Photo management: How to keep your Christmas photos in order

Christmas and New Year’s Eve, but also the last holiday or the children’s birthday party show it again: You take a huge number of photos, save them on your PC at best – and afterwards you can’t find anything you were looking for. It is particularly unfortunate when the most beautiful pictures languish on the camera’s memory card, in the smartphone or in the cloud. Software for sorting and viewing photos can help. But what is important when choosing a Photo management and which one is best suited? We shed some light on the subject.

What a good photo management system should be able to do

Photo management software has one main task that should be in the foreground: a clear management function. For this purpose, tag options (preferably for several pictures at the same time) should be usable, which can classify the photos according to the date they were taken, location, people in the picture, special events, and so on. The function of being able to tag pictures with personal keywords also makes later searches much easier Especially for those who take photos with several devices, it is also important that the programme can processdifferent image formats. Automatic cleaning of duplicates of the images not only makes the sorting clearer, but also saves a lot of storage space. And finally, the photo management programme should of course fulfil another important criterion: It must be easy and comprehensible to use – even for non-professionals.

Create a slideshow - the icing on the photo cake!

Clicking on each image over and over again to view it is tedious. And inviting friends or family to the slide show, which then takes place in a darkened room, accompanied by the clicking of the slide projector, is also a thing of the past. It would be much easier if the photo management system in Windows or Mac would automatically display certain pictures in a certain order. With the right software, this is no problem at all! For both operating systems, there are photo administrations that show appropriately stored pictures as a slide show. The playback speed can be set individually, and personally selected background music makes viewing the show even more enjoyable We have tested two programmes here:

Movavi Photo Manager

The Movavi Photo Manager is a classic photo management software. It offers sorting for images in all common formats such as RAW, JPEG or PNG.

The programme has the following functions:

  • Face recognition
  • Tagging photos
  • Geolocation
  • Duplicate Finder
  • Backup creation
  • Automatic album creation

In addition, Movavi allows you to edit images, for example to crop, flip or rotatethem. Movavi Slideshow Maker is also able to generate effective slideshows with smooth transitions including individual sound.

Magix Photostory

If you are into really good slideshows and want to create a slideshow that almost looks like a film, you can hardly get around this software. The latest version – Magic Photostory Deluxe – comes up with features that convince even professionals. These include, among others:

  • pin-sharp images on PC, tablet or TV screen thanks to 4K export
  • easy-to-use image optimisation
  • advanced image editing
  • Background music, voices and/or sounds
  • the image can be edited to the beat of the background music
  • Magic Travel Maps enables the insertion of animated travel routes
  • various animations and effects for an entertaining slide experience
  • Zoom in and out to highlight important aspects

Various blending optionsare available for varied transitions between the individual images Another plus are the individually designable intros and outros.

Conclusion: Good photo processing does more than simply sorting pictures. In this day and age, when smartphones and digital cameras make it possible to take snapshots in unlimited quantities, an appropriate programme is indispensable for professionals as well as hobby photographers. Especially with regard to further features such as good image editing and the possibility to create an impressive slide show.

Header image: © REDPIXEL, stock.adobe.com