fotoARRAY was designed to give you direct access to your pictures. It is not just a management tool, it is above all a way to present your pictures. A large number of photos often feels like a burden. With fotoARRAY, that should change. The program is fast enough to scroll through very large collections without delay. (The FREE Edition shows at most 100 images at a time; after that, you click "Next".)
The thumbnails are stored on your computer's fast internal SSD, while the originals stay safe on external USB drives. We kept the database as small as possible and, in particular, avoided the heavy administrative structures many other catalog programs need.
The user interface lets you find the pictures you want to see with just a few clicks. Clicking the star filter, for example, narrows the view immediately.
Once you have opened the album of a vacation, you can open the timeline (the tab next to the folders) and go through your trip day by day by clicking the days shown there. More on this below.
Some things in fotoARRAY work differently from what you may be used to in other programs. This page explains them.
You can choose between "All images", a selection in the folder tree, or a selection in the album tree. Albums and folders cannot be the source at the same time: when you select an album, the folder selection no longer applies, and vice versa.
In both the folder tree and the album tree you can select several entries at once. fotoARRAY then shows the pictures of all selected entries together.
What you see depends on whether an entry is expanded or collapsed:
In the tree on the left, every album (and every keyword) has a checkbox. It shows whether the currently selected pictures belong to that album or carry that keyword:
Clicking the checkbox adds the pictures to the album or removes them from it. For keywords, it assigns or removes the keyword.
Important: the checkbox changes your pictures. Clicking the name, on the other hand, selects what is shown.
In most programs the Delete key deletes. In fotoARRAY, what it does depends on what you are looking at. An original file is deleted in only one case (see B).
Once you have chosen the source (albums or folders), you can narrow the view further.
To filter by a keyword, simply click its name. The entry is then highlighted in blue. Do not click the checkbox, as that would assign the keyword to your pictures (see above).
If you have many keywords, use the search field at the top of the keyword list. There you can also switch on AND mode. Only pictures that carry all selected keywords are shown then.
Below the keywords you find the filter area with:
At the top you select technical properties of the pictures, such as file format, duplicate, GPS data or existing preview. Below that you can search a large number of metadata fields.
The "+ Choose values" button opens a dialog where you pick, for common fields, the values that actually occur in your catalog. This is a quick way to find the pictures of a particular camera, lens or focal length. For focal length, fotoARRAY distinguishes between the actual focal length and the 35 mm equivalent.
Searching for anniversaries is particularly handy, because day and month can be searched independently of the year. This way you find, for example, all birthday pictures from every year.
You can search by date in the advanced filter, but the timeline is more convenient. Click the tab next to the folders. It lists the years, months and days on which the pictures in the current view were taken. Select the days you want to see; the view changes as soon as you click.
You can also save the selection as a filter. Click the button at the far right next to the tabs. The date filter is then kept, and you can close the timeline again.
If your pictures contain GPS coordinates, you can find them on the map. It is the second tab below the image information in the right-hand panel. The map shows where, and how many, pictures of the current view were taken. (Since the FREE Edition shows at most 100 images at a time, you will often see only part of them there.)
Clicking one of the circles selects the pictures taken at that spot. Zoom in to see the locations broken down in more detail. The circle icon switches on the radius search, which creates a filter for all pictures inside the circle.
You can also assign GPS coordinates to pictures. Move the place you want under the crosshair on the map and click the marker icon.
The date icon creates a date filter from the capture dates of the currently selected pictures. So if only some of your pictures have GPS coordinates, you can still find the others taken during the same period.
The grid is the heart of fotoARRAY. We wrote the program because we found the usual offerings too limiting. fotoARRAY zooms smoothly (Ctrl+mouse wheel or the slider) and scrolls very fast.
You can also choose between several layouts that arrange the pictures in different ways. The arrangement takes aspect ratio and rating into account. In a continuous grid this may seem unnecessary at first. It makes sense in the page view: when it is switched on, fotoARRAY distributes the pictures over consecutive pages.
You can save these pages, and with the PRO Edition also as a PDF with the full JPEG files embedded. A suitable program such as Affinity Publisher can then edit such a PDF further. So if you want to design a yearbook with hundreds of memories, fotoARRAY's output is a good place to start.
Press Space to open the large preview, or F1 for full screen. The mouse pointer is hidden immediately. Press Space or Esc to leave the preview.
Here the mouse (or a Bluetooth presenter) works like a remote control, so you never have to aim: