Organizing images/photos?

[BrushyHillGuide]

I'm pretty new to Mac/Apple and I'm wanting to import and organize a TON of photographs and I'm wondering what's the best application to use to organize them- should I use iPhoto or is there something better out there?

I tried this once before and I loaded WAY too many photos at one time and had a heck of a time figuring out how to organize them with so many unorganized images in iPhoto all at one time. So, this time, I'm going to import only small batches (they are somewhat organized into folders from my old PC machine) and organize each batch before I add another- instead of simply importing all my photos at once.


Here's what I would LIKE to end up with:

All of my photos in folders by category and increasingly narrow sub-categories. For Example, all of my tattoo work (I'm an artist) into one folder called "Tattoo Photos" with sub folders for "Japanese Style," "Traditional Americana Style," etc. And, possibly, within each of those folders, more sub-categories that are even more description-specific. Then another main category folder like, "Personal Photos" with sub-folders for "Family," "Friends," "Pets," etc. and within each of those, more subfolders. And so-on and so-forth.
The ABILITY to effectively search/visually browse the categories and each folder level within a specific category/folder. For example, I'd like to be able to browse all the main category folders like a 'cover-flow' GUI and, when I pick a category of images, be able to then browse the sub-category folders in the same way.
It would be awesome if I could some how or other apply 'search' terms to images so that I could find them more efficiently. For example, let's say I have a picture of a Japanese tattoo that has a samurai, a peony flower, a sword, fire & wind - and I'm looking for an example of how I draw a peony flower - if I could type the word "Peony" and have it pull up all the images that have the word "peony" associated with them.

I just need something that will allow me to organize THOUSANDS of images in a way that will allow me to efficiently find specific images I am looking for.

Any suggestions?

Thanks to all that reply!

 

[Young Spade]

Well I would suggest taking the time and trying to organize them yourself inside of Finder. Yes this would take a long time but Finder will provide you with a no frills, no UI organizational layout that will let you get the most work done the fastest.

Depending on how deep you want to go, start at the top and create about 2/3 extra finder windows and name them something. Start there and organize that way. Then from each folder create a sub folder, so on and so forth.

It will definitely take you a long time but once you get your pictures organized this way it will be very easy to find things and keep it all organized.

I have my setup based on year (vacation or holiday oriented) people (family, me, friends, etc.) and location based as well.

 

[KittyParis]

There's a small download called dupeguru (I don't have the link but you can Google it) that will look for copies. You just have to make sure you choose the one you really want. It's pretty handy for cleaning out the duplicates that might be in different folders/areas. Just make sure when you use it, you use it in picture format rather than list, so you can compare the pictures by eye.