Digital photo album software & slide show software

Migrating from CyPics

Every program you may wish to migrate to is different and makes use of different metadata attributes as part of its interface. To get a successful transfer you need to be able to choose which metadata attribute to export CyPics cataloging information to. It is in this area that we will add additional options as requested wherever possible.

When we looked at suitable programs to transfer our own images to the standout programs were Adobe Lightroom 4 and Bibble 5 (now Corel AfterShot Pro). Corel AfterShot Pro was rejected as when you add additional metadata after the import it is held in proprietary files rather than as industry standard metadata.

Adobe has recently reduced the price of Lightroom 4 making it more affordable though still expensive when compared to CyPics. It provides similar features:

• Keyword support
• Smart Collections (the equivalent of Picture Sets)
• Image filters (quick find)
• Multiple image updating of metadata
• Image printing
• Export of images

Lightroom 4 also has some highly desirable features of its own:

• All cataloguing information is held as metadata which means your images contain the descriptive information it is not held seperately where it can  be lost.
• Hierachical keywords and the ability to use a controlled vocabulary.
• Better keyword renaming
• Support for RAW images and the ability to base the catalog on RAW images
• Digital darkroom development
• Support for video
• Geotag and mapping support. Tagging images from GPS tracks.
• Creation of photo books and their export to PDF as well as printing
• Export of images to PDFand video
• Export to the web

We have put up a guide based on our own experiences on migrating to Lightroom. 

 If you wish to write a guide for another application then we will publish it. The first step in determining how to migrate is to identify the which metadata fields are exposed by an application. To do this you should catalog a number of images filling out all available metadata. You can then use something like EXIF Tool to dump the metadata and determine what each displayed field maps to. If CyPics does not provide the export option to a particular metadata attribute then please contact us and where possible we will add it.

CyPics - Digital Photo Album Software

Innovative Photography Software providing a complete solution for your Digital Photography needs.

Catalog photos with our speedy photo entry process and save time. Update multiple images at once or process images serially. Manage images over multiple CDs with friendly names and CD sequencing. Hold up to 100,000 photos per album. Digital photo browsing can occur without loading the source CD or DVD.

Update the cataloguing information for many photos at once using a single form. Tri-state checkboxes control the update. Tested with over five thousand photos in a single update.

Optionally update images serially, retain values for subsequent photos by pegging fields.

Export the information you have entered into CyPics out to the photos themselves as XMP, EXIF or IPTC metadata. The cataloguing information now becomes independant of the album and will persist for the life of the photo. This means that cataloguing is no longer tied to CyPics and MS Windows but can be re-imported into any photographic software system capable of handling image metadata. This should still be true in 100 years.

Manually geotag images by including latitude and longitude references as attributes then export this to the appropriate metadata elements. Accepts Google Earth notation.

Slide show software that will run slide shows of just about anything. Folders, selected images, search results or saved searches. Play slides in the order of selection, random order or starting from a selected image. Pan panorama slides in slide shows. Restart interrupted slide shows .

Browse folders of photos as thumbnails. Increase or decrease thumbnail size on the fly. Handle folders with many images using on demand thumbnail generation which together with caching delivers superior performance. Now with super fast browsing using the thumbnail cache from the open album. Photo thumbnails can be large to show detail if you want.

Digital photo viewer and picture viewer options are immediately available by double clicking a thumbnail or by using the right mouse menus. Two or more images can be opened and compared in detail.

Digital photo album database with the ability to index your photos with descriptions, keywords and attributes. It is a powerful digital photo organizer providing fast photo entry together with powerful and flexible retrieval.

Find photos with a powerful, easy to use search form providing AND/OR, NOT and condition grouping.

Slide show program where saved slide shows can be sequenced together with titles, sub-titles or alternatively use random order. Start playing the photo slide show from any slide. Restart an interrupted slide show from where you were. Play a sequenced slide show randomly. Display slide text from the catalog details. Update incorrect catalog details during a slide show. Export an autorun CD slide show or prepare images for DVD authoring.

Slideshow export supporting HDTV, iPad, iPhone, PDAs, Apple TV, iPod, Photo Frames & DVD

Digital photo printing with a grid layout for image and text. Printing photos  can place from one to many photos on a page. Include catalog information next to photos. Print thumbnail contact sheets. Automatically change photo orientation to get maximum printable size.

Satisfied Users:

I've been using CyPics for three years with more than 10,000 photos cataloged.  This is the best full-featured program on the market for photo cataloging.  Even novices can appreciate this intuitive program's features.

Recently I tried-out Adobe's Photoshop 5.0 which came bundled with my new Nikon D70.  On the surface it looked like Photoshop would be a good program but only a few photos into the cataloging process I realized that it had major shortcomings--namely the inability to make easy selections of "keywords" used to describe each photo.  CyPics does this better than any program out there.

Forget PhotoShop.  Get CyPics...you'll be much happier with the result--especially after you've entered details for more than a few photos.

Al (posted June 2004 on user comments)

Access comments embedded in Digital Photos by your Digital Camera or Photoshop. Comments may be extracted, displayed, printed, searched for and sorted on. EXIF viewer (Camera), IPTC viewer (Press) and Photoshop (File/File Info).

Take complete control over the displayed or printed text for thumbnail captions, information displays, slide show captions and printing. Any catalog information you have put into the album can be displayed and printed.

Organize photos on disk with drag + drop and cut + paste. Dynamically update file locations in an open album. Move a photo from CD to your hard disk for editing.

Find lost photos moved or edited with other programs. Verify your photos are where they are recorded to be. Find moved, renamed and edited photos. Shift a photo to CD and find it again.

Photo database software using Microsoft Access as the backend photo database. MS Access not required on your PC.

Adjust your monitor contrast with a global gamma correction setting.

Easy to learn and get started quickly with our discovery system and tutorial workbook. Access detailed online help for all aspects of program operation.

Home or Regional Office support using Microsoft Access photo databases for single user or small workgroup multi-user access. 

Larger offices and networks can use SQL Server support for increased images per database and network access by many users. LAN Installation for central management and concurrent user licensing.

A complete photo management software solution for photographers and businesses providing indexing and retrieval, slide shows, printing and export. Full support for digital photo cataloging .

A fully functional demo is available for or

FAQs

Digital Photography FAQ which including a section on Image Cataloging.