Reader's Choice Photo Organizer

Great photo organizing apps for Windows are few and far between, although I find myself doing most of my organization online by uploading images to Flickr, so maybe this category of software will eventually fade away. Still it's helpful to be able to quickly filter images on your computer, so there's a good chance organizing tools will survive until we are truly always connected. Here are the reader selected best-of-the-best photo organizers for Windows.

Reader's Choice: Picasa dominates the photo organizer category with 69% of readers choosing Google's photo organizer as their favorite. I understand why, although as I mentioned, I've largely switched to using Flickr for my photos. The Picasa interface is great for sorting, the search feature is snappy, and it's got great cataloging tools. If Picasa supported more online video hosts it would be almost perfect.

2) Windows Default Organization accounted for 10% of reader's votes, based on write-in data that largely consisted of either Windows Explorer, Microsoft Photo Gallery or Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer. Presumably this means this meaningful percentage of users has their own system for keeping track of where photo and images are stored on their computer.

3) PicaJet Photo Organizer received 2% of reader votes. The free version of this organizer imports photos from your digital camera or any type of disk. The software conveniently auto-creates categories based on folder names and IPTC keywords. EXIF data is displayed as well. Searching is hobbled by the need to encourage upgrades to a paid version, limiting your ability to browse photos by day and rating, disabling red eye removal and several other features that are included free in Picasa. The paid version of this app is outstanding, but I don't consider it enough better than Picasa to buy it.

4) IrFanView does double-duty on both the photo editing and organizing lists, with 2% of readers choosing it to appear in the organizer list. While IrFanView is best known for its editing tool set, a strong search function and the ability to read and edit EXIF and IPTC data makes it a handy option for keeping photos organized on your hard drive.

The remain 17 percent of votes were spread across a surprising 74 apps.

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