Noob Pre-sale Question. Will Plex work for my needs?

General Discussions
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Thanks in advance for helping me out with this. If the post needs to go somewhere else, I’d be glad to move it.

We have a well set up LAN at home/office, with music and movies a-plenty. This seems to be easy to transfer to a PLEX server, which I have been recommended to set up. Before I drop the cash on a new NAS, I have a second need that is fairly specific, and I hope someone has gone before me and knows all the answers. Before I dive into the hardware, I need to know that the premise is sound.

My big need is photo organization and searching via tags. I restore British sports cars for a living and generate thousands of reference photos of highly boring details. Currently I use OSX Photos app and find it barely tolerable, but functional. I need better Just dumping them into folders is not sufficient, since a lot of this will be used across more than one project.

My plan is to set up a NAS, move all the media onto it for streamy goodness, and access and search photos at will from several machines. Mac, Windows, IOS, maybe and Android interloper at times.

Say I am working on a '67 Jaguar Series 1 4.2 E-type 2+2 and I blaze away taking 200 pics of wire routing, fastener location, clips, screws, and carpet padding. (Its less exciting that it sounds). Then I do the same thing with a '63 E-type, only this one is a 3.8 Roadster. They look very similar, but almost every darn detail is different.

I need to tag the pics sort of like: E-Type>Engine Bay>Left>Wiring> Voltage Regulator, or Wiring> Alternator.
Now add a whole pile of pics of MGs, Austin-Healeys, Triumphs, a couple of Minis and MMs, plus the Amphicar that wandered in .
As it is now, I know I have the pics in there somewhere, but its waaaay too much scrolling in my currect setup.

Is this something that PLEX is able to handle? Auto-tagging of Mount Ranier and the Space Needle is fine, but this stuff all looks like mechanical junk until its all reassembled back into a sports car. No kids faces or tourist hot spots, just car parts. I doubt the machine learning is going to correctly tag left hand drive throttle linkages right out of the gate (call me skeptical). I figure I need to get in there at a granular level, which I am willing to do.

So, whaddaya think? Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy? Possible, but horrible to pull off? Not a chance? Am I barking up the wrong tree with PLEX? Is there another software package that is better suited?

Lay it on me, internet!

Thanks again.

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You cannot at this time make custom tag for photos. If you photos are in folders and subfolders like E-Type>Engine Bay>Left>Wiring> Voltage Regulator where each > is a folder you could drill down to but sounds like you need a bit quicker searching than drilling down folders

Plex Media Server is free. as are most of our apps. I suggest installing it on your Mac loading up a few folders of photos to see how it does things. ( the mobile apps do have a cost but they will allow you to view photos with a water mark before buying )

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If you are looking at a NAS, consider checking what photo applications they have that come with the NAS.
There may be a chance that the NAS provides a photo serving application/package that will suit.

I have a somewhat ageing (now) Synology NAS and the Photostation app isn’t awesome, but I’m sure I was talking to someone about 18 months ago who was talking about another platform (was it Drobo?) that had a better one for photos. It wasn’t super important to me, so I’m very fuzzy on the details, but depending on the NAS that you are considering I would definitely see if you can sample their photo apps to see what they can offer. (I know the Synology I have can use 3rd party apps, of which I’m pretty sure there is a photo one that can do tagging stuff, though I’d have to go digging again to find it.)

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For the photo searching and organizational need, have you tried either Adobe Lightroom, or possibly even Adobe Bridge. Most people that have Creative Cloud overlook Adobe Bridge completely, but it’s a great file organizational tool. It has pretty amazing search capabilities. I think there are some limited mobile options available with those.

For the other media… movies, shows, personal photos, music… Plex is a pretty good option for serving those up to almost anything in a nice and easy to navigate format. Try for free, invest if you like.