DAM software for Mac?

[Bill_Green]

What does everyone use for image cataloging on a Mac? Expression Media appears to be abandoned, Aperture takes way too much power to run efficiently and Lightroom is really more of a raw processor than catalog. What is left?

I process my images in a dedicated processor and that won't change.

Any recommendations?

 

[ustein]

I use Lightroom

 

[docmoore]

Lightroom is getting harder to beat.

I tried Extensis Portfolio but discovered it did not support RAW and was very slow in updating new camera models.

Lightroom has great catalog funtionality and will handle metadata fairly well... the ability to group pics on the fly makes it much more friendly than some of the other options.

I have no familiarity with Aperature and do not use LR to process my files as a rule but do love the ability to catalog, view and output as needed. It seems to be evolving into a very strong program.

Bob

 

[ustein]

Aperture has issues to support other RAW converters. E.g. drag&drop of RAW files does not really drop a RAW file but a JPEG preview instead (weird).

 

[kevinparis]

The way Aperture work is that it knows where your RAW file is and does an on the fly conversion whenever you look at an image. The converted image doesn't actually become a file until you output it, thus making it more efficient in terms of storage. Most of the power requirement of Aperture is in supporting the on the fly RAW conversion

If you are using another RAW convertor then the output from that is going to be a TIFF or JPG, which Aperture will happily import. But of course in the case of a TIFF file these files are going to be much larger.

Aa a DAM Aperture is pretty comprehensive

just my thoughts

K

 

[Jamesmd]

Aperture , and now , with new library features , more than ever .
It's worth giving a try .

Cheers

James

 

[Eoin]

Aperture has issues to support other RAW converters. E.g. drag&drop of RAW files does not really drop a RAW file but a JPEG preview instead (weird).

Drag and Drop from the Aperture Library does indeed product a high res Jpg. Depending on what you have photo preview size and photo preview quality set at in Aperture preferences will govern the size and quality of the dropped image.

However to utilise your raw images in another image processor aperture has settings in the preferences under the export tab, here you can specify the 3rd party application you wish to use, the file type to export, Tiff or PSD, 8 or 16bit, colour space and DPI.

Then if you right click on the image within Aperture you will have the option to edit the image in your other image processor and the results of your work with this image in the other app will be updated into your aperture library as a new tiff or psd.

To export a raw file from aperture, simply right click and select export, master and specify your folder destination.

Aperture IMO has the most functional DAM ability of any out there, no matter if you use referenced masters with your own directory structures or you entrust your images into the actual Aperture library. Once you discover the true power of smart albums, extensive keyword functions, ratings and metadata filters you'll discover you have complete ability to manage and filter an ever growing image database now and well into the future.

I've used Aperture since v1.0 and it's performance has always been dependent on Graphics card power and memory as well as system memory. Get these items right with Aperture and a couple of well chosen plugins, you should have a workflow environment and DAM database that will suffice for 99% of your needs.

The other 1% is simply right click the image and select edit with Photoshop CS4.

This is all of course dependent on if Aperture actually supports your camera raw image format, I've been lucky in this regard, others not so lucky and perhaps the single weakness I see in Aperture.

 

[kevinparis]

well put eoin

I think that Aperture is misunderstood by many people

K

 

[glenerrolrd]

When evaluating any type of software the most important step is getting the requirements right . The needs of a photojournalist are considerably different than those of an event,portrait or wedding photographer. Shooting for stock is the most difficult because it assumes that accessing any technically decent image has value.

I use Lightroom ..like most photographers we pick what seems best at the time. After that its a lot of work to change . Almost all my work is personal as I only do a few professional assignments a year. I shoot about 20-25K images a year . Because of the subjects I shoot....I go in short bursts of activity...like 10 days in Paris where I may take 1500-2000 images. In the winter I shoot surfing,kiteboarding etc in Florida then Spring Training for baseball. So you can see its pretty easy to organize folders by subject within year.

You could support my requirements with either Aperture or Lightroom and with modest effort build your own with Photo Mechanic,Capture One and Photoshop.

Ok here is my pitch for lightroom.

1. It has a significant advantage in market share verse Aperture (something like 3 or 4 to one ...Aperture doesn t run on a PC).

2. The training available for LR is exceptional and getting better.

3. LR is just easier to work with for a new user( if you started with Aperture you will of course not agree) .

4. LR has local area adjustments ....if you grew up in a darkroom you will understand this ..otherwise maybe just a preference item.

The only perfect answer is the one that fits your requirements.

 

[kevinparis]

fair comments roger - though i think Aperture 3 addresses point 4 with the new nondestructive brushes

K

 

[ustein]

>To export a raw file from aperture, simply right click and select export, master and specify your folder destination.

Compared to a simpe drag&drop to complicate (if you do it often).

>Aperture IMO has the most functional DAM ability of any out there

Very powerful indeed.

 

[Bob]

Would be nice if it supported more than one of the three cameras I shoot.
Meanwhile it is just pretty useless for me but I can see that it might be interesting for some. I really feel that the conflation of raw processor, photo editor, and DAM almost always disappoints.
-bob

 

[ustein]

I really feel that the conflation of raw processor, photo editor, and DAM almost always disappoints.
-bob

Depends what you mean by "disappoints". We need at least a raw processor and a DAM. A DAM without a good raw processor is annoying for me. Aperture 1 was the first app that got a balance of both that was useful. Now I use Lightroom and I would not like to be without it.

