Image and file management advice.
Having read previous threads, I'm hoping that both Mixture and Captain Bloggs will chip in here!
I have some large tasks coming my way.
Firstly, I have several thousand images strewn through three or four hard drives and 'folder structures'. Here's how it happened. On day one, a pc had the 'my docs' and subfolder 'my pics'. In general terms, all of my images are in 'my pics'.
As time has gone by, I have (sloppily) copied these 'my docs' folders into backup folder in various place as hard drives were replaced for larger. Because I have, at different times, had a go at sorting within these multiple copies of 'my docs/my pics' I'm now in a bit of a mess, with many copies of the same images.
I need to sort this out, so that I have one 'in use' set and some clones as backups elsewhere. I need something to find all the copies and put them into one place, and that gives me confidence in deleting all the previous folders automatically, if possible. Cap'n B referred to Amok Exif sorter, and I've had a look, but it doesn't seem to do the tidy up. I've used Picasa for years and it does find them all, but as you know, doesn't really offer management.
Obviously, I could just point Lightroom at the drives and let it build a dbase, but I really think that a tidy up first would be a better idea. Perhaps a non image-based file sorter, but I haven't found anything that strikes me as a)clever enough, or b)trustworthy.
Next hurdle is that I've just bought a decent film scanner for a fair few negs and slides. All seem to agree that Lightroom is excellent for tagging date/place/time/who/what. So that's what I'll use, but out of interest, will it run a slideshow built from several tags? I expect so but thought I should ask.
Lastly, as a glutton for punishment, I'm transferring vhs-c and vhs video to pc. Can I use Lightwave to integrate stills and video? Video is generally family stuff in clips of only a few minutes (once edited). I realise that I'll have to 'chop up' the 30 or 45 minute contents of each tape, but that's fine.
Lots of hard work ahead, but if anybody can think of a way to use tech to make life easier, I'd really appreciate it.