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No media-browser with 1.7 anymore - here a suggestion


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First of all i would like to have a real bridge-like tool as better media-browser/collector/organizer... for AP/Serif... which popups as separeate PERSONA .

Afaik such a tool is in work (since years)....

In the meantime: I would like to have a "STOCK-Desktop" Tool. On OSX it uses just the already existing spotlight engine, on windows i do not know, bit maybe there is something similiar.

Its not much work to implement and til the Serif-Bridge (or LR...) is ready, this would be a usable and fast-find-possibility for all desktop-pictures. Just using the database of spotlight (or windows equalivalent) in the "stock"-panel. But instead looking the database of the stock-provider, AP is using the database of spotlight. 

If i eg in finder/spotlight-search hit the word "grandpa" i got all files and folder with grandpa in the name. If i hit "grandpa otto" i got just this, not the other grandpas i had/have... 

If i set some rules, eg. for suffix i got only raw-files of my grandpa otto or just AP-files of him... or just files from the last 3 months... 

Serif do not have to write all this database-code by itself, its already existing! Just the transport between AP and Spotlight has to code!

The user itself must not extra tag, creating app-special-folder... all of your desktop has more/less this attributes in its name, or folder name, or tag... whatever you use/prefer/combine...

The missing link is just the interface between AP and spotlight.

 

So, as long there is no "Bridge"-Persona, please implement this Desktop-Spotlight-"Stock" as better media-browseer-replacement for fast search and place inside or  "open in new file"... 

Well, people who collects his images in this restricted and access-shrinking apple-photo... instead file&folder will have here like in dozens other situations no advantage from this. I would say self-guilty... apple-photo is a way to become a slave of the goodwill from apple... Do not use such restricting apps, with its monolith-"libraries" and restricted access ! Do not become in-independent for just 2 extras! The old file/folder/finder-system, espacilly with tags, is really independent, can be used anywhre, do not need GB-space for "duplicates"

 

So please SERIF, give us a "HD-Stock" (should be implement in a week) or a real nice "Bridge"-Persona... but however... very soon. The Media-Browser was not really good. But better than NO tool for fast open/place MY files, not the stock-ones...

OSX 12.5  / iMac Retina 27" / Radeon Pro 580X / Metall: on! --- WWG1WGA WW!

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23 hours ago, Polygonius said:

If i eg in finder/spotlight-search hit the word "grandpa" i got all files and folder with grandpa in the name.

I get every document with the string grandpa included in it somewhere. I get so much garbage from Spotlight it is useless to me. Do not use that code.

 

23 hours ago, Polygonius said:

The Media-Browser was not really good. But better than NO tool for fast open/place MY files,

I agree with this completely.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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17 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I get every document with the string grandpa included in it somewhere. I get so much garbage from Spotlight it is useless to me. Do not use that code.

It seems you do not know the power of spotlight. Its possible to filter to exact you want. Set eg. the condition  "just images", so you only get all png, tiff, jpg.. wich have the name "grandpa".

You can also combine: just images PLUS folders, or "just new files from this week".... and so on. Spotlight is powerful. But i agree a dedicated Media-Persona with dedicated window and smart order/rename/move/filter.... would be much better. But it seems much intensiv to code from scratch. So, in the meantime i would be happy with just a spotlight-tool.

OSX 12.5  / iMac Retina 27" / Radeon Pro 580X / Metall: on! --- WWG1WGA WW!

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Not quite sure of all what's being said here but if I've read the above right, try "Alfred for Mac" (better search engine to replace spotlight) and if you want a good DAM try "Pixave for Mac". Very comprehensive and highly customizable. Can't recommend these highly enough.

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This is not very widely known, nor advertised by Adobe, but Bridge is completely free and no license is needed. Might serve as a temporary solution for some.

The file associations must be set in the preferences. And there are obviously a number of limitations related to not having Camera RAW installed. But is otherwise fully functional, and free. Even contact sheets can be prepared and output to PDF. And I just discovered it will even show a list of linked assets when inspecting InDesign files, which is pretty neat.

https://www.adobe.com/products/bridge.html

Direct links here:

https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2018-direct-download-links.html

The direct links download much faster than going via CC. The only issue is that Bridge requires around 1gb of space, which is a 'smite' overkill in my opinion.

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13 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

This is not very widely known, nor advertised by Adobe, but Bridge is completely free and no license is needed.

All true the caveat is that you must have an account with Adobe (not that big of a deal I guess) and if memory serves correct there are some libraries/code you may have to install in order for it to work. The latter was the deal breaker for me.

I would say it is a viable alternative to the nothing we have from Serif / Affinity at the moment. Myself I just use the Finder and sort and store my images with my own weird organizational method.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Honestly there is many software already available freeware and commercial which deals in the one or other way with this, that I wonder why it should be that urgent to have then some more or less sort of halfhearted implementation here.

Also IMO there are actually much more important and relevant things to work on, like all the bug fixes (MacOS, Windows, iOS) filed in by various people and the extension of restrictions of already long time available functionality. Would be fine to have first a stable, well working and performing actual base, before diving into other things.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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14 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

This is not very widely known, nor advertised by Adobe, but Bridge is completely free and no license is needed. Might serve as a temporary solution for some.

The file associations must be set in the preferences. And there are obviously a number of limitations related to not having Camera RAW installed. But is otherwise fully functional, and free. Even contact sheets can be prepared and output to PDF. And I just discovered it will even show a list of linked assets when inspecting InDesign files, which is pretty neat.

https://www.adobe.com/products/bridge.html

Direct links here:

https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2018-direct-download-links.html

The direct links download much faster than going via CC. The only issue is that Bridge requires around 1gb of space, which is a 'smite' overkill in my opinion.

