This is going to sound like an Aperture replacement question, but any similarity with an application living or dead is purely coincidental.
I want to get back into doing something with my photos so can anyone recommend a photo library management program with the following features:
* Uses a reference library, as my photos are on an external hard disk
* Will at least cache thumbnails for 'offline' grouping and playing with metadata, better still will cache preview images for review
* On import will create some form of collection based on the folder name, with the photos in subfolders matching the way they are stored on disk
* It is not too expensive
* And it can run on Mojave, as I currently still use that for 32 bit support but it may change soon
The way I have my photos organized is all my raw files go on a partition on an external hard drive in the form:
/Volumes/Photographs/<year>/<month>/<date - situation>/<some sort of organizational folder>/<*.the photos!>
That works best for me for storage, but I want to be able to manage, group, and view them so need a suitable application. I do not care about editing features as I can do all that in Affinity Photo. Unfortunately this rules out a lot of possible applications on cost grounds, because the library management options are inseparable from editing features that make up the majority of the £100+ prices.
And while I able to pay a small price, I am not a professional. I have only ever sold one photo, by accident, in 2007. And I think I only charged whatever it cost to have the print made anyway. So I cannot afford the cost of the high end and subscription options.
Photos should be the obvious options, but though it works offline if you try and view an image, it also gives an error that it cannot find the original every time and I cannot see a way to stop that. It also does not have basic features like star ratings.
Lightroom might have been worth it, though I hated its way of working when it launches and have no idea if it has improved, but the subscription rules it out.
I tried the two main open source options, but digikam looks ugly and more importantly does not work with referenced libraries. darktable looks pretty good for a platform agnostic U.I., and though it lacks previews it was almost good enough. But it groups imports collections by "film roll," which is the full file path. Whil everything else is configurable with long lines of variables in its settings, this cannot be changed. And that is despite being able to change the collection view to use path, rendering "film roll" without any distinct meaning.
I have not tried Raw Power as it is a normal paid app on the App Store, but I get the impression it is just a recreation of the editing features of Aperture but relies on Photos for the organization.
Aperture seems the best option for me, as I was gifted a copy long ago and it is still runs on Mojave, but it makes no sense to start using that again when it is long since dead and will just be another thing holding me back from upgrading. It seems odd no one has tried to copy the interface though as, at least for me, it was perfectly structured.
There does seem to be many reasonably priced apps available but from reading web sites none seem to meet my requirement, but it is also so overwhelming to know where to start with trials. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I want to get back into doing something with my photos so can anyone recommend a photo library management program with the following features:
* Uses a reference library, as my photos are on an external hard disk
* Will at least cache thumbnails for 'offline' grouping and playing with metadata, better still will cache preview images for review
* On import will create some form of collection based on the folder name, with the photos in subfolders matching the way they are stored on disk
* It is not too expensive
* And it can run on Mojave, as I currently still use that for 32 bit support but it may change soon
The way I have my photos organized is all my raw files go on a partition on an external hard drive in the form:
/Volumes/Photographs/<year>/<month>/<date - situation>/<some sort of organizational folder>/<*.the photos!>
That works best for me for storage, but I want to be able to manage, group, and view them so need a suitable application. I do not care about editing features as I can do all that in Affinity Photo. Unfortunately this rules out a lot of possible applications on cost grounds, because the library management options are inseparable from editing features that make up the majority of the £100+ prices.
And while I able to pay a small price, I am not a professional. I have only ever sold one photo, by accident, in 2007. And I think I only charged whatever it cost to have the print made anyway. So I cannot afford the cost of the high end and subscription options.
Photos should be the obvious options, but though it works offline if you try and view an image, it also gives an error that it cannot find the original every time and I cannot see a way to stop that. It also does not have basic features like star ratings.
Lightroom might have been worth it, though I hated its way of working when it launches and have no idea if it has improved, but the subscription rules it out.
I tried the two main open source options, but digikam looks ugly and more importantly does not work with referenced libraries. darktable looks pretty good for a platform agnostic U.I., and though it lacks previews it was almost good enough. But it groups imports collections by "film roll," which is the full file path. Whil everything else is configurable with long lines of variables in its settings, this cannot be changed. And that is despite being able to change the collection view to use path, rendering "film roll" without any distinct meaning.
I have not tried Raw Power as it is a normal paid app on the App Store, but I get the impression it is just a recreation of the editing features of Aperture but relies on Photos for the organization.
Aperture seems the best option for me, as I was gifted a copy long ago and it is still runs on Mojave, but it makes no sense to start using that again when it is long since dead and will just be another thing holding me back from upgrading. It seems odd no one has tried to copy the interface though as, at least for me, it was perfectly structured.
There does seem to be many reasonably priced apps available but from reading web sites none seem to meet my requirement, but it is also so overwhelming to know where to start with trials. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
. Kidding aside, you’ve discounted a lot of the ones I’d suggest. It’s really going to be (and I’m sure you knew this) a matter of narrowing down and juggling your priorities. It’s the organizational bits that can often add cost to an application as it’s more sophisticated than may be initially apparent. I use Capture One Pro (and I’m not a ”pro”) - it doesn’t meet your cost requirement but does everything else, I believe. You’d have to run an older version I think for Mojave but they provide downloads for those once you purchase a version-based “perpetual” license. “Perpetual” means you can run the version you purchase (or an earlier one) for as long as you’d care to. You don’t get free updates to the next major version (yearly). To know for sure whether it meets your requirements (aside from cost), you’d need to do a trial, which they offer. They have great learning YouTube videos.
