[danpen]

You sound like you have some very specific requirements why don't you just download a few apps and try them. I certainly wouldn't rely on things you've read on the internet 'cause we all talk cr@p and it's only when you've really tried something that you'll know if it suits you or not.

Elements will definitely allow you to categorise your photos in different ways, add images to multiple categories and then find them based on boolean searches of those categories. I don't have a clue what you mean by "Is this using the tagging system, though? Because if it is, I have a dozen prog's that will do that." do you expect the software to magically identify what's in your pictures without you tagging them? If so, good luck, and let me know which program you use, I'd love a copy.

I'd advise you to think carefully about anything you use to ensure that when the company that makes it decides to support it no longer you don't loose all that work in cataloging, mediapro and imatch are capable of writing "tags" into the iptc keywords field and so is elements (with some limitations) so that another application could use them later if required.

To go back to my original point if you know what you're looking for, try some demos, all I mentioned above plus things like Corel Snapfire, Canto Cumulus, Extensis Portfolio, IDImager all have free trials and only you can say if they have the features you're looking for.

I've tried most of these and Mediapro covers most of what I want but still requires you to assign keywords to images in order to search by those attributes later. It takes about 5-10 minutes per shoot (of maybe 50 images) to allocate location and primary subject, hardly onerous.

I catalogued about 6000 images when I first started using it took an hour a night for about a week. They automatically get the date from the EXIF and that makes life a whole lot easier.

I have no duplicates of any image but have anything between 2 (normal) to 5 (very unusual) keywords assigned to any image.

cheers

Dan