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DAM DAM DAM ???
- Thread starter Reality4711
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In Lr there are collections and smart collections. Albums need not apply. A image file does not know or care about how many collections or smart collections point to them. The image files do not track that. It is the Lr catalog that knows and tracks those links.
It is aa lame app like the iPhoto it replaces. It is OK for casual editing of images made on IOS devices. It is nowhere near a replacement for Aperture.
I'll continue to use aperture until it's no longer an option. Switched to Aperture 3 from Lightroom 4 a couple of years ago and dreading the thought that I'll have to move back. I sincerely hope that Apple Photos will be up to scratch by the time Aperture dies completely, but I realise it's wishful thinking. 
I'll continue to use aperture until it's no longer an option. Switched to Aperture 3 from Lightroom 4 a couple of years ago and dreading the thought that I'll have to move back. I sincerely hope that Apple Photos will be up to scratch by the time Aperture dies completely, but I realise it's wishful thinking.
Going back to go forward.
I've gone back to PS 5 on Yosemite and will now hope for a forward - to go forward situation .
It really is a sorry mess as far as I am concerned. I always new that retirement would force me to finish the upgrade cycle and have always planned to do it gracefully. This particular set of circumstance is a small perfect storm of mismatch and indecision.
I suppose I would feel comfortable with CS5 on El Capitan so that a faster OS X can get CS5 up to speed but I suppose something like the Roxio Toast software suite might come to the rescue or Affinity plus some unknown DAM. I simply do not have an idea of what direction I will finally take. I am however very glad that my Photography business is not caught in the malaise. As a one man show taking my mind off actually taking the pictures - not good. Mind you at least I could have spent my way out.
Regards
Sharkey
So, are you saying you just dump all of your photos into one large folder and rely solely on Tags to organize them?
I'm still trying to decide what to do, going forward.
It's been suggested to me, that whatever DAM solution I use I should indeed use tags (aka labels) and smart-albums (aka collections). This way the data is attached to the photo and not the DAM, making future moves easier.
I'd still organise in to physical folders (aka directories) probably either YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD (like Lightroom).
Problem is:
* I don't like iPhoto/Photos as DAM is very limiting as is referenced file support.
* I don't like Lightroom due to a) subscription policy to get full package and b) UI is very 80's - ugly and non-customisable. I like full-screen and HUD's! c) RAW+JPEG badly supported. d) iDevice integration poor.
* I don't like Capture One due to a) price, b) DAM is more limited and difficult to use.
* I DO like Aperture. Hmm.
* I quite like Mylio but have a Pentax SLR which isn't supported!
* I like Pixelmator and Affinity Photo but neither have DAM.
It seem DAM/editing for the amateur photographer is really not well catered for any more.
This is not the case. Some tag information can be written to the raw file, but not all. The rest of the information will be stored in the DAM's library / catalogue.
In Lightroom, edits and metadata are saved in the catalogue by default. You can choose for Lightroom to save them in an XMP sidecar file if you prefer. You may prefer this option as it you can keep the tag information close to the original file.
Aperture always saves any new information you add in the library by default. When you export a raw file (File > Export > Original) you have 3 metadata options:
1) Don't include IPTC
2) Include IPTC
3) Create IPTC4XMP sidecar file.
In Aperture, if you give a raw file a star rating and a colour label, export a duplicate of the raw file with "Include IPTC", and reimport. When you reimport it, only the star rating will remain. The colour label will be gone.
I'm not an expert on this subject, so can't give a thorough description of what can be written to the file and what cannot. I'm just trying to help explain that using tags is not a complete solution. It looks to me like the IPTC standard can perhaps be written to the raw file, but that other metadata cannot be? Also, using only tags and smart albums could quickly become a very limiting way to manage a large photo library.
One solution is to convert your raw files to DNG. DNG files do let you save metadata changes to the file itself, however there are other factors to consider which mean this probably won't suit everyone.
@swordio777 good explanation. As I say, I'm still researching and deciding. I think I have no choice but to go with Lightroom, but I don't like it.
My latest investigations have found that:
Aperture -> Capture One. Almost all of my edits (basic adjustments) and crops imported perfectly.
Aperture -> Lightroom. Import really is the most basic they thought they could get away with. It does helpfully create a smart collection to tell me I have 24,000 images to manually edit.
My latest investigations have found that:
Aperture -> Capture One. Almost all of my edits (basic adjustments) and crops imported perfectly.
Aperture -> Lightroom. Import really is the most basic they thought they could get away with. It does helpfully create a smart collection to tell me I have 24,000 images to manually edit.
I know exactly what you mean. I moved away from lightroom4 three years ago and not looking forward to moving back. Unfortunately, there is no single solution that ticks every box at the moment.
