The future of DAM

mercphoto

Peter Krogh's book "The DAM Book" does a very good job of describing the how's and why's of a good digital asset management workflow. He advocates a combination of CS2's Bridge for the browser side, and iVMP or Portofolio for the cataloging side.

This book is recent, but is pre-Lightroom and Aperture. So my question is, even though neither of them are "there" now, is the eventual goal of Lightroom and Aperture to be a one-stop-shop for all things DAM? In other words, would the Second Edition of The DAM Book possibly recommend only using one application, instead of two as he does now?

I'll admit, I'm a bit fuzzy on what exactly Lightroom and Aperture are trying to be.

asamuel

http://www.thedambook.com/lightroom.html

He says:

as a browser (which is what Bridge is innit?)

"Lightroom was built from the ground up to deal with a lot of image files, and it offers speedy editing functionality without requiring the fastest computer. Unlike Bridge, which has its constituency divided among the several Adobe applications and the many kinds of Creative Suie users, the Lightroom team was free to develop a tool optimized for digital photography.....I think you'll like it"

"I'd like to see Lightroom be a kind of a "front-end" for Bridge" what does that mean?

BUT THEN HE SAYS:

"The Asset Management part of Lightroom .......is less certain to ever be part of my own production workflow.

Unlike a RAW file converter - where you can use several programs concurrently - the choice of asset management software is a major long-term commitment. John Beardsworth likes to say that your relationship with asset management software is like serial monogamy: you are married to it, at least for the moment. And when you split up, it is likely to be a kind of messy affair."

.......................................................................................................Well, for me thats as clear as mud. Iwant to read the book and invest som time into thinking about DAM but.

should I wait for Lightroom to be released and have a workflow that is LR > photoshop (or is it LR > Bridge > Photoshop)

Or should I go Iview media pro > bridge > photoshop and fit in LR for the RAW and god knows what?

.....................................dus ne bodi av a clue?

claudermilk

It seems to me that both are trying to be a one-stop-shop. I've played a bit with Lightroom, but have only seen the screenshots of Aperture (on PC, not Mac).

For some users that may work, for me it's a less-than-optimal solution. I prefer several apps that each are the best at their particular aspect of the workflow (conversion, editing, cataloging/management); all I ask is that ther be some way for them to communicate with other apps.


I've found Lightroom's UI to be very pretty & can be a pleasant app to work in, however there's a lot of meat missing that I want to see there. The DAM part is not up to my requirements--I'm not convinced it even matches Picasa which I consider quite lightweight. The RAW converter looks nice but again has some serious limitations I don't see in my preferred app. I can't really comment on printing as I don't do a lot, and that from CS right now, but I'll bet someone using QImage or the like will have the same experience.

In a nutshell (ok, too late), LR and Aperture seem like good ideas in theory, but once hard reality hits they just don't measure up IMHO.