Tagging your photos

Here's something that I have recently started doing. I have started to add Tags to my digital photo files, so that XP can easily search and find the ones I am looking for.

If you are like most people, after a few trips you end up with hundreds and hundreds of photos. It takes time (though often enjoyable) to sift through your 300 photos of Hawaii to find the one you had in mind. That's where a few simple tags can greatly help.

Here's what I do in XP. (I don't have Vista, but I believe Tagging is even easier in that.) Right click on any open photo and select Properties --> Summary. In the Keywords box write a few pertinent tags and separate them using semicolons (Location, people, any unique identifying feature). I haven't yet figured out an effective way to tag groups of photos. But for my purposes, one at a time works for now.

Once you have them tagged, go to Find, select Files and Folders, select Pictures, Music and Video and check the box to limit it to Pictures and Photos and type any tag you want to search for. I don't use the feature, but Picassa and Adobe also have tagging options, and there are also free tagging software (iTag etc.) available for download.

I have only recently started doing this, but it is already proving to be very helpful. If you have a different way off tagging, please do mention it in the comments section.