determine the size (and with it image quality) of the thumbnail. To view the original image, you simply double-click on the thumbnail. I use the program to catalog my wife's paintings. The standard version of ImageAXS, which is probably all most people need, is based on an Access database and offers seven customizable text fields to store information such as author and date the photo or image was made, title of the work, media used. There is an unlimited comments field and unlimited keywords by which the data can be organized, in addition to basic file information (size, location, creation date). Thus you can sort your collection by any field in the database, and you can make as many catalogs (i.e., separate databases) as you wish. ImageAXS is being bundled with the new Zip Plus drives from Iomega. Display and Report Options Each catalog holds up to 32,000 images and you can create any number of "portfolios" if you need a more fully customized subset of your collection. You might want to create a portfolio for all the images used in a particular article or project or slides submitted to an art gallery. You can print out a customizable page of "slides" (Figure 1) in varying configurations: 4x5 looks like a page of slides, 3x3 gives a larger image, but because you are blowing up thumbnails and not using the originals, you start to lose quality. The images to be displayed or printed are selected simply by clicking on them. You can view the information one image at a time together with the database information (Figure 2), as a database table, or create customizable text reports on your data. You can also make a "slide show" of images that plays over and over. To create or add to a catalog, simply select the images (or movies, or sound files) you wish to include and click Acquire. Items are added to the end of the catalog one at a time or in large batches, in the order in which you import them. The program can view 40 different file types, including TIF, GIF, JPEG, and PhotoCD. It cannot deal with Corel Draw images or the newer WordPerfect file format (WP versions 7.0 or above). It can store and view MOV, WAV and AVI files in addition to static images. To export images to HTML, you need the Pro version. While you can rotate images and copy all or part of a given image to the clipboard for insertion into other programs, you need an image editing program to do anything more than that. A limited version, ImageAXS CE, is available as freeware from the Digital Arts and Sciences Web page (see URL below). The freeware version limits searching and sorting to a single field at a time, allows only the default thumbnail size, and does not allow the creation of portfolios. But the price is right! A professional version, ImageAXS Pro, includes many more customization options, a database with 100 customizable fields instead of seven, including Date, Numeric and Boolean fields (ImageAXS allows only text fields), and allows HTML export and the creation of "eZ-Cards," so that you can send a set of thumbnails to another person without sending the entire database. The Pro version sells for about $240, the standard version for $45. All three versions are available both for Mac and Windows. You can read about or purchase ImageAXS on the Digital Arts and Sciences Web page at www.dascorp.com. Or you can write or call the company at 1301 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, Calif. 94501, (510) 814-7200. Evaluation copies, upgrades, and full versions are available.

John Heckman is president of Heckman Consulting, specializing in the legal industry. He will be teaching a class entitled Optimizing Computer Use for Small Business, at Norwalk Community Technical College this spring.