Microsoft buys iView Multimedia

Richard

Looks like acquisition season in photoland. We read about Adobe buying Pixmantec yesterday. I just read on c|net News that Microsoft bought iView.

Resistance is futile.

marlof

I guess it's time I pack up my iView catalogues and shop elsewhere. I like what it does, and fear it'll become bloatware with themes and stuff like that. Brrr. :uhoh

USAIR

I just jumped on the iView band wagon...couldn't find anything else that worked for me.
I sure hope Microsoft don't screw up this software.

Fred

wxwax

How do you guys use it?

I keep my photos in labeled and dated folders. Stuff seems easy enough to find. Why bother buying a product like iView?

mercphoto

wxwax wrote:

How do you guys use it?

I keep my photos in labeled and dated folders. Stuff seems easy enough to find. Why bother buying a product like iView?

Because, in simplest terms, you have only one view of your images, and that view corresponds to your folder structure. Let's say you have a broad mix of photographs. Vacation stuff, birds and ducks, street photography, some sports, who knows what else. Now, quickly, find me all your landscape shots....

Art Scott

mercphoto wrote:

Because, in simplest terms, you have only one view of your images, and that view corresponds to your folder structure. Let's say you have a broad mix of photographs. Vacation stuff, birds and ducks, street photography, some sports, who knows what else. Now, quickly, find me all your landscape shots....

By LANDSCAPE do you mean orientation wise or do you mean landscape sceanic?

wxwax

mercphoto wrote:

Because, in simplest terms, you have only one view of your images, and that view corresponds to your folder structure. Let's say you have a broad mix of photographs. Vacation stuff, birds and ducks, street photography, some sports, who knows what else. Now, quickly, find me all your landscape shots....

I see, thanks.

Still not sure how often I'd use this kind of function, tho. It's not a need that seems to have arisen.

ivar

mercphoto wrote:

Because, in simplest terms, you have only one view of your images, and that view corresponds to your folder structure. Let's say you have a broad mix of photographs. Vacation stuff, birds and ducks, street photography, some sports, who knows what else. Now, quickly, find me all your landscape shots....

I've just tagged my photos, and do search -> landscape, seems to work for me.

mercphoto

Art Scott wrote:

By LANDSCAPE do you mean orientation wise or do you mean landscape sceanic?

Scenic. Put another way, find all shots with your mother in it. Etc. That is the benefit of using cataloging software and keywording your images. Each image can be found in a multitude of ways. With a folder structure an image resides in only one spot. You go to Paris and take lots of pictures. Do they reside in a vacation folder? In a folder for Europe? How do you easily find all your photos of scenery? Or flowers? Or old buildings? Or all your photos of Paris (assuming you have been there more than once, and hence photos in multiple directories). If we think hard about it, many photos can easily reside in more than one place all depending on how we want to think of the image. A directory structure makes it easy to find the image in one way, impossible to find the image when thought in terms of the other ways it can be cataloged.

In computer science terms, iView Media is allowing multiple views of a data base. A folder structure allows only one view.

This isn't a program that everyone has a need for. But if you ever find yourself having difficultly finding a group of related images, this works great. I have a catalog set for each individual race. I keyword certain files as "portfolio" so that I can find those images quickly, no matter which race it was from. I keyword published shots. I keep separate catalog sets for images that are actually bought and sold. This way I can very quickly scan what types of images people are paying money for and influence how I shoot. Etc. I can quickly find images of my neice without having to know when those shots were taken, whether they were on a vacation, or for a birthday party, on a trp to a zoo, etc. I take a shot of my neice at a zoo, where does that image reside? In /family/megan? In /vacation/2005/march? In /animals/zoo? Picking any of those spots make it easy to find the image for that purpose, and nearly impossible to find for the others.

As Peter Krogh says in "The DAM Book", a directory structure should be organized in a manner that it is easy to archive a disk and to tell when that archive needs to be updated. It should not pertain to image content. Keywords and cataloging software handle the problem of image content and how to find images.

USAIR

Here's how I use it:
I have backed up photos (thousands of photos) on extra HD's and also DVD's.
Once you scan your HD's DVD's I can view all photos I have can find them fast.

Usually a client calls me wanting a photo and they always want it right now if not sooner
I had a hard time finding it looking thought all the DVD's and HD's but iView made it easier for me to find a certain photo.
So it kinda help me organized my photos.

Now keep in mind I am by no means an expert in organizing anything.
I am still learning and probably using a very small part of iViews potential.
Any help on this (getting the most out of iView)I'm

Fred

colourbox

USAIR wrote:

I am still learning and probably using a very small part of iViews potential.
Any help on this (getting the most out of iView)I'm

Read the book mercphoto suggested (The DAM Book) and you might also read posts in the iView user forum.

mercphoto

ivar wrote:

I've just tagged my photos, and do search -> landscape, seems to work for me.

Take a look at USAIR's post on how he uses iVMP. There's more to it than just searching for photos. I really like the fact that I have access to photos that are stored off-line. This means I can search for photos that are currently on a DVD, or on some hard disk in a closet. You cannot do that with a search from Windows or Finder. I can veiw thumbnails and previews of offline photos. I can keyword, rate, catalog and organize files that are currently offline. And lastly, a search result is built in real-time (which is usually slow). Whereas iVMP stores pre-built indices of searches (which means fast).

erich6

I recently downloaded a trial version of the iView software and I'm very impressed with it. Aside from the cataloguing function I find the following to be VERY useful:

1. Light table view mode. This lets you view in full screen multiple images side by side at whatever zoom level you want. You can then click on one of the pictures and drag around to scroll the image and *all* the pictures will scroll along the same way (they are coregistered).
2. Fast RAW display. The images load pretty fast and you can zoom in to 100% views quickly to check for focus.

Both of these functions make it easier and faster for me to sort through new shots and get rid of the bad ones early so I spend less time in post.

Erich

Stubbly

I have to wonder how long it will take them to make this a Windows only product... :puke1

lynnesite

I'm also an iView user and have little confidence that MS will insure this product's feature set keeps up. As long as it doesn't "disappear" like so many products have after purchase.

Sid, not only do I use iView for keywording my "main" catalog, I use it to create individual catalogs from shoots--I import from the CF cards with it, annotating with metadata upon the import. I use their numbering system of 0-9 to rate the images for easy segregating into functional folder names. I then make them all numbered and start going through making picks: editorial, picks, stock prospects, etc. They also have a star rating system like Bridge that I don't use. I can ask iView to display "any labeled" in order to run a slideshow to show the client onsite, thereby neatly sidestepping those I haven't had time to ruthlessly cull.

I also use iView to create my web gallery cutdowns for smugmug as often as I use PS's Image Processor.