Other DAMs?

[Bob Rockefeller]

There seems to be a reasonable number of RAW converters to choose from for Macs.

But for integrated RAW/DAM, it looks likes there are only Lightroom, Capture One Pro (and maybe Bridge) for the serious photographer.

Without any numbers to go by, I would guess that Lightroom is the hugely dominate solution. So dominate that there may be fears of its monopoly status.

I assume, then, that the folks using Iridient, RawTherapee, DxO, and the others are either working with Lightroom (still) or have found some other application to handle their DAM needs.

Overlooking the inconvenience of having large RAW, and TIFF/JPG, and possibly PSD, files to store and keep track of, what are others using for DAM? Are there real, solid, solutions for the serious photographer?

[AlterEgo]

Are there real, solid, solutions for the serious photographer?

desktop, sinlge user DAM is not a serious solution... hence LR might have a bigger marketshare, but it MS Access (in its purely desktop mode) vs MS SQL Server so to say... even that will be a credit to LR.

[Bob Rockefeller]

desktop, sinlge user DAM is not a serious solution... hence LR might have a bigger marketshare, but it MS Access (in its purely desktop mode) vs MS SQL Server so to say... even that will be a credit to LR.

No hope for the Mac-based photographers?

[TonyW]

...Are there real, solid, solutions for the serious photographer?

I believe that Photo Mechanic may be a candidate for a fast DAM solution.  At least you may want to give the trial version a look.
http://www.camerabits.com/downloads/

[john beardsworth]

I believe that Photo Mechanic may be a candidate for a fast DAM solution.

PhotoMechanic is only a file browser. They do have a catalogue "in active development", but as long ago as 2012 they were apologising for it being overdue....

Going back to 2005, before Aperture and Lightroom, there was little money in single user DAM apps. That's even more so now, and DAM apps like Extensis Portfolio or Photoshelter's Libris are more geared to online multi-user environments.

[TonyW]

PhotoMechanic is only a file browser. They do have a catalogue "in active development", but as long ago as 2012 they were apologising for it being overdue....

Going back to 2005, before Aperture and Lightroom, there was little money in single user DAM apps. That's even more so now, and DAM apps like Extensis Portfolio or Photoshelter's Libris are more geared to online multi-user environments.

  Thanks John, tbh my view coloured by an old colleague doing wedding images telling me that PhotoMechanic DAM is great and faster than LR.  Should really have checked first before posting! Apologies to all

What a shame they are delaying launch or lost interest

Now in active development!

Imagine an add-on to Photo Mechanic with an SQL database that provides top-notch speed and search flexibility, allowing you to search through many, many thousands of photos in seconds. You’ll be able to scan your disk for photos and movies to kick-start your database, add photos to the database manually or automatically during Photo Mechanic’s powerful Ingest and Live Ingest, and search using simple words or with complex queries from a long list of IPTC and Exif metadata. Interested? We can’t announce any dates yet, but stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook feeds to be the first to know when anything is announced.

[john beardsworth]

PhotoMechanic is great, Tony, but it's not a DAM. It's a browser, like a glorified version of Explorer or Finder, and it is very fast for reviewing pictures, tagging them with copyright and other metadata, and sending them out of the door. So it's ideal for certain purposes. But DAM programs don't just explore folders. Lightroom and other catalogues are registers or records of your photos, even if they are on a drive that is offline or has crashed, so they play more of a safeguarding role than a browser which only tells you what's there now. They find photos by querying their own database, not by diving through all the folders, so you can use them to easily find pictures in multiple folders or drives by certain criteria (eg all B&W portrait-format photos of Utah with 3 stars). With something like PM, you need to know where your stuff is, which becomes tougher once you're handling tens of thousands of photos.

John

[Damon Lynch]

As an aside, while poking around in the Photo Mechanic  directory last night, I was surprised to see use of Gnome/Linux technologies such as cairo, gobject, GIO, and more. Maybe that particular fact is of interest only to programmers, but I do wonder how extensively they use the technology throughout their code base.

[Jeremy Roussak]

desktop, sinlge user DAM is not a serious solution... hence LR might have a bigger marketshare, but it MS Access (in its purely desktop mode) vs MS SQL Server so to say... even that will be a credit to LR.

What are you trying to say? Even after making due allowance for your first language being other than English, that comment makes no sense.

Jeremy

[Anthony.Ralph]

You might take a look at IDImager. Although it was bought out from it's Dutch developer some time ago and put into a suite of what looks like some rather naff photo products and renamed Photo Supreme (I think) it used to be a passably decent DAM product. As I recall there is a free trial so you could see if it helps you at all. It is cross-platform and multi-user so...

Anthony.

[kirkt]

No hope for the Mac-based photographers?

I am not sure of how you work, but the newer (Yosemite, El Capitan) OS variants have a lot of searchable functionality built into the OS and Finder, or Finder equivalent like Pathfinder.  Using Photo Mechanic, you can insert keywords during ingest, as well as ratings, etc.  These keywords are searchable across the OS.  You can use the Spotlight functionality within the OS to search on a bunch of various file characteristics, including EXIF data, etc.  The Star ratings and keywords assigned in Photo Mechanic are read and translated into non-database applications such as Iridient Developer, Capture One and Photos, where those applications support such data.  Photo Mechanic permits one to develop templates (Stationery) of data to append at ingest, and has dozens of tokens that can be inserted into the process to extract fields from the EXIF data and write those into filenames, IPTC data, etc.  Photo Mechanic also permits you to copy and move data upon import for multiple copy back up, etc.

