Posted by Jim DeWitt on February 4, 2016 at 12:38 PM
Since version 1, I have used Apple's Aperture Digital Asset Management application to manage my photos. I like the tagging, labeling and work flow very much. Apple has End-of-Lifed Aperture. It barely works on Mac OS 10.10 and doesn't work at all on 10.11. And Apple no longer supports it. New cameras aren't supported, send a under through the Adobe DNG loop. I've kept my iMac at Mac OS 10.9, but the handwriting is on the wall. I need a new DAM tool.
I've evaluated Adobe Lightroom. Its tagging and labeling systems are inferior and it imposes a workflow on me that seems counterintuitive. Apple's replacement DAM, Photos, isn't worth talking about.
Is there an NPN member who has made the shift and has a recommendation?
I have been using an application called Photo Supreme for several years. It is a highly capable DAM, and has been very stable on my Windows machines. There is also a Mac version.
It has too many features to go into here, but here a few few...
Direct import from camera or other source
Highly Responsive Search
Multi Tab Browsing
Keyword tagging
Advanced GEO Tagging
Duplicate Detection
Share images with Flickr, Smugmug, Zenfolio, Picasaweb, FTP, EMail
The single user version for Mac is $99.00 US. There is also a multi-user network/server version. A thirty day trial is available.
There is also a lively User Forum, and the developer often posts there to help out.
Highly recommended.
--P
Posted by Ron Berchin on February 5, 2016 at 10:41 AM
Hard to offer suggestions when you aren't really specific about the limitations you find in Lightroom, and what about it that strikes you as counterintuitive ...it's likely that no single app will offer everything you're looking for. But I would look at photo mechanic, capture one pro and media pro ( the last two by phase one). I have found photo mechanic to be an excellent "front end" app for quick review and key wording, among other things, and capture one has made some serious inroads as a raw converter and now has excellent tools for cataloging and collections, etc. Also, phase one, the company that produces capture one also has an app called media pro that can work in combination with capture one and is essentially a DAM.
all of that said, I'd be interested to hear more about your workflow....I have found lighrooms use of keywords, especially when used with a controlled vocabulary, to be an efficient and flexible way to "tag" photographs. And while its labeling capabilities may be somewhat limiting (if this is a big issue for you, then you might want to look at Media Pro) I haven't found that to be a huge drawback to my workflow. My biggest complaint is that you can't have multiple catalogs open at the same time...which has pushed me closer to capture one pro, which has come a long way over the past couple of years.
ron
Discussion
2 repliesI've evaluated Adobe Lightroom. Its tagging and labeling systems are inferior and it imposes a workflow on me that seems counterintuitive. Apple's replacement DAM, Photos, isn't worth talking about.
Is there an NPN member who has made the shift and has a recommendation?
I have been using an application called Photo Supreme for several years. It is a highly capable DAM, and has been very stable on my Windows machines. There is also a Mac version.
It has too many features to go into here, but here a few few...
- Direct import from camera or other source
- Highly Responsive Search
- Multi Tab Browsing
- Keyword tagging
- Advanced GEO Tagging
- Duplicate Detection
- Share images with Flickr, Smugmug, Zenfolio, Picasaweb, FTP, EMail
- Dual Monitor Support
- Creative Commons support
- Face Detection
- Extensible metadata with Custom Fields
- Color Managed
- Supported file formats; 3FR, 3GP, ARW, AVI, BMP, BW, CEL, CR2, CRW, CUT, DCR, DIB, DNG, DOC, ERF, FAX, FFF, FLV, GIF, ICB, IIQ, JPE, JPEG, KDC, M2TS, MOS, MOV, MP4, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MRW, MTS, NEF, NRW, ORD, ORF, PCD, PDD, PDF, PEF, PIC, PNG, PPM, PSB, PSD, PSP, PSPIMAGE, RAF, RAW, RGB, RGBA, RLA, RLE, RPF, RW2, RWL, SGI, SR2, SRF, SRW, SWF, TIF, TIFF, TTF, VDA, WIN, WMV, X3F
The single user version for Mac is $99.00 US. There is also a multi-user network/server version. A thirty day trial is available.In addition, Photo Supreme can manage any other file extension that you need.
There is also a lively User Forum, and the developer often posts there to help out.
Highly recommended.
--P
all of that said, I'd be interested to hear more about your workflow....I have found lighrooms use of keywords, especially when used with a controlled vocabulary, to be an efficient and flexible way to "tag" photographs. And while its labeling capabilities may be somewhat limiting (if this is a big issue for you, then you might want to look at Media Pro) I haven't found that to be a huge drawback to my workflow. My biggest complaint is that you can't have multiple catalogs open at the same time...which has pushed me closer to capture one pro, which has come a long way over the past couple of years.
ron