Photo Organization Apps for the Estate Sale Industry

photo organization apps for the estate sale industry

Have you ever searched for an old photo buried in a big plastic bin? You quickly realize how great it is when those photos are labeled and organized in photo albums. As an estate sale company, you are likely taking hundreds of pictures for every sale. Did you know there are apps available that will keep your photos organized for you?

Photo organizing apps offer a better way to label, sort, and search through your photo collections. This tool is convenient if you need to find a photo from a past sale or keep photos from multiple sales from becoming mixed up.

Some of the best apps will allow you to batch process folders of images. This means renaming, resizing, or making edits to extensive collections of images instead of one image at a time. Let’s say you know you will be uploading over a thousand images to a website like EstateSales.NET. Reducing the file sizes of all those photos will make them all upload faster. It would take too long to shrink those files one by one, but what if you could tell your computer to resize them all and have it all done in the time it takes to get another cup of coffee? That’s the power of a dedicated photo organization and editing app.

Key features to look for in a photo organizing app:

  • Ability to apply custom labels or keywords
  • Access the photo data (EXIF) for information such as camera settings, date, location
  • Easy to use interface
  • Batch processing extensive collections of photos (ex. Resizing, compressing, color changes)

Adobe Lightroom - Adobe LightroomOfficial Page

$9.99/mo

Lightroom has become an industry standard for amateur and pro photographers due to its robust features for organizing photos and quickly editing extensive collections of photographs.

Available for Mac or PC, with an iPhone app included in the subscription. Cloud storage and backup are included in the subscription cost. Just know that if you ever cancel your subscription, you will lose access to the program and your cloud storage. So you will need to download all of your photos to another location before canceling.

Lightroom offers many options to tag, label, keyword, or rank your photos for convenient organization.

The editing options inside Lightroom are on par with many of the most commonly used photoshop tools but geared towards quick editing. You can even save a set of edits as a template and automatically applied to extensive collections of photos.

There are countless free and paid editing presets around the internet for you to download and apply to your images for a custom look (similar to filters in Instagram).

ACDsee - ACDsee Official Website

$34.99 for the base level program

ACDsee also started a monthly subscription offering that is still much cheaper than Adobe Lightroom. They regularly offer discounts, so if it’s the full price when you look, give it a little time or sign up for their email list for discount codes.

You are purchasing software that you will own—no monthly fees. When a new version is released, you will have to buy it to get new features.

The standard version also includes basic photo editing. The ultimate version is comparable to Photoshop but at a fraction of the cost.

Available on Mac or PC with a free iPhone or Android app for quickly transferring photos or videos from your phone to your computer.

ACDsee doesn’t have the clout of their big-name competitor, but they offer a great product at a very reasonable price.

Luminar 4 - Luminar 4 Official Website

$67 one-time purchase price

Luminar 4 stands as a solid alternative to the industry-standard Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is only offered as a monthly subscription; Luminar offers a single purchase price saving you money in the long run.

Luminar 4 boasts about its artificial intelligence-driven photo editing. Said to save you time while producing quality photos automatically.

Luminar 4 offers organization tools, but most photo editors think it lacks compared to Lightroom's many features.

Free Apps

DigiKam - DigiKam Official Website

DigiKam is a free-to-use open-source program(donations accepted). This means you are foregoing the comforts of a paid program (dedicated customer support, quick bug patches, or frequent updates) in a typical open source fashion.

The DigiKam interface may seem simple and a little dated, but it loads and operates quickly.

A unique feature of DigiKam is the built-in GPS mapping. Suppose your photos have location data from a phone or a camera with built-in GPS. In that case, you can click the Map icon, and the program will show you the exact location of where you took your photos. Your company may find this feature helpful if you photograph multiple estates and need to be sure you aren’t mixing pictures from different locations together.

Photo editing is pretty limited, but there are plug-ins you can add to get more editing options.

If a free full-featured photo organizing app is what you need, this might be your program.

Google Photos or Apple Photos

Most of the estate sale companies we talk to today use their smartphones to photograph for their business. You can’t beat the convenience, and on newer phones, the quality of the pictures they can take.

They also have the added benefit of being connected. You can take pictures, edit, organize, and immediately upload them to your sale listings on EstateSales.NET.

Backup is usually done automatically to either Google photos or Apple iCloud, depending on the brand of phone you use. The photo apps and cloud storage are included free of charge at their introductory level, but you will have to pay a subscription fee for more space if you find yourself running out of cloud storage.

Since your photos are in the cloud, you can seamlessly access your photos on a matching tablet, phone, or laptop.

What Works for You

There will always be new photo apps and programs being released, but these are some that have been around long enough and have enough positive reviews to be used in your estate sale business. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if dedicated photo software will help you in your day-to-day work. Most of the apps mentioned above offer trial periods to test them out and determine what works best for you.