Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: revneil on November 11, 2005, 05:44:29 pm

Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: revneil on November 11, 2005, 05:44:29 pm
I have been looking for something relatively simple that can both show and search for my digital images.

Adobe had the best in terms of simplicity and intuitive interface when they launched Album, but they seem either to have forgotten it or decided not to update for fear of upsetting many other vendors - Adobe do not support serious picture makers and restrict themselves to the mass market (silly, I think!), so serious amateurs like me are left in the cold. Forgive me if in v4 of Elements they have corrected this - I tried v3 to see if they had done so and would have even bought it just to get hold of a decent database programme!

I have looked at different offerings, but none seem to offer simplicity, let alone affordability. Firstly, there is iView Media Pro3, looks good, but searching is not easy and it costs about £130UK, $199. Portfolio from Extensis cannot even dispaly 16bit pictures saved in Photoshop and costs $199 +Tax! I know, there is Phototools IMatch, but the search is quite convulated and unless you have a degree in writing computer speak you are lost (sorry, but I am interested in pictures, not geek language).

This is, I know, a huge subject and there will be many vociferous exponents of one programme over another, - I do not want to encourage a free for all argument, but would rather a sensible amount of free thinking about what should be achievable and then feed that back to the 'authorites' that be!!!

Advice and comments are really needed for what is, perhaps, the most forgotten corner of our digital image world - how do we keep track of what we have taken!

Neil
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: jestciddn on November 11, 2005, 08:52:39 pm
Neil: I expect "Aperature" from Apple will be the answer.
Jest
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: Andrew Teakle on November 11, 2005, 10:54:04 pm
Quote from: revneil,Nov 11 2005, 10:44 PM
I have been looking for something relatively simple that can both show and search for my digital images.

Neil,

Adobe Bridge has a very powerful search function as well as a host of ways to show your images including a slideshow feature. It is bundled with Photoshop CS2.

If you don't have CS2 and don't want to spend the money for a pro photo suite like Photoshop, you may consider ACDSee. It's quite full featured, has a search function, and is quite easy to use.

Andrew
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: Paul Sumi on November 12, 2005, 12:29:21 am
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Neil: I expect "Aperature" from Apple will be the answer.
Jest
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Neil seems to be a PC user, so Aperture is not an option.  And if ~ US$200 breaks the budget, then Aperture's US$499 is way too expensive.

Paul
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: francois on November 12, 2005, 06:27:11 am
You may also want to post your question on Rob Galbraith forums here (http://forums.robgalbraith.com/).

Aperture is Mac only and way over the $200 budget limit. And we have to see what it can really do!
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: mikeseb on November 12, 2005, 09:02:19 am
Quote
Portfolio from Extensis cannot even dispaly 16bit pictures saved in Photoshop...

Strange. I have current versions of Portfolio and Photoshop, and I work entirely in 16-bit photoshop images for post-processing, and Portfolio displays them just fine.

It is cumbersome in other ways, though. I am waiting to see whether version 8, due out next month, will address some of its ugly and un-ergonomic interface issues, and its problems handling metadata--specifically, inability to reliably read xmp metadata (accompanying nikon .nef files) entered in Bridge, or conversely to write xmp metadata that Bridge can read. If these are fixed, I might upgrade ($99 for me, atop my purchases of v.6 and v.7!)

I looked at iView Media Pro 3, released only a couple of weeks ago. It has some nice features, but as I understand it, it won't handle xmp metadata any better than Portfolio 7. If someone here knows otherwise, please correct me.

I'm also intrigued by Aperture, and I can get it for an academic price of $249 due to my university connection. Problem I understand there is that it can only view flattened .psd's. Layered .psd's are a frequent part of my workflow, so this would be an impediment. Again, please set me straight.
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: 61Dynamic on November 12, 2005, 12:59:31 pm
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I looked at iView Media Pro 3, released only a couple of weeks ago. It has some nice features, but as I understand it, it won't handle xmp metadata any better than Portfolio 7

IVeiw 3 supports XMP but I'm not sure how well it does so. I just downloaded the trial and have not had a chance to test that feature.

Quote
I'm also intrigued by Aperture, and I can get it for an academic price of $249 due to my university connection. Problem I understand there is that it can only view flattened .psd's. Layered .psd's are a frequent part of my workflow, so this would be an impediment. Again, please set me straight.

Aperture will view layered PSDs from what I've gathered. It is the ability to apply adjustments in Aperture that is limited to flattened images. I imagine Aperture would show you either the ebeded thumbnail for a layered PSD or the flattened layer of a PSD (set with the compatibility option when saved) if available.
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: 61Dynamic on November 13, 2005, 01:26:01 am
Quote
I looked at iView Media Pro 3, released only a couple of weeks ago. It has some nice features, but as I understand it, it won't handle xmp metadata any better than Portfolio 7. If someone here knows otherwise, please correct me.

Playing around with iView3 I notice it will let you apply XMP metadata templates you have saved in Photoshop. It does not save any metadata to XMP automatically - everything is saved in its own database. You have to select Export Annotations form the Action menu.

So XMP works fully but it is a hands on process.
Title: Cataloguing - a plea for help
Post by: mikeseb on November 13, 2005, 01:41:16 pm
Quote
Playing around with iView3 I notice it will let you apply XMP metadata templates you have saved in Photoshop. It does not save any metadata to XMP automatically - everything is saved in its own database. You have to select Export Annotations form the Action menu.

So XMP works fully but it is a hands on process.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=51166\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I found that feature on my trial copy; I need to fiddle with it some more as I'm not getting the "import" of .xmp metadata for .nef files (added in Bridge--keywords, the like) to import to iView consistently. Maybe it has trouble with .xmp sidecars?