KavaSoft, creator of iTunes Catalog and iConquer, announces Shoebox 1.2, a Mac OS X application for organizing digital photos by content. Spotlight, the revolutionary search technology introduced in Mac OS X Tiger, lets you search all of your files by content. Shoebox is one of the first programs to harness the full capability of Spotlight, providing the missing link between Spotlight technology and actually finding your photos.
Shoebox uses Knowledge Base technology to categorize your photos according to who, what, where, and when. Shoebox knows that Paris is a city in France, a cat is an animal, and red is a color. What Shoebox doesn’t know yet, you can teach it quickly and easily, so it progressively becomes smarter as you use it.
Shoebox uses that knowledge to organize your photos intelligently by content, so you can find any photo in your collection in a few seconds. In Mac OS X Tiger, you can search directly from the Spotlight menu, or from within Shoebox. So, if you have a photo of your cousin in Paris and you search for “France”, Shoebox finds it immediately because it understands what’s in the photo and how those concepts are related. Similarly, if you search for “family,” you’ll find that photo as well because Shoebox understands that a cousin is a relative. Shoebox 1.2 can now create smart folders, allowing you to browse your photos by category right in the Finder. When you take a new photo and tell Shoebox what’s in it, it automatically shows up in the smart folder.
If you use another photo management program and you’ve already added keywords to your photos, Shoebox can now import them, so you don’t have to do the work twice. Shoebox seamlessly imports your photos, albums, and keywords from iPhoto. Shoebox 1.2 can now also import photos and categories from Canto Cumulus. Shoebox 1.2 adds support for displaying Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) files. RAW photos from most popular cameras are supported as well.
Shoebox is now available in English, French and German. Shoebox runs on Mac OS X Panther, and takes advantage of Mac OS X Tiger. You can try Shoebox for free. Shoebox comes in two versions: Shoebox Express ($29.99) for home users with up to 10,000 photos, and Shoebox Pro ($79.99) for digital media professionals.
More info and download link here.
Neat!
I’ve been sending feedback to Apple about beefing up the keyword functionality for months.
The ‘Who, Where, When” categories just make sense.
iPhoto is a great program but there are some basic functions that need to be incorporated before it is an awesome program.
Pretty cool.
In the future they will probably have software with object recognition.
Most people are too lazy to initially name their photos.
The only photos I have named are the ones I have sent to family and friends. The rest are still numbers assigned by my digital camera.
Here’s a balanced and very thoughtful review of Tiger – well worth the read for all Mac fans…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/26/tiger_ui_review/