Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: Chris_Brown on January 23, 2009, 12:54:32 pm
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I've been using iView MediaPro for years and am now forced to find & use a different image archive cataloging program. Has anyone used Adobe Bridge for this purpose? I have several hundred thousand images on a local drive array and need a robust program to handle the quantity, yet be able to find something within minutes (using keywords or dates).
Is Bridge considered Adobe's DAM software?
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Bridge is more of a image viewer and downloader than a true DAM product. I also have used iView Media pro which if I am not mistaken is now Microsoft Expressions. I have not used this but have switched to Adobe Lightroom ver2.2. which has many of the DAM capabilities and if you have put keywords into your files with iView it should recognise them it just won't be able to recognise the iView catalog. Lightroom relies more on kewording searches in your image database and something called collections. THis is all part of the Library module. The real power of Lightroom is the Develop module which I prefer for most photo image processing over Photoshop. If you want to find out everything about Lightroom and more download the extensive tutorial that you can get from this site for $39. It is about the best money spent if you want to learn how to setup and use Lightroom.
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Lightroom is Adobe's attempt at DAM. Sadly it's a bit fussy about files types, so somewhat frustrating and half baked.
Bridge is a File Browser, so not really a DAM App, though still very good for managing one's files and can also do smart searches and have collections. But anything offline is invisible to Bridge. Wheras with LR anything not specifically imported is invisible, but can still show you offline images once imported.
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Why are you "forced to find & use a different image archive cataloging program"? Just upgrade to Expression Media.
John
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I'm still using iView Media Pro 3.1.3 and it works fine on my MacPro with 10.5.6. It also imports Raw, DNG and JPEGs from my Canon G10 and 1Ds MKIII. However I've fully migrated to Lightroom because I like the whole idea of doing just about everything from one program. Also the image quality from it now is superb and the adjustments really comprehensive. Because Lightroom is quite complex it gets a bit of flack from a few users who seem to struggle with it but we find it brilliant to use and out of all the raw processors tried including Raw Developer, DPP, and Capture One, gives the best overall image quality on our Canon files.
Bridge is simply a file browser with sophisticated keyword and search functions but very nice to use. I would go to Lightroom rather than Bridge if you've been used to iView, but you will need to use all the free help videos on the web (there are loads) to get the most out of it otherwise you will be on to the Adobe Lightroom Forum asking lots of daft questions.
John
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you will need to use all the free help videos on the web (there are loads) to get the most out of it otherwise you will be on to the Adobe Lightroom Forum asking lots of daft questions.
I forgot to mention the Luminous Landscape Videos on Lightroom. They are the best, very entertaining and worth the expense. The many other free videos will give you specific instructions on individual tasks. This site is good Julieanne Kost (http://www.jkost.com/lightroom.html)
John
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Thanks for the responses. Bridge comes the closest in terms of graphics files. One of the features I'm looking for is handling many different file types including MP3, AIFF, MPEG, MOV in addition to image files. I've been looking at large databases but management of a DB is its own job.
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Why are you "forced to find & use a different image archive cataloging program"?