Topic: Best software for a photo library (Read 18368 times)

hasselbladfan · « **on:** October 28, 2018, 03:04:40 am »

Any recommendations?

It is time to put some more order in my Hassie / Leica S files.

Thanks.

Bart_van_der_Wolf · « **Reply #1 on:** October 28, 2018, 01:21:24 pm »

Before you dive into any suggestions you might get here, keep an eye on what the folks at Serif.com (https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/) will come up with, after they have launched their third application (Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher now in public Beta) for both Mac and Windows platforms. They have not announced or promised anything yet, but they do have their priorities straight. They first concentrate on getting things right, before embarking on the next challenge. A cataloging application has been mentioned as being on their radar.

The issue is that one usually has to immerse oneself in the specific solution that certain companies offer to use them optimally. That makes it difficult to switch to something different if you don't like it after a while, or when requirements change. Some solutions are for very large catalogs/collections, but a bit overkill for more modest requirements.

Cheers,
Bart

hasselbladfan · « **Reply #2 on:** October 29, 2018, 04:29:57 am »

Bedankt, Bart, I will check it out.

TheDocAUS · « **Reply #3 on:** October 29, 2018, 05:10:05 am »

I use Daminion. The single user version is bit hard to locate on the website now. Powerful, easy to use, great support and does not cost the earth.

Aram Hăvărneanu · « **Reply #4 on:** October 29, 2018, 07:04:41 am »

Well, how much does it cost and where can you find the single-user version?

Joe Towner · « **Reply #5 on:** October 29, 2018, 02:55:54 pm »

What editing tools do you currently use? How many photos are we talking about (disk space or file count). Most folks end up with Lightroom, but there are other products that work better if you're using tools like CaptureOne or such. Things like Mylio exist as well, but I haven't looked into 3FR support in a few years. PC or Mac?

Joe Towner · « **Reply #6 on:** October 29, 2018, 03:19:52 pm »

Oh, and this should be moved into the DAM board - https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?board=57.0

landscapephoto · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2018, 03:45:03 am »

There is free software for that need: https://www.darktable.org

DP · « **Reply #8 on:** October 30, 2018, 08:54:43 pm »

Quote from: Aram Hăvărneanu on October 29, 2018, 07:04:41 am

Well, how much does it cost and where can you find the single-user version?

https://daminion.net/order/buy-daminion-2

Aram Hăvărneanu · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2018, 07:07:41 am »

Not bad at all. Really nice. Useful if you are Windows person. Unfortunately I am a Linux/macOS person.

Anything similar that runs on Linux server side with mac client?

john beardsworth · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:14:01 pm »

Quote from: hasselbladfan on October 28, 2018, 03:04:40 am

Any recommendations?

It is time to put some more order in my Hassie / Leica S files.

Why would you not go for Lightroom?

Joe Towner · « **Reply #11 on:** November 01, 2018, 12:39:24 pm »

So this is where the 'what are you using it for' comes into play. A good DAM isn't going to be a good editing platform. There are things like https://www.resourcespace.com/ but for a single person I don't see any way it's possible to make the overhead worth it.

If you license your images to others, keeping track of that is huge, and a platform that helps would be important and worth the investment. Are you dealing with a few terabytes of data or more? Are you editing in Phocus or Photoshop?

Rhossydd · « **Reply #12 on:** November 02, 2018, 04:08:47 am »

Quote from: BartvanderWolf on October 28, 2018, 01:21:24 pm

A cataloging application has been mentioned as being on their radar.

It will be interesting to see if Serif chose to offer a DAM product, but it would be at least two years away which isn't much help for the OP now.

As John says, Lightroom does a pretty good job of image management for most individuals. Also it writes a lot of it's management data into standard locations (captions, rating etc) so can be picked up by other software if you need to change at a later date.

A logical file structure and naming system is the basic ground work of organisation. Again LR can make organising things on disk pretty straight forward too. If you do choose LR, make sure you read up how to import and manipulate file structures from within LR, the one thing that can throw up difficulties is moving files around outside of your chosen DAM solution once you've started cataloging.

john beardsworth · « **Reply #13 on:** November 02, 2018, 06:08:59 am »

One of the keys to Lightroom's success is that it combines DAM with adjustment. So when you manage raw files, you see how they look with your adjustments.

We take that for granted, but with pure DAM apps you're always saying "which one did I process as B&W?", "I wish I could see what's in that underexposed shot", and the workarounds are so-very 2006. Also, single user DAM products are thin on the ground - there's no money in them. So unless the OP needs multi-user functionality, it's hard to see why Lightroom wouldn't be the choice.

myotis · « **Reply #14 on:** November 04, 2018, 08:53:22 am »

Quote from: hasselbladfan on October 28, 2018, 03:04:40 am

Any recommendations?

It is time to put some more order in my Hassie / Leica S files.

Might be worth while keeping an eye on Photo Mechanic 6 which is due out before the end of the year and will add DAM features to the current version.

Photo Mechanic is an extremely good program for general file management and if they get the DAM right (which they seem to have been working on for about 12 years !!) it should be a good option.

Cheers,

Graham

ned · « **Reply #15 on:** November 04, 2018, 11:02:37 am »

Imatch at photools.com

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

john beardsworth · « **Reply #16 on:** November 04, 2018, 05:21:30 pm »

Quote from: myotis on November 04, 2018, 08:53:22 am

Might be worth while keeping an eye on Photo Mechanic 6 which is due out before the end of the year and will add DAM features to the current version.
Photo Mechanic is an extremely good program for general file management and if they get the DAM right (which they seem to have been working on for about 12 years !!) it should be a good option.

Do you really believe that?

myotis · « **Reply #17 on:** November 05, 2018, 08:38:30 am »

Quote from: john beardsworth on November 04, 2018, 05:21:30 pm

Do you really believe that?

I see no reason not to, while always allowing for the unexpected.

They have always refused to give a time table, other than they were still working on it, until earlier this year when they said by the end of the year.

In August they confirmed the end of the year "even if it kills us"

On 28th October they again confirmed they were still on track for a release before the end of the year.

And betas are already with users.

This sounds fairly promising to me.

Cheers,

Graham

Bart_van_der_Wolf · « **Reply #18 on:** November 05, 2018, 09:09:35 am »

And:

Skylum teases Luminar DAM module
https://www.dpreview.com/news/7564492020/skylum-teases-luminar-dam-module-in-new-videos

Cheers,
Bart

Alan Klein · « **Reply #19 on:** November 05, 2018, 11:42:21 am »

Quote from: john beardsworth on November 02, 2018, 06:08:59 am

One of the keys to Lightroom's success is that it combines DAM with adjustment. So when you manage raw files, you see how they look with your adjustments.

We take that for granted, but with pure DAM apps you're always saying "which one did I process as B&W?", "I wish I could see what's in that underexposed shot", and the workarounds are so-very 2006. Also, single user DAM products are thin on the ground - there's no money in them. So unless the OP needs multi-user functionality, it's hard to see why Lightroom wouldn't be the choice.

I wish I knew more about using my LR. One thing that makes sense. It's that learning everything about one program is better than learning and using two programs with less knowledge about each.

Author Topic: Best software for a photo library (Read 18368 times)