Utilizing the existing search tools within the Finder sheds the need to use a self-contained database that requires you to import images into a specific application and then either be committed to using that application for raw conversion or editing, or having to export the images from the DAM portion of the raw converter to another raw conversion application for conversion. 

Maybe an alternative to a fully self-contained, but application-specific management strategy.  If you desire to work entirely in a single application, like Lightroom, this may not be the most efficient workflow.

Here are some interesting links:

http://photophindings.blogspot.com/2012/02/searching-exif-data-with-mac-os-x.html

https://photoapps.expert/tips/2015/2/16/photo-mechanic-metadata-and-ratings-alternative-photos#.VmXzLoTSadI

http://wiki.camerabits.com/en/index.php?title=Working_With_IPTC_Metadata

kirk

[Bob Rockefeller]

I am not sure of how you work, but the newer (Yosemite, El Capitan) OS variants have a lot of searchable functionality built into the OS and Finder, or Finder equivalent like Pathfinder.

You are surely right that the Finder has come a ways into a more general purpose "database," especially when combined with Spotlight.

The main thing for me is attempting to not have a library of RAW originals, and then a matching set of TIFF/JPG/PSD files after raw conversion and adjustments. As you know, a layered TIFF or PSD file can be many times the size of the RAW. And it gets worse if you crop for printing, sharpen for that print size, and save yet another file.

So that is forcing me into something like Lightroom or Capture One Pro because there doesn't seem to be any middle ground - either you live with the catalog the developers felt was sufficient and have a nearly pure RAW workflow, or you're off to something else and multiple huge files.

[Rusty]

Any thoughts from users out there using ACDsee?
http://www.acdsee.com/ca/special-offers?gclid=CIb8mIeo18kCFcRgfgod0sMLMg
no affiliation, but they are located on the same island I live on...

[Hans Kruse]

desktop, sinlge user DAM is not a serious solution.

For the photographer who don't need a multiuser solution Lightroom or another single user DAM can be as serious a solution as you want. I never had the need for a multiuser solution and for me Lightroom is a very good DAM solution. For bigger shops with a number of photographers Lightroom will not be a DAM solution of course in most cases.

[StephaneB]

Any thoughts from users out there using ACDsee?
http://www.acdsee.com/ca/special-offers?gclid=CIb8mIeo18kCFcRgfgod0sMLMg
no affiliation, but they are located on the same island I live on...

ACDSee is getting better and better, both on DAM side as on the processing side. I hav ebeen following it since version 7. The recent version 9 Ultimate is a pretty good replacement for the LightRoom/Photoshop combo. I was very surprised to find that with I tried it.

there are some processing issues to work out. Support is responsive and working on correcting a few things.

I will probably keep my Adobe subscription until mid 2016. After that it looks like I'll have switched to ACDSee.

[Manoli]

Anyone with firsthand experience of Affinity Photo ( Mac) ?
Latest 1.4 release showing notable additions too long to list here but perhaps the most interesting was at the tail end of its 'What's New' listing :

Improved Photoshop plug-in support and improved plug-in management

[Bob Rockefeller]

Anyone with firsthand experience of Affinity Photo ( Mac) ?
Latest 1.4 release showing notable additions too long to list here but perhaps the most interesting was at the tail end of its 'What's New' listing :

Improved Photoshop plug-in support and improved plug-in management

You'll probably get a better response with a new thread on Affinity Photo. Folks looking for a discussion of it won't be looking in a new DAMs thread.

[Manoli]

You'll probably get a better response with a new thread on Affinity Photo. Folks looking for a discussion of it won't be looking in a new DAMs thread.

Thanks Bob - hadn't noticed the title, just saw StephaneB's post ...

[francois]

Thanks Bob - hadn't noticed the title, just saw StephaneB's post ...

There's an Affinity Photo thread here… Not much new info, though.

Edit: it looks like Affinity Photo's developers plan to release a DAM in the future.

https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13792-feature-request-affinity-lightroom-killer/?p=61067

[RoyH]

Any thoughts from users out there using ACDsee?
http://www.acdsee.com/ca/special-offers?gclid=CIb8mIeo18kCFcRgfgod0sMLMg
no affiliation, but they are located on the same island I live on...

I have been a ACDsee user since ACDsee 6, which was before they ever released the pro version. I personally feel it is a very viable alternative to Lightroom and with the ultimate version they now support layers and Photoshop plugins also, although the plugin support can be hit and miss. I currently use the latest ACDsee Pro (but will most likely upgrade to ultimate shortly) as my DAM but still use ACR and PS6 with NIK plugins for most of my processing, primarily because I use the NIK plugins a lot. I try the most recent Ultimate version and it is very close to allowing me to give up Photoshop. I would recommend anyone to download the trial and try it out. The thing about this various DAM's and processing software is that each has their own quirks and behaviors and what is perfectly fine for one is not always the case for someone else.