Ultimate image management software

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Peter - 14 Aug 2006 20:09 GMT

Does it exist?

I want software that can catalog Canon RAW files (extract EXIF data,
autorotate, etc), and let me organize them by person, date, keyword,
category, place, event etc. Allow editing/converting (RAW) images with
Photoshop AND apply version control to saved PSDs so I dont have 10
different versions of the same image in catalog. Wont crash with 10k+ images
in catalog. Allow to backup images to another location (=move to networked
hard disk), and properly recognize the move.

So far the closest one I've found is iView MediaPro, but it's buggy as hell
(already lost my metadata on 1000+ images while crashing every half-hour)
and wont do version control when Shop saves the same image as PSD.

Any suggestions? PC only please. Linux software will work, too.

Peter

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John Bean - 15 Aug 2006 09:31 GMT

>Does it exist?

Good question. I have no answer I'm afraid.

>So far the closest one I've found is iView MediaPro, but it's buggy as hell
>(already lost my metadata on 1000+ images while crashing every half-hour)
>and wont do version control when Shop saves the same image as PSD.

I agree about the lack of versioning but not about the other
stuff. There was certainly a couple of early versions of
MediaPro 3 that had a lot of problems; I reported several
major bugs in version 3.01 that crashed it regularly. But I
have no stability issues at all with the current release
(3.11) and have never lost information. I have over 20k
images in the database. It's also pretty quick even on my
modest Sempron 2300+ based PC.

>Any suggestions? PC only please. Linux software will work, too.

You could look at IdImager, which has much better versioning
than MediaPro. I can't live with its GUI but I guess that's
a matter of taste.

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John Bean

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Peter - 16 Aug 2006 00:48 GMT

>>So far the closest one I've found is iView MediaPro, but it's buggy as
>>hell
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> images in the database. It's also pretty quick even on my
> modest Sempron 2300+ based PC.

I tried latest 3.11, and it still crashes whenever I try to merge my
catalogs. Also it wont auto-rotate RAWs, older versions had no problems
doing it. Highly annoying.

>>Any suggestions? PC only please. Linux software will work, too.
>
> You could look at IdImager, which has much better versioning
> than MediaPro. I can't live with its GUI but I guess that's
> a matter of taste.

I downloaded the personal edition trial, and have to agree about GUI. Close
to unusable.

I also checked out Lightroom - really slow. Also tried Extensis Portfolio
and didnt like it at all.

Guess I'm out of choices ;-P

Peter

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John Bean - 16 Aug 2006 11:03 GMT

>I tried latest 3.11, and it still crashes whenever I try to merge my
>catalogs. Also it wont auto-rotate RAWs, older versions had no problems
>doing it. Highly annoying.

I can imagine. I've never found a need to merge individual
catalogs so I can't comment on that one, but I understand
there's a maximum catalog size (file size, not image count)
that might be causing you grief when you attempt to merge. I
can't remember the magic number but iView support will tell
you.

My raw files work just fine. After thinking about your
described symptoms (crashes, lost metadata) your problems
could be with Quicktime rather than MediaPro itself. I had
*a lot* of lockups and other general instabilities with
version MediaPro 3.x that never happened with 2.x until I
upgraded Quicktime to the latest version - and all the
problems vanished. Definitely worth looking at, and strongly
recommended - later versions of MediaPro work (sort of) with
old versions of Quicktime but it's an unstable relationship.

>Guess I'm out of choices ;-P

I think MediaPro is about as good as it gets for personal
use. If it doesn't hack it then you really are out of
options.

Signature

John Bean

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Chris Dubea - 16 Aug 2006 15:26 GMT

>I tried latest 3.11, and it still crashes whenever I try to merge my
>catalogs. Also it wont auto-rotate RAWs, older versions had no problems
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
>Peter

Have you had a look at iMatch? It's nothing if not stable. The UI
isn't the most glamorous in the world, but iMatch is very powerful and
well supported.

www.photools.com

Good luck,
===========================================================================
Chris

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VK - 17 Aug 2006 17:06 GMT

> Have you had a look at iMatch? It's nothing if not stable. The UI
> isn't the most glamorous in the world, but iMatch is very powerful and
> well supported.

Another vote for Imatch. The category approach is very powerful and
allows excellent indexing of images, as well as very powerful search
functionality. And very stable.

Vandit

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cjcampbell - 15 Aug 2006 10:34 GMT

> Does it exist?
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> (already lost my metadata on 1000+ images while crashing every half-hour)
> and wont do version control when Shop saves the same image as PSD.

Gee, until I read that last post I was going to suggest iView MediaPro.
The problem you describe sounds like a corrupted catalog file. If you
shut down while saving the catalog and part of the catalog is on an
external disk, it appears that iView will crash every time it is
restarted until you can re-connect to the original disk and then start
it. Personally, I would prefer to build a new catalog and not shut off
the computer while iView is writing.

Does Proshooters make a Win version of their cataloging software?

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Ole Larsen - 16 Aug 2006 01:03 GMT

Peter skrev:

> Does it exist?
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Peter

Photostation perhaps?

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Med venlig hilsen, Ole Larsen.
New Images And Design, aug. 2006
http://Olelarsen.eu/
http://home.tiscali.dk/muggler

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