Apps for Photo Organization

These are the primary apps I've considered or tried for photo organization.  More detail is available below.

• Adobe Bridge*
• Adobe LightRoom
• Adobe Elements
• Mac Photos*
• Google Photos*
• Dropbox*
• Forever

* Products I currently use

Mac Photos

I use iCloud Photos which syncs photos across my phone and MacBook. Then I use the Photos app on Mac to do the first round of curation. I use the Favorites feature a lot so it’s easier to curate in Photos rather than having to find the favorites again in another organization app.

Round 1:

I put albums by Year/By Month and separate Personal from other stuff

SmartAlbum criteria:

• By month
• Not in an Album

Round 2:

I use another SmartAlbum to find all photos for each week Mon-Sun. I find my Top 7, drop in an album and then put all the Top 7 in an Album for the year. Then I export these photos onto an SD Card and put in the digital photo album.

SmartAlbum Criteria

• Top 7 by Week
• Top 7 All by Year - These I save to an SD card and put in a digital photo frame

Dropbox

I use Dropbox Camera Uploads to get the full files out of Photos. Otherwise, if you export from Photos, the file creation date is the current date

Once in Dropbox, I use Adobe Bridge (previously Adobe tried Elements) to separate personal photos from Other Stuff and Real Estate Stuff and file them by year.

Dropbox is used to hold the master files because it is the raw file and not exported where the creation date gets changed.

Google Photos

I let Google Photos backup the Dropbox Photos folder by year. Google Photos is just a failsafe.

Other apps and notes I've considered and ruled out

• Forever - doesn't support Mac
• Adobe Elements - I’ve tried multiple version of Adobe Elements and it is insanely slow. If you turn off auto face recognition, it speeds it up significantly. However, so far, I found Adobe Bridge to be faster. It could be because I didn’t have a large number of photos in my initial test set, but it still seemed to be blazing fast.
• I don't like working on photos in the cloud.  This rules out Google Photos and Forever.  Forever has a standalone app but is not supported on Mac.
• Another reason I don't like working on photos in the cloud is because of needing to export the photos when you download them locally.  The creation date of the file is the current date not the date the photo is created, so when you sort via your computer's file system, it is all out of order.

Summary

• Photos on iPhone/Mac – These are my working photos where I curate and organize the photos.
• Dropbox for storing the raw files.  Adobe Bridge to curate the raw files when they are downloaded onto the computer and separate personal, real estate and other stuff
• Google Photos – Final backup of photos for Just in Case

Info For My Family

When I die, my family should be able to access photos here:

• Dropbox Photos Folder
• SD Card in digital frame for my favorites

Photo by Vitaly Sacred on Unsplash