Software help - adobe, picassa, microsoft, nero photosnap?

[jakey]

HI,
I am finding this forum to be terrific, thx! I am looking for a program for editing and organizing my pictures, I know that you have to organize them in folders within windows itself, but what about:

Renaming photos - what is a good naming scheme?
Red Eye - i am stuck as I only have a canon powershot small camera right now....I don't know the exact model but I know it has a red eye thing on it...how does that usually work?

Then for organizing, searching and so forth, I have read lots about these mainstream programs, but I am not sure which one to use yet?

[jakey]

Also, I forgot to ask what about if I move to another pc an d so forth. How do I deal with moving the database or do I start my work over again?

[ChrisPerry]

LR2 is handy - you use it on one PC - it creates a database of the images, thumbnails, edits, keywords, etc, etc. Will do non-destructive editing on RAW JPG and other formats as it saves the 'script' of what you did in it's database.

Now you can export 'images' to work on on another computer and re-import the edits back into LR (so i'm told anyway). You have to import them as 1:1 not minimal previews for this to work.

The database gets backup up daily or as often you choose.

For photo prefixes I use w for web - images that have been sized/edited for web only use.
e means it's been edited.
ebw, evt and a few others for certain effects I do (extreme black and white for example).

Then when an image is ordered I give it a prefix of I2, J1, G4 - the letter corresponds to a print size, the number to a quantity. F8 and F24 would mean 8 wallets and 24 wallets respectively. Lets me order images from lab much much faster this way, and if I ever need a print for something I know a J prefix has already been printed as 8x10 so it's easy to find and use.