What program will organise my messy photo files?

QOver the years I’ve amassed hundreds of digital photos, and they’re spread all over my computer in different folders. Can you recommend a program that scans my PC for photo files and moves them all into one place, so I can access and organise them more easily?

Stephen Eric Biggs

AInstallable photo-organising software tends to be expensive or a bit dodgy. Free program Photofinder ( www.snipca.com/17420) claims to search your PC for photos and display them all as thumbnails so you can organise them. But installation is worryingly slow, and it insists on installing Java too – which we’re not fans of (see page 56).

At the opposite extreme you’ve got Adobe Lightroom ( www.snipca.com/17434), which costs £104 and is amazing. If you’re an enthusiastic amateur photographer, it’s worth every penny (see our five-star review in Issue 453). You can quickly import every photo (and video) from your computer, external drives and even storage cards, consolidate them into libraries with sub-folders, automatically rename them and add keywords for easy searching. Lightroom also lets you edit photos without degrading the original, then export them using an intelligent sorting system. Here, you get what you pay for.

If you’re happy to go with an online tool, use the new web-based version of Google Photos ( https://photos.google. com; see screenshot), the successor to Picasa. Its autosorting features need ironing out but it’s a fun, easy, creative way to organise your shots and store them all for free (see Secret Tips on page 48).