Photo management

On Achievement Day last Friday, the inadequate state of our school's photo management system arose. It is cumbersome in quickly finding school-based images using our existing archival method. This is not a new problem, and it is my area of responsibility.

Do I know how to go about solving this? Yes.

Have I done anything about it? Nope.

We need a solution which is based on the cloud for easy access, where images are tagged by descriptions such as events, time or other specifics, where the focus is easy retrival of intended images by the users. A good reference point where there is success in such modes are the online photo stock libraries, examples such as Corbis, iStockPhoto and Getty Images.

I need to come up with something quickly before the season of image gathering for the school magazine begins. The first to come to mind would be some subscription based services where there is a larger file size limit to the photos we can put up (so that pupils and staff can download the files and get them decently printed to at least 4R size). Something like the online galleries integrated in MobileMe would be a good place to start.