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My question is there any real advantage to also having Media Pro? Currently they are running a special and can purchase it for $99.00. Currently I am trying a trial version.
Stu
A bit of background: I am a serious amateur, not a professional, who uses CO, MP, and LR. I have tried multiple DAMs and raw processors on my Windows systems.
I'll answer you primary question - yes, imo, there is a big advantage to using MP. I use CO in a sessions mode, and you can send just a few photos from a large shoot into a CO session and begin to edit immediately without waiting for CO to load and preview the whole large number of files.
That said, MP seems to be neglected. I don't like the limited CO catalog capability.
I currently use LR, MP, and CO in a workflow some would call complicated, but it works for me. I follow the path of "use what works best for the job at hand".
LR is my primary DAM - I import, rename, cull and rate everything in LR, saving everything to xmp sidecar files. I even post process my "sbapshots" with LR.
I tend to put photos into a filing system by year, with subfolders based on event, place, date, etc.
I maintain a small MP catalog for the current year. I have found a small MP catalog is quite stable, and quickly updates.
After LR, I switch to MP, update the current catalog, choose the few photos I want to PP in CO, and open them in a CO session. I will export any work into subfolders.
Later, I go back into LR, re-sync the main folder, and my main DAM is up to date.
I would be hard pressed to recommend that you buy MP, however; that is unless Phase one would give you any credit towards a new CO 8.0 which might have a much better catalog system.