Photo Management software

[Evil Pechenka]

On 4/16/2020 at 6:37 AM, Asfak Mahmud said:

You can check Eagle

This program has a great interface, tags are well supported, but there is a huge problem - it makes a copy of the library. I don't know why they do it, but it's terrible.

[Asfak Mahmud]

Indeed, it's a downside. 

[photophart]

iMatch. Nothing else even comes close. Count on spending a month or two just exploring its gigantic array of capabilities.

 

[ruzsakrisztian]

You wrote that I used to have Playmemories Home on my old Sony laptop (I never had a Sony camera though). It was a really basic program with some batch editing features, and you can also set an "open with Affinity Photo" button. Search function is quite basic (by labels, camera, lens, rating, date, etc.), it had a calendar view, possibility to add simple info (title, description) and labels, and it was completely free. I remember it as having a nice looking ui, but I didn't use it because it was too slow. Sony might have updated it since then, so it may worth a try. 

 PlayMemories Home Download (sony.co.jp)

[Fixx]

On 11/24/2020 at 9:12 PM, photophart said:

iMatch. Nothing else even comes close.

Despite the name it does not run on macs.

[Amateur John]

On 11/23/2020 at 5:12 PM, Evil Pechenka said:

This program has a great interface, tags are well supported, but there is a huge problem - it makes a copy of the library. I don't know why they do it, but it's terrible.

I also assessed Eagle. It left a lot of itself around when I uninstalled it. Fortunately I  had created a small test environment.

I am now assessing abeMeda .

[Evil Pechenka]

20 minutes ago, Amateur John said:

I also assessed Eagle. It left a lot of itself around when I uninstalled it. Fortunately I  had created a small test environment.

I am now assessing abeMeda .

I have tried many programs and online services. In the end, I settled on Movavi Photo Manager

Yes, it's not exactly what I wanted, but it's inexpensive, there are tags, albums. I couldn't find anything better.

There is no good software - either it is very expensive and there are too many functions, or there are not enough functions. I need tags for the photo.

[v_kyr]

Another free and opensource one is digiKam.

[George H]

For Mac users...

I have used Adobe for years but last year I had to get rid of it because I upgraded my OS and CS5 would no longer run on my system. I did not want to pay the $$$$$ subscription fee for newer versions so after looking around I settled on Affinity as my best alternative. Good features and excellent price. One area where it lacks is that I am unable to import large batches of raw files. The application becomes memory bound and slows to a crawl.  So what to do? I have used Adobe bridge for years to do sort my raw images and do some preliminary adjustments before sending the picture to Photoshop. 

After a lot of searching, and many trial and errors, I found "Raw Power" to be an excellent Adobe Bridge alternative that I am able to tie into Affinity. It is $29 at the MAC app store. I would prefer free but the cost is reasonable when you consider that once you buy it you can install it on all of your Macs. There is also a cheaper IOS version. It is fast, able to view large numbers of raw files, ties into Apple Photos if you are into that, or you can simply point it to a folder. The export settings will open the file in the photo editor of your choice, which in my case the choice is Affinity.

There is a trial version that allows you to play with it but it will insert an ugly watermark when you export. You have to download the trial version from their website which is:
 
https://gentlemencoders.com/

 

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Edited January 9, 2021 by George H

[tnargs]

11 hours ago, George H said:

For Mac users...

After a lot of searching, and many trial and errors, I found "Raw Power" to be an excellent Adobe Bridge alternative that I am able to tie into Affinity. It is $29 at the MAC app store. I would prefer free but the cost is reasonable when you consider that once you buy it you can install it on all of your Macs. There is also a cheaper IOS version. It is fast, able to view large numbers of raw files, ties into Apple Photos if you are into that, or you can simply point it to a folder.

I found the iOS version too limiting. And you can’t just work on files in a folder: you have to import full copies of the photos into either a RawPower library or Apple Photos library. That really annoyed me, along with not being able to have the library anywhere other than the home drive of the iOS device, which inevitably means the home drive will fill up before long for the keen photographer.

The MacOS version is probably far more flexible.

Cheers

[Steve2734]

I am new to Affinity Photo after years as a Lightroom/Photoshop user and getting away from Adobe and managing my photo library was problematic until I found Capture One Express.

