Best photo management for OSX HTPC in multi OS home

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Hi,

We have Mac Mini running as an HTPC with Plex media server. I use a MacBook pro while my wife uses an Ubuntu laptop. We also have a couple Windows boxes as well.

I would like to use iPhoto on the MacMini to manage our photos, but that would prevent our Ubuntu and Windows machines from accessing, uploading or managing any photos.

1. Is there a way to make iPhoto manage a folder of photos stored on a file server elsewhere on the network?

2. Is there a way to make iPhoto manage a folder of photos with a user defined structure rather than importing all the photos into its own structure (important since we're always attaching photos to email from Ubuntu and Windows as well as OSX).

3. Are there any decent photo managers for OSX that would allow us to keep the photos on a file server, access and manage them from any of our 3 platforms, and store all meta-data within the image files?

I've been using Digikam on Ubuntu for a while now. Its pretty heavy handed, but satisfies all my needs. But I'd rather use something native to OSX if at all possible.

I certainly would appreciate any advice on how to make iPhoto do what I need, or on what alternatives I should look into. Thanks!
 
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Nope -- GC makes tagging photos difficult if not practically impossible. DigiKam has a great tagging tool, but it takes almost a day to install (seriously) and doesn't work very well on a Mac.

Any other options? Options that allow easy tagging??
 
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I tried iPhoto also - and came to the same conclusion that the structure it creates makes it hard to manage on any other platform.

I ended up using a mix of Adobe Bridge (for everything) lightroom for my DSLR stuff, and Picasa as a quick browser. Nice thing is Picasa doesn't make its own structure, you just point it to folders and it generates its own database leaving the original files alone and in the same spot. I bought Aperture but haven't figured out how to read in old stuff correctly.
Picasa 3: Free download from Google
Picasa and facial recognition tagging - I wanted iPhoto because of facial recognition but Picasa does a fine job. Plus here is an article on how to get it into the metadata so any program can search on it.
CreativeTechs Tips » Add Face Recognition to Lightroom w/ Picasa!
 
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All Google products are out for me. Their terms of service is just too scary. Basically, putting anything into a Google product grants them a perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free license to do anything they or their partners want with it.

And that applies to all Google products (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs, and of course Picasa). For me that's a deal killer.
 
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All Google products are out for me. Their terms of service is just too scary. Basically, putting anything into a Google product grants them a perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free license to do anything they or their partners want with it.

And that applies to all Google products (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs, and of course Picasa). For me that's a deal killer.

But Picasa doesn't just hand out any information unless you explicitly grant it such permissions. Google wouldn't have access to any of your photos if that's what you're thinking. Not unless you tied it to Picasa web albums, and at that point, it still would only have access (if you granted it as such) to the web part, not the database sitting on YOUR hard drive.


Doug
 
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According to the TOS you've already given them the okay to do what they want with your content. So if they decide to on the next update to start taking things, and not even tell you about it, well, you've already said that's okay.

Sorry, Google's TOS make their products unacceptable.
 
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chas_m

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niblettes: I agree with you.

You may want to look at ACDSee Pro for Mac for the Mac side, or maybe JAlbum (which I think is available for both platforms). The former is obviously WAY more powerful than the latter (JAlbum is really basically just good for organizing photos and that's pretty much it), but both are free to try.
 

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