Photo Management software

[Lesley@Bramley]

Hi, I know this has been discussed before, but I am currently just filing my photos into windows explorer with a date and few words in the file name on what they are and they are stored in the cloud.  My photo library has now become too big for me to remember where things are and I spend a lot of time looking for photos I want to find.  I'm really enjoying using Affinity Photo (and know there's no photo file management system yet available).  I am looking for something that would have a one-off payment as I don't want to lock into a subscription.  It doesn't need to be free, but I am hoping for something that wont get discontinued (eg Picasa).  I've had a search on the internet and have a couple of names: Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Bridge, Phototheca3, Abemeda, XNViewMP, Irfanview - I know there are more, but I got a bit overwhelmed.   I don't need a program that edits as I have Affinity for that, so just a photo file management system I can use in conjunction with Affinity Photo is what I need.  I use Windows.  Can anyone suggest something - I'm not looking for anything too complex. 

[78deluxe]

9 hours ago, Lesley@Bramley said:

Hi, I know this has been discussed before, but I am currently just filing my photos into windows explorer with a date and few words in the file name on what they are and they are stored in the cloud.  My photo library has now become too big for me to remember where things are and I spend a lot of time looking for photos I want to find.  I'm really enjoying using Affinity Photo (and know there's no photo file management system yet available).  I am looking for something that would have a one-off payment as I don't want to lock into a subscription.  It doesn't need to be free, but I am hoping for something that wont get discontinued (eg Picasa).  I've had a search on the internet and have a couple of names: Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Bridge, Phototheca3, Abemeda, XNViewMP, Irfanview - I know there are more, but I got a bit overwhelmed.   I don't need a program that edits as I have Affinity for that, so just a photo file management system I can use in conjunction with Affinity Photo is what I need.  I use Windows.  Can anyone suggest something - I'm not looking for anything too complex. 

For free I'd look at Darktable

Paid:

If you really do not need photo editing (I think you would be wise to reconsider):  Photo Mechanic is the most efficient tagging and culling software on the market

Capture One - Digital Asset Management as well as the best RAW processing on the Market.  The RAW processing is in a different class than Affinity.  

ON1 PhotoRAW - making more advances as a DAM and RAW processor, and at a reasonable price.

Luminar - I have it, though I do not use it for DAM processing and have heard a number of mixed reviews on that aspect.  

[smadell]

Check out Photo Supreme. It is a DAM, and a powerful one. It is not for editing (like Luminar, Capture One, On1, or Lightroom)  nor is it a raw processor. It focusses exclusively on file management. Paid, not free. Available for Mac and Windows.

Also check out iMatch. I’ve never used it (not available on Mac) but it is very highly regarded as a full featured DAM for Windows.

Photo Mechanic’s strength is culling, not file management (although they’re getting into that). If you want a really great, very inexpensive, culling application, buy FastRawViewer. Wonderful little program!

[claudermilk]

New here & new to Affinity software.

I have been using IMatch for years (since v3) and it just keeps getting better & better. Highly recommended.

[Asfak Mahmud]

You can check Eagle

[78deluxe]

On 4/15/2020 at 11:22 AM, smadell said:

Check out Photo Supreme. It is a DAM, and a powerful one. It is not for editing (like Luminar, Capture One, On1, or Lightroom)  nor is it a raw processor. It focusses exclusively on file management. Paid, not free. Available for Mac and Windows.

Also check out iMatch. I’ve never used it (not available on Mac) but it is very highly regarded as a full featured DAM for Windows.

Photo Mechanic’s strength is culling, not file management (although they’re getting into that). If you want a really great, very inexpensive, culling application, buy FastRawViewer. Wonderful little program!

Thanks for the tip on FastRAW Viewer, I bought a seat based on your recomendation after trying it out for about 30 minutes.  It isn't without some issues, but seems nice and streamlined for strictly culling.

Any idea how often they acutally update the program (outsdie of new RAW support)?  The blog shows releases but there is no time stamp.  

 

And you are correct, Mechanic is much more about Culling than a traditional DAM.  I think my perspective is that is also has robust tagging and metadata so with the goal of searching for a photo - it doesnt' help cover that need.  

[smadell]

78deluxe...

The FastRawViewer Preferences are daunting, to say the least. There are so many options, it's hard to know how to set it up. However, on the last page of the Preferences (the tab noted as "Other" in the list) you can set how often the application looks for updates. I have it set to every 7 days. In my experience, these updates are not terribly frequent; I imagine that's because the application is not one that is continually adding new features (other than new cameras to support). Check out the blog portion of their site ( https://www.fastrawviewer.com/blog ) for specifics about what's new in each of their updates. Also, they say that they do not put the newest updates into the "auto check for updates" results for a while, in case an update is seriously flawed. Currently, they are on version 1.5.6 – my version is 1.5.4 and when I check for updates, it will tell me I'm up to date.

[j0e.org]

I am gone.

I use Luminar 4 now.

[78deluxe]

On 4/16/2020 at 1:38 PM, smadell said:

78deluxe...

The FastRawViewer Preferences are daunting, to say the least. There are so many options, it's hard to know how to set it up. However, on the last page of the Preferences (the tab noted as "Other" in the list) you can set how often the application looks for updates. I have it set to every 7 days. In my experience, these updates are not terribly frequent; I imagine that's because the application is not one that is continually adding new features (other than new cameras to support). Check out the blog portion of their site ( https://www.fastrawviewer.com/blog ) for specifics about what's new in each of their updates. Also, they say that they do not put the newest updates into the "auto check for updates" results for a while, in case an update is seriously flawed. Currently, they are on version 1.5.6 – my version is 1.5.4 and when I check for updates, it will tell me I'm up to date.

 

You might appreciate this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilK4oayk18

 

[Grumpy Hec]

Some interesting suggestions for which I say thank you.

As someone who has recently decided, for various reasons but principally cost saving, that after many years I am going to switch from LS/PS to Affinity Photo the question of which DAM to use is very significant. Needless to say the preference would be an Affinity DAM with the obvious opportunity of it being a Persona and hence part of Photo/Publisher/Designer and thus completing the set as part of Studio Link. However, from what I can gather from my very short time delving into the Affinity world, there is little or no prospect of that happening soon or indeed at all which is a great shame.

Therefore the search for a DAM to enable me to continue to use the excellent collections/smart collections in LR continues. There is Bridge which is free to anyone and after looking at some of the options it does look very competitive. However if you have had an Adobe subscription for LR Classic it turns out you can continue using it even after your subscription runs out. Needles to say things which plug into the wider Adobe CC world cease to function but the pure DAM side is alleged to continue working. If that is indeed the case I will probably stick to that for now whilst I look for sensibly priced, by that I mean free in an ideal world, alternative or the Affinity DAM does materialise. There are downsides to both Bridge and LR in that neither recognize afphoto and hence you have to use tiff or export a JPG to provide a thumbnail but that is doable albeit a bit of a pain.

As an aside I of the opinion, that after my brief time using Affinity Photo, I am starting to find it better than PS in many ways. Some of what I initially thought were negatives simply turn out to be different and/or the way AP works is such that essential steps in PS are simply not required. For example smart objects in PS are important but in AP seem to be almost redundant as a concept. 

So on with my decision making as to which DAM to use.

 

Grumpy Hec

 

 

 

[78deluxe]

4 hours ago, Grumpy Hec said:

Some interesting suggestions for which I say thank you.

As someone who has recently decided, for various reasons but principally cost saving, that after many years I am going to switch from LS/PS to Affinity Photo the question of which DAM to use is very significant. Needless to say the preference would be an Affinity DAM with the obvious opportunity of it being a Persona and hence part of Photo/Publisher/Designer and thus completing the set as part of Studio Link. However, from what I can gather from my very short time delving into the Affinity world, there is little or no prospect of that happening soon or indeed at all which is a great shame.

Therefore the search for a DAM to enable me to continue to use the excellent collections/smart collections in LR continues. There is Bridge which is free to anyone and after looking at some of the options it does look very competitive. However if you have had an Adobe subscription for LR Classic it turns out you can continue using it even after your subscription runs out. Needles to say things which plug into the wider Adobe CC world cease to function but the pure DAM side is alleged to continue working. If that is indeed the case I will probably stick to that for now whilst I look for sensibly priced, by that I mean free in an ideal world, alternative or the Affinity DAM does materialise. There are downsides to both Bridge and LR in that neither recognize afphoto and hence you have to use tiff or export a JPG to provide a thumbnail but that is doable albeit a bit of a pain.

As an aside I of the opinion, that after my brief time using Affinity Photo, I am starting to find it better than PS in many ways. Some of what I initially thought were negatives simply turn out to be different and/or the way AP works is such that essential steps in PS are simply not required. For example smart objects in PS are important but in AP seem to be almost redundant as a concept. 

So on with my decision making as to which DAM to use.

 

Grumpy Hec

 

 

 

Luminar 3 is currently free.   https://skylum.com/fstoppers-luminar?clickid=38NT00WNVxyJUmvwUx0Mo3YyUki2TJ0Frzsz3I0&irpid=2069361&utm_content=TEXT_LINK&utm_source=Fstoppers&utm_campaign=mediapartner_cpa&utm_medium=cpa&aclid=&platform=IR&utm_term=L3 Giveaway - Fstopperrs

Never really used the DAM aspect of it myself. 

 

The APHOTO aspect is a problem for most DAMs, I believe.  ACDSEE is one of the few that seem to support it:  https://www.acdsee.com/en/support/file-formats/

It isn't cheap and I'm pretty sure it is tied to once single installer.  I have it one one computer but I never use it (outside of the previewer function built into windows explorer).  It does theoretically have some more advanced function such as face recognition and searches.  

[smadell]

I can only speak to Photo Supreme, which is the DAM that I am using. If you add the ".afphoto" extension to its Preferences, it can handle Affinity Photo files quite nicely. For display, it uses the embedded preview in the .afphoto file. For metadata, it will create an .xmp sidecar. The only "workaround" it has to employ is that it cannot use its embedded Viewer to look at an .afphoto file - for that, it will launch the Affinity Photo app. I have had absolutely no issues using Affinity Photo files inside of Photo Supreme.

[mikerofoto]

2 hours ago, 78deluxe said:

The APHOTO aspect is a problem for most DAMs

Would be nice if Sherif could make it possible to save the work in a sidecar instead of aphoto, wouldn’t that save file size lower, readable by other DAM and file viewer as Fastrawviewer and photo mechanic?

[Andy05]

The (for private use) free software XNview is also capable of showing .afphoto files' embedded preview. But the viewer shows an enlarged view of that as well. At least it stays within the program and doesn't start external apps for this. The enlarged view of the embedded preview usually is good enough for all tasks related to photo management (tagging, renaming, sorting etc.)

If you work with international artists and photographers, the native support of unicode in filenames and/or meta data comes in handy. Works on various OS, 32bit as well as 64bit versions available.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be an advertising. I'm merely a user of this program. I neither have any connections to that software nor its developers beyond this. 

[Grumpy Hec]

Many thanks for all the responses.

I have looked at ACDSee and installed the free trial. Sadly it is very slow and resource hungry in daily use, and indeed during it's indexing phase which took 60+ hours and consumed 50% cpu whilst doing that,  and I have dismissed it as an alternative.

Darktable I find very messy and confusing to use so again I have crossed that off the list.

XnView I'm still looking at so will reserve judgement for now.

PhotoSupreme and iMatch both look OK in theory but the $130 bill for each rather negates the overall reasons for moving away from Adobe in the first place.

At the moment I  have to say that it looks like I will retain the use of LR Classic, assuming that it does still work as a DAM after the subscription expires a stated, with some workrounds. The other alternative is Bridge which does most of what I would like but again required workrounds to use  with AP.

Grumpy Hec

 

[Awtd]

To Grumpy Her and Lesley Bramley,

You might want to look at Neofinder (https://www.cdfinder.de). I have been using it for 2 years now and I love it. Even though the software origine was for a file cataloger (back in 1998) the product evolved over the last 25 years as becoming a great alternative to all those expensive DAM software that most of them will not even deal with Affinity files format. Cataloging is super fast and it has many features to handle your thousands of photos. I manage over 50,000 pictures with it and still growing. It manages GPS, EXIF/ XMP / IPTC data. It has ratings, colour labels, keywords. It is a real database with very good search capabilities. 

Neofinder is running on MAC but my understanding is that there is a version for Windows. Take the time to read the V7.x release notes, it should give you a good idea of the over all features.

You can try it for free too. If you like it, you can buy it for less than $40, one time cost, no subscription.

Hope this will help

 

Screen_Shot_2020-05-06_at_8_35.50_AM.pdf

[PoulWest]

Hi Lesley You write:

"I don't need a program that edits as I have Affinity for that, so just a photo file management system I can use in conjunction with Affinity Photo is what I need.  I use Windows.  "

May I suggest:  TotalCommander as file management, Yes I know it is an old dos application, but it has proved its superior capacity  through the years. You can do all the tasks You want, copy, move, delete rename. You name it Total Commander has it. It works perfect in windows.  It was created many years ago by Peter Norton, (as Norton diskdoctor)  the first to develop programs to help us beginners.

As a preview app, i use the "Faststone Image Viewer" it is free, but you can pay a small sum if You want. In Fasttone Image Viewer, yoy can view 4 images at a time, magnified to 100 - 200 prct. This give You  the possibility to select the images to keep, and thos not.

This is just my suggestion, I use these two apps to manage my approx, 40.000 images

Hope You find what You are looking for, and please forgive me if i make mistakes in english, i am danish. 😀

Best regards Poul West

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by PoulWest

[Grumpy Hec]

Thanks for the heads up on Neofinder.

Since my last post I have had to do a complete OS vanilla build plus all software so I am nice and clean again. Tedious but always a good idea. One spinoff from this was that it prompted me to look at ACDSee again and re-do the config/catalouge stage by splitting it into small chunks. This worked much better so I now have a full conversion from LR to ACDSee which has excellent speed, much better than LR. on that basis and also that it has so many options, few of which I have properly explored let alone mastered, I have purchased a copy at an offer price. 

So I am now Adobe free.

Loving AP and I am already liking ACDSee now that I have it set up correctly.

 

Grumpy Hec

Edited May 6, 2020 by Grumpy Hec

[v_kyr]

Another one which can be (mis)used for image magement, initially meant for the web, but of course also usable/hostable on your own privat/local server for image management would be Piwigo.

[Mtsk]

I am using Exposure X5 (Exposure Software is former Alien Skin) for this purpose (photo management & as RAW developer) - it's the closest to Lightroom in UI and quality I've tested (CaptureOne, ON1, ACDSee, Darktable, etc.), is really fast (no proprietary database!) and you can pop to Affinity Photo from menu or with key shortcut.

[Peter K P]

On 7/16/2020 at 1:56 AM, tnargs said:

If one is going third party, might as well go digiKam (free, multiplatform) and save $129 up front.

I thought the point here is an Affinity DAM that integrates with AP. cheers

Thanks for the digikam idea. I'm currently been using Nikon ViewNX but it's a bit slow and buggy, so have been on the look out for something different.

[blizzardv]

Could 

On 4/16/2020 at 12:22 AM, smadell said:

Photo Mechanic’s strength is culling, not file management (although they’re getting into that). If you want a really great, very inexpensive, culling application, buy FastRawViewer. Wonderful little program!

What is the difference between culling and file management? (I'm a beginner...)

IIUC, culling means deleting the useless photos, and rating some of the remaining photos so I know which ones are worth spending time on. 

I thought file management means tagging the photos, so that I can later find them. If the software is good at culling, it must be able to display thousands of images quickly, and let me easily add ratings to the image metadata, and then select images by those ratings. Isn't this precisely the same as what a file management / tagging software needs to do, only in addition to ratings, it would let me add arbitrary tags to the metadata? From your comment, it seems there's more to file management than this?

Thank you!

Edited November 12, 2020 by blizzardv

[Old Bruce]

44 minutes ago, blizzardv said:

IIUC, culling means deleting the useless photos, and rating some of the remaining photos so I know which ones are worth spending time on. 

 

I would not include rating in the definition of Culling. I think of culling as select and delete, no need to tag or classify those that I will delete.

[someguy]

I waited and waited and waited on Serif to release info about some sort of DAM product ... and we got a lot of silence. So, I bought into C1.

[tnargs]

You must be rich! $466 for a single-user all-cameras licence.