Capture One Express is free. They split the software into specific manufacturer versions. I use Nikon. They have versions for Canon, Sony, Fuji etc.

Capture One Express uses the same RAW editor as Capture One 21 and can manage your library as well. It has a few less features than the full version but for my workflow, I do the basic RAW edits in Capture One Express and move to Affinity Photo for more complex edits.

[AQP]

On 2/27/2021 at 8:39 AM, Steve2734 said:

I am new to Affinity Photo after years as a Lightroom/Photoshop user and getting away from Adobe and managing my photo library was problematic until I found Capture One Express.

Capture One Express is free. They split the software into specific manufacturer versions. I use Nikon. They have versions for Canon, Sony, Fuji etc.

Capture One Express uses the same RAW editor as Capture One 21 and can manage your library as well. It has a few less features than the full version but for my workflow, I do the basic RAW edits in Capture One Express and move to Affinity Photo for more complex edits.

I am looking at C1 Express and Raw Power 3.3 right now as both seem to have good raw processing capabilities  as well as photo management capabilities. I also have ON1 Photo Raw 2021 which has really quite good management capabilities along with its own editing capabilities. But it seems that with both of the first two raw processors, your edits/processing don’t get incorporated for use in another program unless you “export” it to the other program. I freely admit I don’t understand a lot of this so am trying to do some catching up.  I have lots of legacy photos in Apple Photos but only realized the limits of using it as a photo manager when reading an article by Nik Bhatta (the developer of Raw Photo and referenced elsewhere in this forum I believe) - ie. it only sends and takes jpegs to other editing programs. So i like the idea of Raw Power to better utilize those old photos, but may use C1 and ON1 and Affinity Photos going forward for new photos. 
 

so when you say “I do basic raw edits in (C1 Express) and move to Affinity Photo for more complex edits” do you mean you “export” to AP?  And if so, what format do you export in (e.g. TIFF)?

 I need to revise my workflow as i move away from Apple Photos, so am interested in what works for others.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, AQP said:

 I have lots of legacy photos in Apple Photos but only realized the limits of using it as a photo manager when reading an article by Nik Bhatta (the developer of Raw Photo and referenced elsewhere in this forum I believe) - ie. it only sends and takes jpegs to other editing programs.

That is not true. Among other methods, you can use File > Export > Export Unmodified Original for any image file type stored in the Photos library, including RAW, GIF, whatever.

[AQP]

7 hours ago, R C-R said:

That is not true. Among other methods, you can use File > Export > Export Unmodified Original for any image file type stored in the Photos library, including RAW, GIF, whatever.

Okay yes, but I was thinking in terms of round-trip editing with other applications such as Affinity Photo (eg. 'Edit with...' or Extensions).  I guess I could have made that clearer.

[747fan]

+1 vote for the photo management component. 

Since digital photo's became 'a thing', storing, filing, naming, searching, tagging, and browsing photo's has become an evil downside. I cannot be the only person on the plant who remembers old school photo albums with their generic landscape covers! I knew exactly which album to open to find the photo I wanted. 

Now days, I have USB sticks, external hard drives, and a Synology NAS, and recalling where a particular photo is, is like navigating a complex city at night in a sea fog; frustrating. 

On my 'there must be a creative bone in here somewhere' journey of learning to draw, I recently discovered Affinity Designer for iPad, and bought it, and have also now bought the Windows version also. 

Photo management software is an absolute necessity for people with more than a hanful of photo's, and I ask @Serif introduce a component for this. I ask for these (probably rudimentary) features as a starting point, and I'm sure others will have additional feature requests:

Search and sort by:

• name
• date
• Geographic location (where files contain such exif data) 
• people
• tags (manual, but automatic would be a nice feature also such as in Photoshop Elements Organizer)

Processes:

• Facial recognition (humans, and animals if possible. Cameras now have animal eye detection!)
• Duplicate file finder based on exif data (duplicately named files will be captured by name sort)

View:

• exif data

Well, that's enough for this brain dump, I hope my thoughts and comments help in our quest. 

Cheers! 

Edited August 28, 2021 by 747fan