Even if I would prefer a different raw processor (e.g. C1, ...) the raw processor in LR is needed for fast image analysis.

Of course I always wish for improvements but in the end the way Aperture and Lightroom work is the way to go. For final editing I use Photoshop anyway.

 

[iiiNelson]

There really is no right or wrong answer. My personal preference is LR 2.x right now as it gets fairly frequent updates (5 or 6 last year,) offers native support for the cameras I own, and is the easiest to grasp for the way my brain works. I tried the demo for Aperture 2 before I bought LR 2.x and I liked it but Apple's lack of constant updates for non Canon and Nikon cameras was a deal breaker ultimately. You can't go wrong with either IMO but I suspect I will stay with Adobe as LR3 provides evolutionary improvements and sustained support in updates and 3rd party plugins.

 

[Bob]

Some camera formats are raw-converted best by one, sometimes by another.
There are several different tastes in tools for local adjustment, mine is photoshop, others like a simpler interface.
Operating system and other preview generation is another issue.

Over the past ten years, I have never been in the position where all my raw camera formats were supported by a single tool.

iMedia View USED to be pretty useful until it got swallowed by Microsoft.

If tools like Lightroom and Aperture provided a decent way to support other raw converters and there were a better standardized mechanism for preview production, there might me a lower frustration level for folks like me.

As involved as I am in standards...
I think that this is an area ripe for standardization.
Functional partitioning IMO would make a lot of things much better.

-bob

 

[dougpeterson]

+1 for Aperture > LR.

I process everything in C1 and bring the Processed images into Aperture for cataloging.

 

[jonoslack]

Well, of course it's all personal, and I understand that Aperture looks much slower than lightroom - but if you organise yourself (and it) correctly, it's a wonderful program.
The new brushes function work beautifully, and the retouch always was much better than lightroom.

I got very fed up with the lack of camera support (2 out of my cameras are not supported theoretically: EP1 and M9). So much so that I decided to move to Lightroom. I spent a month learning, and started converting my library (nearly 50,000 shots) . . . and at the end of it I realised that for me Aperture was just better, it was better for:
1. the tools (less fully featured, and less extensive, but more useful)
2. the cataloguing and interface
3. the actual raw processing (even the unsupported M9 seems to me to be better than in LR2 or LR3 beta).

Now with Aperture 3, it all seems snappier, and the new brushes tools are simply wonderful and wonderfully simple.

 

[Bill_Green]

Has anyone tried ACDSee?

Aperture is out because I don't think I have the power to run it. Lightroom is a possibility.

 

[Dale Allyn]

Interesting topic, and one which comes up in various forms from time to time. Jono points out that it's a personal choice and I agree, like OS, capture device, raw converter, etc... but at the risk of being accused of not reading the original post (I read it and all subsequent posts) I'll add my 2¢:

For my DAM on the Mac I love... wait for it... the Finder. Now please bear in mind that I don't often shoot events (though I'm not sure I'd change my flow if I did). But I still feel very comfortable using a hybrid of Seth Resnick's file naming process at the Finder level so that I can access any file (or event) via the software of my choice. I know that my process is probably too slow for some users (though I find it very fast because files are where I expect them to be), and I love the peace that comes from knowing that my backups will work, my duplicates will work, my software updates have no effect, etc.

I read, with interest and respect, the AA3 thread discussing updating libraries and such, which may take a day or more in order to do the software update. I felt bad for the participants who stated that the process took hours or days. But of course, I also accept that they make choices that work for their processes. For me... I would drink a tall glass of motor oil and ground glass before I'd endure the steps reminiscent of data recovery from a failed hard drive in order to migrate to new software version.

We each have preferences and comfort ranges, plus there may be cataloguing requirements most suitable for some tasks. In my case, all shoots are downloaded to a unique folder which has a name corresponding to the date, followed by the subject or job, inside a folder named "Pictures" at the Finder level. I visit the files via Capture One, Bridge, Photoshop, Preview, Spotlight, file uploaders on the web, etc. and it is convenient for my process.

The naming convention is: 20100217_Stephanie for a file containing images of Stephanie on February 17, 2010 (the parent folder). Child folders might separate Stephanie's images on the beach, modeling sportswear, etc., or the divisions could describe scenic landscape sections, etc. The files list in the proper chronological order in a list view on the Mac, and in my case I will not likely shoot two Stephanies (or two anythings) on a single date (though that is easily handled). If one was doing high school grad pics they would need to have unique names for it to work, which is not difficult if you understand databases (though not fun for some).

Obviously, style of shooting, number of shoots per day, personal preferences, etc., etc., factor in to one's choice, but as a guy who likes to keep things simple, I find keeping image files in a folder (and on dedicated drives) at the Finder level to be elegant and easy.

Oh, keywording and such is done via Bridge or whatever is used to address the files during the first visit, but I should state that I really don't like keywording (in image management cases) beyond finding individual shoots.

Sorry if I'm misreading the intentions of your query, Bill. I understand that what is asked is a recommendation for a packaged DAM solution for the Mac. I looked at ACDsee et al, but just love the joy of none proprietary file storage.

Good luck in your search.

 

[Godfrey]

Lightroom

... does the job I need insofar as my photography is concerned.

For more extensive data archiving/cataloging, and not image editing, Extensis Portfolio and Cumulous are very good.