Adobe Lightroom or iView Media Pro?

greenpea

I need a better way to manage all my images, but which product to get? I have a MacBook Pro and Adobe CS3 and I really need something better than Bridge to manage my photos. I have the majority of my files on an external harddrive. So for those of you who have tried both, or those of you who have a similar set up to me, which would you pick and why?

As to why I am limited to Lightroom and iView Media Pro: I get the Education discount on Lightroom and since iView Media Pro was bought by MSFT I get the MSFT buddy employee discount on iView Media Pro (soon to be called MSFT Expressions Media).

digismile

I've been using IviewMedia Pro for a couple of years and I have been very happy with it. I didn't see any advantage to Lightroom when I looked at the beta version (specific to file management). You might want to check out this site: http://www.thedambook.com/

Peter Krogh is considered by many as an industry expert in DAM (Digital Asset Management). If you check out the Forum section, you should find several threads on Lightroom vs. IVMP. Should give you a good idea on the strengths of each.

regards,

greenpea

digismile wrote:

I've been using IviewMedia Pro for a couple of years and I have been very happy with it. I didn't see any advantage to Lightroom when I looked at the beta version (specific to file management). You might want to check out this site: http://www.thedambook.com/

Peter Krogh is considered by many as an industry expert in DAM (Digital Asset Management). If you check out the Forum section, you should find several threads on Lightroom vs. IVMP. Should give you a good idea on the strengths of each.

regards,

Thanks. I'll check out the link. I've also downloaded and installed the trial version of each.

colourbox

I have used iView for 7 years.

I am pretty far along in moving my operations to Lightroom. I don't iView for much anymore.

iView is a very capable program, but its trend does not look good, while Lightroom's trend looks extremely promising. However, many legitimately disagree with my assessment because their needs are different and they still need to use the areas of iView that are currently still better than Lightroom. What I personally need to do, Lightroom does better, and Lightroom already does some things right that I have been waiting forever for iView to fix.

Both programs require a bit of trial and error to understand how they think, and how they manage metadata.

You can check out user opinions of the initial Expression Media release on the Expression Media forum and the old iView forum.

patch29

I have used IVMP for years and I am currently looking for a replacement. I am on an old copy. I never agreed with their upgrade program. I always felt that I was almost paying for an entirely new copy of the program. This did not sit well with me, so I never upgraded.


I like how they build the catalogs as individual files, other than that I can find programs that do what I need and give me a lot more for my money.

Enter Lightroom. I did not test it much as a beta, but I did just buy it. NAPP member can still save $100 for the next couple of months. I just installed it and right away I really enjoy using it. It is blazing fast and has an enormous amount of control. I need to learn how the library/database works, but I feel I can make it work very well for me.

For the same price as IVMP right now with the NAPP discount, there was no question of which to buy. If IVMP were not owned by Microsoft I would probably upgrade and keep it, but I fell they will take it in a direction I am not interested in going. I would also probably still add Lightroom, this will probably change as I become more comfortable with Ligthroom. Lightroom goes in that direction and I think I will be very happy with my choice.

mrbill62

IVMP was bought by Microsoft.

greenpea

mrbill62 wrote:

IVMP was bought by Microsoft.

This is the reason I can afford to get IVMP. I can have a buddy who works at MSFT get me the employee discount. As for Lightroom, I get a big discount on that product because I work for a University.

Eileen Stephens

greenpea wrote:

This is the reason I can afford to get IVMP. I can have a buddy who works at MSFT get me the employee discount. As for Lightroom, I get a big discount on that product because I work for a University.

Did you decide yet? I have IVMP but have not installed it yet. I have heard so much about Lightroom and it's quickness foir processing. Would there be a need for both?

Rhuarc

Eileen Stephens wrote:

Did you decide yet? I have IVMP but have not installed it yet. I have heard so much about Lightroom and it's quickness foir processing. Would there be a need for both?

I find that I really like Lightroom for the RAW processing, but that is about all I do there. I import the shots, process them, export the changes to the xmp files, then convert to DNG. I then use these DNG's in my cataloging software IDImager. I tried a lot of programs and I found I prefer this over IVMP.

Just my .02

mercphoto

Eileen Stephens wrote:

Did you decide yet? I have IVMP but have not installed it yet. I have heard so much about Lightroom and it's quickness foir processing. Would there be a need for both?

Does Lightroom also catalog as well as iVMP does? In particular can it handle files other than JPG's and RAW files? Such as PDFs, PSDs, etc.?

colourbox

Lightroom doesn't catalog all media like Microsoft Expression Media (iView) does, but Lightroom does all the ones I care about (Raw, JPEG, TIFF, PSD...). I dumped a bunch of TIFF scans into Lightroom and was pleased at how fast I got through them. I think I read that the development team doesn't plan to catalog formats that don't come out of a camera.

LilleG

I tried Lightroom beta and didn't like it, at all. I've used iView MediaPro for a number of years now and I really like its management capabilities. I've never used for editing since Capture NX and/or Photoshop Elements do a better job.

greenpea

Eileen Stephens wrote:

Did you decide yet? I have IVMP but have not installed it yet. I have heard so much about Lightroom and it's quickness foir processing. Would there be a need for both?

