General state of digital asset management software
Hi Guys (non gender specific term):
I wanted to start a general discussion about the state of digital asset management software today.
Let me start by saying, I have needs! Serious needs. No longer can my collection of images be stored on a single hard drive. Last time I did that, it costs over $2,000 to get the data back (ouch).
I work in a single person company with a reasonable cash flow. Tools makes me competitive beyond my number of one person. So I invest heavily. As a matter of fact, it is quite common for me to purchase every piece of software in the competitive landscape if given enough of a reason. I love this stuff too.
So here is my assessment of the DAM field right now. Please feel free to disagree with me (that means you Skylum). I choose to start this discussion here for a reason. A good one.
Here are the products I use in this field.
1. Luminar 3.
2. On1 Photography
3. Lightroom 5.7 (no subscription)
4. Capture 1
5. AcdSee 3 (do not even bother)
6. Just about every $120 app the Mac store peddles.
7. Finder
All software is current, except Lightroom.
The Winner? Finder! Honest. Kind of! I have to scour a disk array for anything. Everything! And since keywording is a joke, so is Search! Yeah, I know Finder does not have a developer attached, but several are just a click away. Some of them, Luminar 2018, will even load fast enough to keep your mind from wandering.
My best organizational tool is my naming convention for my directory structures (name of area - date). Simple and so far faster than anything else.
Right now I have a mission to find all sorts of very specific landscape shots over 150 directories with at least 5 gb of files in every one. Some much more than that. NONE OF THESE DAMS CAN DO THIS.
Note: Each of them can supply part of the answer, not the whole thing. On1 will load the directories fastest of every one of these. Very impressive, but once you go to edit the image, get out the calendar for timing, you are going to be here for a while. That means instead of finding 20 suitable images and processing them, I get three done. The rest of the time the machine is locked up and I am at a beach ball party. Honestly!
Can Luminar 3 handle this any better? No! And what good would it do if I cannot even tell what Image I am working with. You can't go into "Info" every time to tell the file name. The developers know this. This is nothing new and they know they absolutely need this feature if they are ever going to get that DAM off the ground. That gives you a good idea of how far they have to go just to get to the starting line. In the real world. The one that contains all of my images.
Lightroom? No! Slower than a turtle. But I still like it. Finder is way faster. Good developer, the others are racing by it now.
Capture 1? No and I cannot even find a grid screen where you look at all the images in the directory in a grid, not as a strip. Strips do not work for me. And really Capture 1 strikes me as more of a developer, not a DAM. No speed here. I like it but I think this represents where we have been not necessary where we are going.
As far as the $10 apps go, you get what you pay for. Some are nice, none work well. Most are annoying.
AcdSee 3. Complete waste of code. Not as serious effort and one that makes me wonder if they are just trying to skin the unwary consumer and then hope they can keep the money. Disgrace! Utter and complete.
So what do I do? I use On1 for now. It is the best, but they have not sealed the deal my any means. I did get off of Lightroom. That is big in itself. Finder in many ways is faster, although the way On 1 reads the little .jpg in the .raw file is impressive. Wow! Very usable! Scanning directories that contain images that are .jpgs is slower. Usually when I find an image I like, I open it in Finder and move it to the directory I want and then deal with it there and then use the DAM to go look for more. Otherwise things are just way toooo slow!
My disk array is a Synology DS418Play. Highly recommended. Note to everyone: Stay the hell away from Drobo. They are NOT TRUSTWORTHY. You will lose data.
The 418Play is fast and a very nice media server. It hangs right off the router and is ALWAYS available. I love that. Sooner or later most people will end up here. It might be a while, but pictures add up,
The DAM field is exciting and currently wide open. No one has a killer app yet. Everyone is slow! Lots of features are missing. Everything is frustrating right now. At least we have some code to begin to play with, but solutions are still off in the distance.
No matter what any one says, no matter how nice they state it!
Jutst my two cents!
-Tim, out!
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Good topic and assessment. I am with On1 tentatively also for same reasons. Waiting on Luminar altho it is on my system.
Instead of Finder I hedge my bets with Photos as my DAM and import machine. Fast. Reliable. Albums, keywords, killer AI search and works on Mac, iPad, iPhone.
Easily cull with a Photos smart album (delete all non favorites for a day of shooting.). Fast group export of RAW keepers to Google drive catalogued by On1. Keywords don't seem to follow from Photos tho. Use camera assigned file name as cross link between ON1 and Photos in case I need to retrieve a RAW original (never needed to tho as ON1 has been good about non-destructive editing) Photos give me cross device access and culling new shoots when traveling. Of course Photos has cloud backup, plus time machine and google drive within ON1 and I am ok with backup IMHO. Photos keeps original RAW files safely.
I think Capture One, On1 and Luminar 3 (distantly), in that order capture the sweet spots at the present time for an all in one photo package. On1 photos extension has a remarkable new trait of retaining basic edit history in roundtrips from Photos. But it is a tedious using an extension one by one for images.
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To the developers of Luminar 3.
Thank you. I know you are trying hard. I know this is not easy. It actually makes me respect Adobe a little bit more and hate them all the more for putting us through this.
Please keep up the effort. I may not buy your next iteration only because I know how much there is to do yet. If you are nice to me, I probably will buy it. I am a soft touch.
I know this pace is not what you expected, so what. We are interested in a stable, long term solution. If it takes more time, so be it. Please deliver a first rate solution so we can sing your praises. And you know we will, if you deliver.
Besides if you stopped now, it would be a waste of a sh(t load of money.
The landscape is changing and fast. I publish books and sell them all over the world. Music theory books. My first love. On that I am very successful.
Affinity Software is setting a very high bar right now and they just released a desktop publishing solution to rival InDesign, my all time favorite application. I have a business card project in it right now. Not perfect, but quite exciting. My environment is setting up quite nicely. I have lots of applications that play nice together and make me a very powerful consultant. One that is not available at this time (no selling here).
But my Digital Asset Manager is way missing. WAY MISSING. And I need it to complete my otherwise very workable solutions.
I think you guys have a promising code base. That 's why I started this thread here. It's not there yet, but your technologies are something I often run problematic image files through. Just to see how it handles them. Sometimes well.
Please keep going, and practice integrity at every turn. I know you are now. If you can deliver on your vision, trust me, we will see it. And talk about it.
Please deliver it. Please.
Tim G.
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I have tried them all looking for a replacement for Lightroom, I then figured out that the $10.00 a month is really not a bad deal when compared to annual upgrades on other software and renewed my subscription. I then tried the free Capture One Fuji Express and liked it so much I upgraded to the Fuji Pro Version on sale. I think that Capture One is the best one, I have Luminar 3 and just grew tired of bugs and omissions and quit using it. Since my time with Capture One I have found a home and do not use my LR subscription any longer. The tutorial videos are great also.
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I am a long time Capture One Pro user, and I'm currently looking over the fence.
While I do agree that C1P holds the crown in image quality, the application does not evolve at all, yet every year an expensive upgrade is released, with only few minor additions or changes...
The new kids on the block, and particularly Luminar seem to have a fresh new take on photo editing and browsing. I do agree that Luminar still has many gaps, but the results I am getting from Luminar are often more pleasing to me than what I get from C1P, with fewer manipulations.
I have tried ON1 and Exposure, and both have ended up in my thrash. Both for performance issues, and ON1 particularly for it's lack of image quality.
Performance is a thorn in my eye with Luminar too, I often need to push out a few hundred images in less than a day. And there is no decent ingest and export workflow. So for my job I currently stick with C1P.
For Family shots however, I'm liking Luminar a whole lot.
#Jerry, I'm intrigued by your Photos workflow, would you care to elaborate how you've set this up ? I'd love to have all my family pictures available on all our devices... did I read correctly that you use Photos as your photo ingest tool ?
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@Peter, I do not use Photos at all, I am at this time very happy with C1 Fuji Pro, if I were not using it I would stick with LR Classic. I do not much interest or faith in Luminar, I just grew weary of all the issues, it just in my opinion was not ready for release. I just want mature software and do not the patience to wait for a product to catch up. If one wants to stay current an annual upgrade is probably necessary for all software. If you like Luminar I would suggest using LR Classic and use the Flex Plugin, I think it would probably work even if your LR subscription did not renew. LR Classic is probably one of the best values out there. I guess I just enjoy the traditional method of editing over the fresh approach of Luminar. I currently have an active subscription of LR Classic, Luminar 3, Luminar Flex, Raw Power, ON1, and of course Photos and I prefer C1 Fuji Pro over all of them. If you like Aperture perhaps give Raw Power a try, it is written by the former team leader that developed Aperture, it is in the early stages but I think has a lot of potential.
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Peter:
Re Photos/Luminar workflow:
Importing:
- Pics taken by iPhone or iPad automatically migrate to the cloud and are accessible by the iPhone, iPad and Mac via internet connection. Takes a little while to reach across devices, but OK. So backup starts early in the process.
- Pics on SD card are imported by Card Reader attached to Mac or iPad. The Photos app detects the SD card and imports automatically.
I use iPad while traveling. When I get home they have usually automatically migrated to the cloud and are available on the Mac in Photos. I may do culling on the iPad while traveling if I have the inclination. The cloud reflects the culling over time.
SD card to Mac has an extra step: The Mac shows the contents of the SD card and you select some or all to be imported to the Photos library. No big deal. I usually do all.Culling
- First pass I Favorite anything I may want to keep (select the Heart, or hit period key). I do these in large selections not just one-by-one so it is pretty fast.
