I use an excellent shareware software solution to bulk rename files through the addition of a new Right Mouse Button option in Windows Explorer. This is perfect for quickly and efficiently merging photos taken using multiple digital cameras in to one chronological set by using the date and time taken in YYMMDDHH24MISS format as the file name.

This got me thinking...

Is there another shareware utility that allows photos to be tagged directly from Windows Explorer Right Mouse Button?

The reason that I ask is that when wanting to make prints, my wife and I copy photos to a "for printing" folder from where they are uploaded to the Photobox website, printed, and posted to us. Unfortunately, sometimes when working quickly with a gazzillion files, we use "cut" not "copy" and consequently lose the photo when the "for printing" folder is next purged. If I don't notice before my rolling backup cycle overwrites the deepest copy, the electronic photo is lost for good.

I know my copy of Adobe Photoshop has tagging and cataloging features but I am after something that can be used directly in Windows Explorer whilst flicking through thumbnails and making a choice of what to print. This is the way my wife would prefer to work. Having tagged files, the Windows Explorer Search tool or a similar utility would then return all chosen tags in one view from where they can be processed.

Pipe dream or reality?

Thanks!

What I do - is allow all my downloaded images to be saved within Adobe Photoshop Elements. I then open Picasa2 (Free Download from Google with simple Basic Editing facilities). Picasa automatically searches for new images that arrive on your PC and then catalogues them for you so you can easily find and organise them.

Any editing you do remains only in Picasa, the original images remain untouched and safe in Photoshop which you can back-up separately.

So an easy way for to select files for printing is to simply view them from Picasa and export them to your saving file for printing.

Thus you will not lose any images this way. It's a free solution you can try, and discard easily if it's not for you!

PS. Another benefit is that you can directly send images to a web album to share with friends and family etc. Comes also with some free storage and slide-show capability.

You could update Photoshop to the latest version and use Adobe Bridge to sort your pictures, it has a right click option of "copy to a folder" . that way the original file is untouched and remains where it is.

Thanks Guys.

As stated (okay, implied) in my original post, I don't want Adobe to manage my photos, thanks. I prefer to do all my photo management manually.

I tried Picasa2 as suggested though, and although it doesn't use tagging, the end result is exactly what I want. I can still use manual download as Picasa2 scans all watched folders automatically and continues to do so as I move things around.

All I need to do is RMB copy to Album, and then when all done, shift-click to highlight all chosen photos and then "Export" to create copies in my chosen "For Printing" folder.

Grateful thanks for the pointer, and the missus is happy too as she finds it easy and the danger of accidental deletion has been removed.

Cheers. :)

Your Welcome :ok: