A friend of mine has owned/operated a tattoo shop for over 7 years now
and has quite an extensive collection of ?flash? cards (graphic
drawings for tattoo placement that hang on the wall for customers to
choose from).  He has around 4,000 of these flash cards and has a very
hard time keeping up with/finding them.  If he could somehow index
these on his computer (and also somehow categorize them with
searchable keywords) it would make his life much, much easier with his
?ever growing? collection.

1) - I have searched the Internet and have come up with a few
different possibilities of applications/software available to
purchase, however, I would hate to find out later that there was 'a
better way' to do it.
2) - I know he would definitely have to do a lot of scanning,
categorizing, and multiple keyword assigning on the front end but I
feel it would pay off in the future if he could get this done with one
software or application and then update accordingly.
3) - I also realize that just about all of the camera and
photo/imaging software come with a feature that allows you to
categorize/keyword assign each photo/image but I?m not sure that this
would be the correct approach.
4) - I?ve also thought that maybe I could do this for him with
Microsoft?s Access or Visual Basic, however, I would have to learn it
first and it looks rather complicated, so, I'd rather not try this
approach.
5) - I do know that he would like to be able to type in and search by
number (the number of the flash card which has anywhere from 5 to 20
images per page) or by category (like eagles, animals, bands, etc.).
6) - Another thing I do need to mention is that he is not very
?computer literate?.  He only uses his computer to do very simple
tasks so I?m pretty sure I will have to help him on this? or at the
very least, show him how to do the search after the project is
completed.

My Question is this:  Is there a program/software/application that
would be perfect for this type of image database/indexing and where
would I find it?

Hello stcyhood-ga, 

I would advise against creating a custom application to do this. It
would certainly be more cost-effective to use something already
created.

I have recommended some different tools for you below that I think
meet your requirements:

My recommended choice for you would be to go with flickr
(http://flickr.com/) After signing up for a free account, I would
immediately upgrade to a Pro account: http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/
(costs $24.95 a year, about $2 a month). With this solution, you don't
have to worry about hardware (any internet compatible computer can run
it), computer space, security (passworded), losing data (they have a
highly redundant service) and their keywording/category system is
phenomenal.

Other more professional services/products to consider (all had good reviews):
http://www.pixfiler.com/ (Cost is about $49 USD)
http://www.picajet.com (Cost is $40 USD)

Higher end:
http://www.fotoware.com/ (Cost is $599 USD)
http://www.thirdlight.com/

Again, I recommend you try the flickr route because it seems perfect
in my opinion. Please let me know if you require any clarification and
I will do my best to further assist you.

All the best,

tisme-ga


Search Strategy:

Flickr pro
Flickr
Image databases
Image database

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Request for Answer Clarification by stcyhood-ga on 19 Aug 2006 18:23 PDT

Thank you so much for this info.  I may actually use a few of these
for my own images, however, I'm sure that he's wanting to control and
edit these images locally (on his own computer, on his hard drive...
it's a brand new computer with plenty of space).  Will any of these
work for him in this way and will it allow him to assign several
keywords and/or categories to one image and will he be able to search
them in this way?  Hope that made since... if not I will be glad to
clarify... thanks again.

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Clarification of Answer by tisme-ga on 19 Aug 2006 18:26 PDT

Hello stcyhood-ga,

Yes, the other software that I listed works locally. Try them in the
order that they are listed. Free trials are available.

Good luck!

tisme-ga

Google provides free photo software called Picasa that would seem to fit the bill:
http://picasa.google.com

They have a related service that allows you to upload from Picasa to
web albums that can be private or shared, but it's currently invite
only I think.