- I have a "Culling" smart album and select for capture date(s) and NOT Favorite. I quickly scan the rejects for mistakes and then do a mass delete of the smart album contents.
- Final culling pass is much more severe by light edit, crop, pixel peep. Unfavorite losers and repeat above step.
- Add keywords, descriptions, albums on mass basis
Finish Editing
I oould use Luminar Flex or ON1 extensions, but don't because the one-by-one round trips are slower (as opposed to mass exports to standalone editor). Also for repeated trips, while ON1 now retains a basic edit history and works with the RAW original in the Photos data base Luminar does not as repeat editing is with JPEG files.
I add a keyword "Luminar" or "ON1" in Photos. Select for that by capture date(s) and use File, Export Original to the chosen standalone editor. I export the selected files to a Google Drive folder which is catalogued by ON1 and provides me another level of backup over iCloud. I don't know if Luminar can do this.
I never change the in-camera file name so I have a common link between Photos and Luminar/ON1. Also Photos always retains the RAW original (albeit without edit history) so that is a comfort.
I find that Photos DAM is fast, reliable, backed up well on iCloud and with Time Machine. All a quality step well above the others. Downside is the proprietary library. But until the others get better that is where my home base will be. Photos AI search is remarkable and a world away from the Luminar and On1.
So bottom line only my very best highly edited keepers are kept in standalone editors, but backed up in original form on Photos.
Hope this helps.
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Has anybody reakised that Skylum havetaken a step back with the DAM functionality? I have been unable to create sub-folders in Albums (sub-albums) since upgrading to Ver 3.1.2. After 2 days of being totally messed around by Skylum Support (delete Luninar, re-install, try this, try that), I get the email below. Effectiveley all my work creating sub-albums amd (sub-sub-albums) has been a complete waste, days of work up the spout. Aftre I was happy with the performance inprovements in ver. 3.1.1, I decided to delete Lightroom, which I had only been using as a DAM. Now because Skylum seem to have decided that implementing tjeir own DAM is in the too difficult box, I have to start all over and I am furious.
EMAIL FROM SKYLUM SUPPORT
Hi Phil,
Please note that in the latest update you can no longer create subfolders in Albums. You can only create subfolders in Folders.
Albums are not located on your drive, this is just a way of grouping your photos inside Luminar, so you can't open Albums in Finder.
However, 'Folders' are in your file system and you can see them in Finder and create subfolders inside them: http://prntscr.com/od50mu
Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.
Cheers!
________________
Kirill
Skylum Support Team
Great Photography Differently
Web: www.skylum.com
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Tim,
Sounds like you need a DAM independent of the editing suite. There are several options out there. I use Photo Supreme. It's a real DAM and I can find images based on an endless combination of key words, locations whatever. It even supports tree based key-wording so I can find birds, or ducks, or mallards. Of course I can also refine to say only images taken in July in Chengdu. Now of course you have to do your own key wording but it has a lot of very strong tools to support that. It also round trips to LR, Photos and pretty much every other editor out there so I can open my image folders in Photos and us Photos very nice AI face recognition and then have those keywords nicely managed back in Photo Supreme. The Geo support is excellent in Photo Supreme and ties in with google maps and all the associated reverse geo look up etc.
I know Skylum is working on DAM, well they promised it to us a couple years ago now, and I'm sure they will get there eventually. As an ex heavy Aperture user I eventually had to bite the bullet and move to something new. For me a dedicated DAM, like Photo Supreme, and the ability to jump straight from there to Luminar, or now Flex, or photoshop, or DXOPhotoLab, or ...., is proving to be the best solution for me for now. As time progresses I'm finding I'm clicking to launch Luminar far more than any of my other packages (I even have a subscription for the full CS but much prefer Luminar) but unless the Luminar DAM is top notch I'll probably stick with the separate DAM. Frankly it a game changer to be able to have one asset manager and then just click the tool bar to say open this in Luminar or whatever.
Don't take this as a ringing endorsement for Photo Supreme, it's good but it has it's quirks as any software does. But take a look at the separate DAM option, it might address a number of the points you made.
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Paul Barnard,
I have been a user of IDImager/PhotoSupreme for some fifteen years of shooting JPGs. Having recently obtained my first DSLR, I would like to keep my workflow centered around PhotoSupreme, but now I need to shell out to a RAW processor and back, not to mention learning RAW processing. I am curious to know how this is working for you with Luminar 3/Flex? Can you merely set Flex as an External Application in PSu's Other Settings and have it work for you?
I would be very grateful for any information you could provide.
Edit: Just realized this was in a Mac forum and I'm W10, but would still like to know.
Best,
Paul Harris
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What happened to the D.A.M. in Luminar 4??
Is it simply there and I haven't found it?
Without a digital asset manager I'll have to leave Luminar as it will be just another photo processor
much like Topaz. No professional tool to replace Lightroom.
I hope it's user error and not a deletion on Skylum's part.
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