KavaSoft on Thursday announced the release of Shoebox 1.0, a digital photo organizer the developer says is a replacement for Apple’s iPhoto software. Shoebox organizes photos by categories like dates, people, places and things. The company has published a variety of categories used to catalog photos that you can download, along with the software itself. Shoebox comes in Express and Pro versions for US$39.99 and $79.99 respectively.
Shoebox supports photo importing from iPhoto, and also works directly with digital cameras. The software doesn’t create its own library of photos — it lets you keep your images where you want. You type what you’re looking for in the search field, and Shoebox returns the results. You can also filter results by defining criteria like date range, file name and your rating. It features a full-screen thumbnail view, and can play slideshows directly from your camera. It can also password-protect separate photo catalogs, if you’d prefer to keep some images private.
A demo is available for download, limited to 2 catalogs with up to 250 photos each, and 25 photos per slideshow. Shoebox can be purchased using PayPal or Kagi. The Express version is suitable for home users with up to 10,000 digital photos — it’s limited to two catalogs and 1,000 photos per slideshow. The Pro version is aimed at digital media professionals, and has no limits on catalogs, slideshows or photos per catalog.