As you said, Lightroom is the closest to an all-in-one solution and I definitely think it will suit 99% of photographers.
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that adobe is switching over to a software rental model. By the time Lr7 comes out, it might not be possible to buy the app outright any more. If that happens, you either have to pay the monthly rental fee, or you're back to where we're standing now.
(For the record - I'm not completely against the rental option, but I know a lot of others are. It's just another thing to weigh up).
Cheers.
I don't think LR 6 is an option because they don't give you the full program. LR 6 also doesn't work with the iPad App, which would be handy for some things - although I'd much rather they dropped iPad editing and added tagging/keywording instead!
I'm still really struggling with the interface. I'm sort of over the ugliness of it all, but the lack of a full-screen mode with HUD's or any ability to detach control panels is giving me real problems - all that looking from far left to far right on a 27" iMac. I just can't get comfortable with the layout.
BTW Adobe have an offer of £7/month for the next year if you sign up by the end of august.
My photography is simply for fun. And I'm just not sure if it'll continue to be fun using Lightroom.
Decisions, decisions...
I'm still really struggling with the interface. I'm sort of over the ugliness of it all, but the lack of a full-screen mode with HUD's or any ability to detach control panels is giving me real problems - all that looking from far left to far right on a 27" iMac. I just can't get comfortable with the layout.
BTW Adobe have an offer of £7/month for the next year if you sign up by the end of august.
My photography is simply for fun. And I'm just not sure if it'll continue to be fun using Lightroom.
Decisions, decisions...
We need to be careful here; using "tags" is a bit of a misnomer (not people's fault; the naming conventions are a mess)
With images the proper name would be keywords; "tags" more properly refers to the tag ID and definition used by IPTC to store those keywords, which are themselves text (IPTC no. 25 I believe). "Tags" are also what OS X uses to refer to system tags on any file, not just image files, and these are stored in the filesystem's extended attributes. Similar concept, but VERY different.
Lr ALWAYS saves keyword metadata in its catalog. You have the option of writing (saving) that metadata to images in addition to that, not as an alternative to that. That info is stored in the image if it's say a TIFF or JPEG or DNG; it's stored as an XMP sidecar if it is a non-DNG RAW. Lr conforms to all the exif/IPTC conventions as far as storing metadata, and was the actual originator of the XMP standard to store metadata, which is sort of the modern ISO standard update to the IPTC system.
There is very little that can't be written into metadata and XMP. Indeed, with RAW files there is all kinds of stuff that's proprietary. They are sorta like containers, containing metadata and even JPEG previews.
But back to keywords. They are pretty much universal in that the IPTC has been using them for at least a couple decades, and most everything can read them. It was the press who needed that, as well as all the other IPTC data. It's super useful for passing info around, since you cannot do that with your Aperture or Lr databases. Take a photo of Messi scoring, you need that info with his name, number, team, location, and possibly keywords, caption, etc all available quickly and in a form your editors can use. Hence IPTC. A problem, however, is that not all applications can deal with hierarchical keywords.
If you think about it, your folders are simply a way to assign exclusive bits of info to your files. That's how a computer sees them. The path is really the same thing as a string of keywords, where order matters: "~/Pictures/2015/Vacation/Cancun/Fred" is the same as the keyword hieararch "~>Pictures>2015>Vacation>Cancun>Fred." And that would be the same as a folder hierarchy seen in Lr, or project/folder/album in Aperture. Info wise. If the hierarchy is flattened, it becomes conjunctive, at least in terms of finding things, although you lose the info the hierarchy imparts (crane as a subset of bird is more informative than "crane" and "bird" in the situation where you have a shot of a pelican keyworded "crane, bird" (bird>crane means crane the bird; bird, crane means crane and bird).
Using keywords, thus, can impart all your virtual organization to the files themselves. As well as any information that can be described as text. Indeed, it's what is recommended by Apple for importing the info about star ratings into Photos from iPhoto. You can do the same with labels, picks, etc etc etc.
@robgendreau - thanks for clarifying. As I said, I'm definitely no expert on this subject.
So Lightroom cannot write IPTC data to a (non-DNG) raw file at all? Can other raw convertors? I used to believe that the raw file was completely fixed & that all edits (including metadata changes) simply happened to the catalogue / XMP file. However my recent experience of exporting a raw file from Aperture suggests some data (a star rating in this case) can be added to the raw file.
Is it the case that things which fall under ITPC (such as keywords) can be written to a raw file while other edits (such as changes to exposure, white balance or contrast) cannot?
Cheers.