I ended up getting lightroom. I tried both products out, and in the end Lightroom just felt more comfortable to use. The big thing I was wanting was the ability to work (keyword, label, etc) with pictures that were off line (i.e. on an unattached external hardrive). Both products had that capability, but I just liked lightroom better.

I recommend downloading the trial version of each product and playing around with them for a couple of weeks to see which you like best.

Oh, and sorry for the slow reply. I've been in Cabo Mexico since the 6th and finally today I decided to take a break from the sun and surf and upload some pics.

ian408

I was going to add that if you are a CS3 user, Bridge with PS is as good or
better than LR.

CatOne

ian408 wrote:

I was going to add that if you are a CS3 user, Bridge with PS is as good or
better than LR.

Ummmmmm....

No.

mercphoto

ian408 wrote:

I was going to add that if you are a CS3 user, Bridge with PS is as good or
better than LR.

I gotta agree with CatOne on this one. I find Bridge to be a horrible photo browser. The biggest problem is how slow it is if you have lots of photos. I find it barely manageable at 100+ photos and it is unusable the days when I used to shoot 500+ in a day (motocross, karts).

The best browser I've seen yet is Photo Mechanic, especially with its importing options. But I haven't used LR or Aperture yet either.

CatOne

mercphoto wrote:

I gotta agree with CatOne on this one. I find Bridge to be a horrible photo browser. The biggest problem is how slow it is if you have lots of photos. I find it barely manageable at 100+ photos and it is unusable the days when I used to shoot 500+ in a day (motocross, karts).

The best browser I've seen yet is Photo Mechanic, especially with its importing options. But I haven't used LR or Aperture yet either.

Aperture absolutely excels at "Compare and select" -- basically coming back with hundreds or thousands of photos from a shoot, and picking the good ones that you want to work on. You can then delete the "non-keepers" or use stacks to keep them next to similar photos that are just slightly better. Stacks and the compare tools are fantastic here.

Lightroom is similar -- its compare/select tools are not as good as Apertures (in particular, its stacks are a pale imitation), but its editing tools are slightly better. And based on what ACR 4.1 is showing, LR 1.1 should improve a lot (Clarity should be very nice, and the sharpening should "no longer suck.").

Both tools are vastly superior to iView Media Pro for everything *but* cataloging. iView really has NO editing abilities at all to speak of. I used it for about 1.5 years -- it was always a bit of a pain and unless you have 1+ TB of photos strewn across multiple drives that you need to search for... it's just no longer a viable app. Plus, LR and Aperture can handle this.

Bridge... is really a browser. It's not nearly as fast for compare/select/editing as LR or Aperture. Heck, any time you want to edit in Bridge you have to fire up ACR and save your edits in XMP metadata... meh.

colourbox

CatOne wrote:

Both tools are vastly superior to iView Media Pro for everything *but* cataloging.

Can you describe what you like better about iView's cataloging? Everybody's needs are different, and iView definitely has more cataloging features, but I've found Lightroom does the majority of the important cataloging tasks I used to do in iView.

ian408

CatOne wrote:

Ummmmmm....

No.

So you'd pay $200 more to buy LR once you had CS3?

mercphoto

ian408 wrote:

So you'd pay $200 more to buy LR once you had CS3?

I spent about that much for iVMP3 once I had CS2 and nearly bought Photo Mechanic as well, so absolutely. Bridge is too slow as a browser, which PM excels at. And Bridge has no cataloging features worth mentioning, which iVMP3 excels at.

patch29

ian408 wrote:

So you'd pay $200 more to buy LR once you had CS3?

I recently did and LR is great. I am very happy with it vs working with Bridge. Bridge in CS3 is a lot better, but for working with a volume of images LR is much better. I like IVMP, but for the same as LR, I felt I was giving up less going to LR from IVMP than I was gaining from LR. LR simply has a lot of tools to make my workflow much more efficient.

CatOne

colourbox wrote:

Can you describe what you like better about iView's cataloging? Everybody's needs are different, and iView definitely has more cataloging features, but I've found Lightroom does the majority of the important cataloging tasks I used to do in iView.

I wasn't saying iView was superior in cataloging, but it's not vastly worse in cataloging than Aperture or LR. So Aperture and LR are superior in many things, and their cataloging is on par with iView. Basically, I wouldn't buy iView today -- Aperture and LR make it "superfluous."

CatOne

ian408 wrote:

So you'd pay $200 more to buy LR once you had CS3?

I would. I would use LR instead of Bridge. It basically replaces Bridge+ACR, with faster workflow. Of course, right now ACR 4.1 has better functionality than LR, but that will be changing with LR 1.1 any day now.

ian408

CatOne wrote:

I would. I would use LR instead of Bridge. It basically replaces Bridge+ACR, with faster workflow. Of course, right now ACR 4.1 has better functionality than LR, but that will be changing with LR 1.1 any day now.

I didn't want to admit it but this is what I do too. Only because I got my mac and didn't have anything to edit photos with. Also happy w/new ACR.