Asset Management (again)

sebpayne

Hi Everyone :-(

Sorry but I am in a lot of bother at the moment on which application to use for 'asset management'. I am stuck between Lightroom, iPhoto and iView Media Pro.

I have installed iPhoto 6 today and the lovely new interface, full screen editing and instant editing features are wonderful. However, OS X can't cope with the RAW files from my camera which means coverting them to TIFF/JPEGs before importing them. Also, no IPTC/XMP support so I can't do all the tagging as with iView. I can do borderless-prints for my printer as well. Doing this means storing un-edited RAW files on DVD, edited DNG files on DVD and edited JPEG files on my Mac - that is gonna take a lot of work. But...full screen editing..mmmm...

On the other hand, iView can cope with the RAW .MRW files but it can't generate proper thumbnails (640x480 only) of them which means converting them to DNG files (but this would probally be done anyway during editing) with ACR and then annotate the files. I can't do a borderless print though - maybe it needs working out.

Finally, Lightroom is a great app (all been said and done by others) but it ain't finished! It can fully handle the .MRW RAW files from my camera without any hassle. As with iPhoto, no IPTC/XMP support though but I guess this is coming in the near future. Also, the costs - I could build a photo library and find I can't afford to continue storing it. The thought of loosing work also worries me. I can do borderless printing as well (as in iPhoto).

I'm sure you are all sick of me saying this but I need help and the people here all seem to the great. Looking at the interesting situation, any thoughts? I'm off to my first meeting at the local photography club tomorrow so I need something sorted by then!

Thanks Again - It is good having a wonderful community here :thumb

Seb

DavidTO

Regardless of your MRW files, iPhoto is useless for RAW.

Lightroom is not something I would rely on yet.

That leaves iVMP, which I think is your best option.

mercphoto

DavidTO wrote:

That leaves iVMP, which I think is your best option.

I think I'd have to agree with that and has been my conclusion as well. I'm about to pull the trigger and purchase myself. The problem is, of course, is I like a little bit of everything. Aperture's hierachial keywording is really cool, for example. Excellent idea. iVMP's way of dealing with a folder structure in one view is really neat, as well as being able to store thumbnails on my notebook HD and linked to originals on an external HD. Lightroom appears to be well thought out but is too early to adopt, IMO.

USAIR

I am in the search too guys
Let me know what you find out
I will download demo this weekend I think...so I will see

Also found this seems like a good price I think it's the same program

Thanks
Fred

sebpayne

Hello Grinners

I've done a write up on my blog of a some shooting I did today using RAW images with iPhoto, Lightroom and iView. You can see it at http://www.sebpayne.com/2006/01/20/digital-raw-workflow-experiment/

Any thoughts on this one?

Cheers

Seb

DavidTO

sebpayne wrote:

Hello Grinners

I've done a write up on my blog of a some shooting I did today using RAW images with iPhoto, Lightroom and iView. You can see it at http://www.sebpayne.com/2006/01/20/digital-raw-workflow-experiment/

Any thoughts on this one?

Cheers

Seb

Looks to be a good write up. I'm only pages into the DAM Book (mentioned in other threads here on dgrin), and I think it's a great book. Even for those who think they have DAM licked.

wxwax

sebpayne wrote:

Hello Grinners

I've done a write up on my blog of a some shooting I did today using RAW images with iPhoto, Lightroom and iView. You can see it at http://www.sebpayne.com/2006/01/20/digital-raw-workflow-experiment/

Any thoughts on this one?

Cheers

Seb

Damn good write up.