So Lightroom cannot write IPTC data to a (non-DNG) raw file at all? Can other raw convertors? I used to believe that the raw file was completely fixed & that all edits (including metadata changes) simply happened to the catalogue / XMP file. However my recent experience of exporting a raw file from Aperture suggests some data (a star rating in this case) can be added to the raw file.
Is it the case that things which fall under ITPC (such as keywords) can be written to a raw file while other edits (such as changes to exposure, white balance or contrast) cannot?
Cheers.
I just stumbled across a program call darktable. I just started playing with it, has anyone tried it?
http://www.darktable.org/install/
http://www.darktable.org/install/
There are other converters that can write to tiff based raw's. Aperture and C1 as examples. I'm not sure who uses tiff based raws and who does not. I do know Fuji XTrans raws cannot be written to by either Aperture or C1.
If a raw file cannot be written to, my experience means nothing can be written to it. The app does not support writing to the file type. Some will let you know, some (Photo Supreme) will not.
I would not recommend basing a DAM decision on writing to raw capability. We change systems more often than DAM. This is an issue for anyone shooting raw and splitting a catalog from a develop app. I use LR for DAM and C1 for Develop. Works fine but little things like flagging or rating, which would help me on the C1 side, do not display without sidecars, which I abhor. It's a pain as excellent DAM tools available in LR like the Compare view are in my pre-C1 workflow. I just have to go by file names.
If I understand you correctly, the RAWs you are referring to include Foveon's. Not too many others; definitely outliers.
I actually like XMP sidecars; they are very useful to transfer info from place to place without having to move the image files. Not part of their original use, in many cases, but handy. OTOH, they can be a pain if they get lost; I prefer DNGs in other situations where the info is enclosed in the file.
You can transfer the flagging and rating info from and to C1P by using keywords for that instead of the flags or rating themselves. A good DAM should be able to filter or use smart searches to find and aggregate those about as easily as their own flags and ratings.
I should have mentioned it, Fuji XTrans files are not tiff based. Canon, Nikon and Oly are fine. Don't know about others.
A file is a file; there's no reason something can't write to a RAW, or any file.
Most applications choose not to, however, such as Lr.
But there are exceptions. Lr will rewrite exif within the RAW file if you change the creation date, as will other applications. A lot of GPS applications will rewrite RAW when geolocating an image. Even my Olympus iPhone app will do that. Lr might. One reason for this is that since the data is stored there it would conflict with something only written to XMP; a file can't have two creation dates or locations.
As I noted, Lr writes tons of IPTC data to non-DNGs, JPEGs being the most common example.
Aperture will write changes into RAW if you choose that option when exporting an original. But note the word EXPORT; it's creating a copy. So that leaves your original untouched. And in that case it exports IPTC data, which does not include image adjustments (there are no IPTC tags for that info). And BTW, the rating is written to XMP; ratings are also not part of IPTC (other applications may not recognize it).
So what do you all think of the Roxio 14 Pro offering.
Corel Draw + Toast etc...
A big all encompassing package.
I have no experience of the modern Corel Photographic offering. I know it includes a browser of some sorts and one or two of my Windows abusers swear (+) by it.
Is this a way to go? Good upgrade price at the moment but does it cut the mustard with 75Mb image files and an ever growing library?
Your thoughts Appreciated
Sharkey
Corel Draw + Toast etc...
A big all encompassing package.
I have no experience of the modern Corel Photographic offering. I know it includes a browser of some sorts and one or two of my Windows abusers swear (+) by it.
Is this a way to go? Good upgrade price at the moment but does it cut the mustard with 75Mb image files and an ever growing library?
Your thoughts Appreciated
Sharkey
Well, I don't believe Corel Draw even runs on a Mac. And although you could run it in a virtual machine or bootcamp, why? there are good vector applications for Mac OS. Toast is OK I guess, although I wonder what justifies upgrades these days when it's harder to find stuff that even plays DVDs or CDs.
I have used Corel's AfterShot, and it's pretty good. Has some features of both a browser and cataloger. I've had decidedly mixed experiences with Corel and Mac support, but it's about $35 so pretty cheap. Demo it.
Corel built itself by buying software companies cheap and milking them for cash. It's a tight run ship and investment is kept tight. Not saying the software won't do the job you need done but don't count on updates until they're under so much market stress they have no alternative but to update.
Sorry "Corel Draw" was not meant to be in there.
Aftershot Pro is the software included in the 14 upgrade. On its own it is about the same price as the whole package at the moment.
So what is the feeling on running "Aftershot Pro"?
I remember "Printshop Pro" from long long ago which was Corel/Roxio and I think Roxio had its own Photo software as well so the history is there. Question is does it do the the all round job well enough to replace CS5 on El Kapitan??