Slide data base software

[Rob-F]

Something that makes digital photography really convenient is the ease of finding photos in a program such as Aperture or Lightroom. I'd like a program that can run on my iMac that would help me keep track of my
film slides, of which I have thousands.

I could also use some suggestions for a method to organize all these slides. I keep most slides in plastic sheets that hold about 20 per sheet. The sheets are stored in boxes. Some slides are in the plastic boxes in which they come back from processing. I organize them by subject and label each box with a masking tape label.

Should I assign a number to each slide? Seems a bit tedious. I wonder if that is really necessary. I have thought of a coding system, something like, "N/C 99/201" for "Nature/Colorado/1999/slide #201." I thought of this 30 years ago, but have never done it.

What is a really good way to use the computer to keep track of slides? Any ideas? What have others done?

Thanks, Rob

 

[Rob-F]

How does one decide where to start, with, say several thousand slides? How to decide which slide gets control #1?

Is there any software designed for cataloging slides?

What about a system similar to Apple's, with headings like "Project" and "Folder" ?

I wonder how to keep track of slides that were cataloged individually, but later assembled into a slide show?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

There used to be, when I was a teenager 15-20 yrs ago, software for this that used to be advertised in photo magazines like Popular Photography. It was a database that let you input a number for each slide, roll info, subject, date, etc. and it then printed a small label that was sized to fit on a slide mount. If you were looking for a certain photo, you'd search the database, get the slide number, then pull it from your archive (this assumes you keep the archive of slides in order!). It was neat looking but cost more than a kid like me had (It was about $100 I think, which seemed expensive in the pre-photoshop days), so I never bought it...and I didn't have many slides anyway. Now I just scan the slides i like so i can print them easily and I catalogue them alongside my digital images in iView Mediapro.

I can't remember what the software was called for the slides, unfortunately, and so I don't know if it or anything like it is still made.

 

[Zonan]

"The DAM Book" by Peter Krogh might be worth browsing thru, if not reading, since you're undertaking a major project. iView Media Pro, which Microsoft bought and mummified, as they are wont to do, is now owned by Capture One and is supposedly getting an update. You could probably also use something like Excel/Numbers or a specialized database program. I think iView might be worth a good look- they probably have a demo.

 

[ChrisCummins]

The sorting that I use is assigning each roll of a film a 'set code', and then each shot within that roll having it's own number and print code. Like this:

[yy][mm][dd][*] [SN][**] [***]

[*] is a letter to allow for multiple rolls of film on one day/
[SN] is the shot number. For negatives I use the number indicated on the film strip, but for slides, any arbitrary sequence will work.
[**] is the scan number (first time I scan a shot it gets 'A', then another scan will have 'B')
[***] is the print number (roman numerals)

For example:

110228A 12A I
The above is print number 1 of shot 12 from the first roll of film shot on 28th feb 2011, made from the first scan.

This system means that I can really easily find a shot by date. Or if I see a print I can then work out exactly what negative it's from and exactly what scan of the negative it was made from.