Tried & dumped - damn quick. Just did not work - don't ask why - I do not know.

MacPro (late 2013), 24Gb Ram, D300GPU, Eizo 24",1TB Samsung 850 Archive, 2x2Tb Time Machine,X-t2 plus 50-140mm & 18-55mm. AP, FRV & RawFile Converter (Silkypix).

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19 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Honestly there is many software already available freeware and commercial which deals in the one or other way with this, that I wonder why it should be that urgent to have then some more or less sort of halfhearted implementation here.

Also IMO there are actually much more important and relevant things to work on, like all the bug fixes...

I would fully agree with you when we were talking about merely a file browsing app. There's indeed a lot of options available. But I think a lot of people actually want a DAM with a RAW processor built in - which as it's foundation has file browsing capabilities like Bridge or XN-View.

That's a totally different story. Many people, including me simply won't make the switch over from Adobe until a useful implementation for working with RAW files is available. It is as much missing as Publisher was missing for another fraction of Serifs core user base.

 

 

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1 hour ago, hifred said:

...But I think a lot of people actually want a DAM with a RAW processor built in - which as it's foundation has file browsing capabilities like Bridge or XN-View...

There is for example platform independent software like digiKam which offers RAW support and possibly what most people here would need.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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42 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

There is for example platform independent software like digiKam which offers RAW support and possibly what most people here would need. 

A third party RAW processors may work great for those who only rarely create layer based documents from RAW source images.

It's by no means a good solution for anyone who starts with RAW and typically ends up with a layered document. Leaving Adobe and it's perfectly integrated solutions to further use Aphoto + some 3rd party RAW processor instead meant taking several steps backwards. It was plain silly.

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OK. I confess. I have in all my >20years of digital photography ever gone out of my way to use 'layers'. They/it/them may be going on unknown to me but producing good images has always been a matter of Develop (negative/raw), Edit using tools, print appropriately and store/file.

So, as with film I have only ever needed a filing system that 'I' understood and that nowadays could handle the variety of file types that need storing. I admit Large format, medium format and 35mm where put in their own areas but I did not need three filing systems to handle them.

On my machine I have had, Bridge,FRV,Photo Mechanic,C1 and a lot of lesser known products and as yet have not found one simple enough, reliable and capable of handling all of the files types I have used.

Result is - use Finder and Memory (my memory). Multiple hard rives each based on time, content or accessibility.

When I find (not sure it will ever appear-not profitable) I will let everyone know.

Just to put it in perspective, one hard drive has not been accessed this year, only finder can browse it properly, while another is accessed every day with FRV the resulting images are then only viewable in Finder unless I use Photos (not my favourite).

Regards  Sharkey (older than my avatar)

MacPro (late 2013), 24Gb Ram, D300GPU, Eizo 24",1TB Samsung 850 Archive, 2x2Tb Time Machine,X-t2 plus 50-140mm & 18-55mm. AP, FRV & RawFile Converter (Silkypix).

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Well related to DAM and RAW support it always highly depends on individual needs here, if more casual (homebrew) or professional daily business usage etc. Pros have other demands than amateurs in this regard and as we all know it's always difficult to please them all. - Also new initial developed software often tends to miss a lot of aspects what other long time available and supported software already has and offers. So one have to wait and see!

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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4 hours ago, hifred said:

A third party RAW processors may work great for those who only rarely create layer based documents from RAW source images.

Not so sure. It does not make much difference if you do your images LR>PS or LR>AP (like I do). At the moment there is no application which does RAW developing (quick and well) and also layer work (well). Doing it with 2 tools may complicate work a bit but it really is not a huge problem.

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I would REALLY love if AP is ONE app, and a SERif-LR is another app. For me, al this RAW-themes, suggestions, questions... the "seemly poor" Develope-Persona.... For me a RAW-app is a SEPEARATE app, or PERSONA. I do not this!!!!!!!!!!! Its YOUR LR-Fight, but not never mine! 

There are several "target-groups": photographers, image-stuntmen, designers, punlicers.... Most of them has INDIVUDELL needs.  I would say i am a " image-stuntmen"... i need very often textures or whatever as direct as possible and "lazy"--- i want

Phptograpers want a RAW-collection....

Designer wants this... and so on....

 

FOR ME the whole devolope persona, also the HDR persona.... i NEVER use... for me its useless stuff... 

BUt i would like to have a "design-Persona" inside AP.... 

 

So, Personas a good idea, but i would prefer, that the most target-groups can "build its own SERIF product... I would buy Photo base, also Liqufy plus Asset and vector-brush and all ist other "parts" from Designer, plus page handling/calc... from APub...

From a SERif-DAM i would buy just the bridge....not the LR.... 

 

HOWEVER there would be a lot of modules or personas... and everyone could buy all PERSONAS who like!, INSIDE one app! Also for Serif that would be better... i now only have AP = 50€. 

i would give up HDR and dvelope....Persona, but i would buy Asset and Vector-Persona... also Calc-Persona and Page-persona... if there comes a LR i would buy "bridge" persona.... and so on... 

OSX 12.5  / iMac Retina 27" / Radeon Pro 580X / Metall: on! --- WWG1WGA WW!

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1 hour ago, Fixx said:

PS is not as powerful as LR with large amounts of photos.  

This may well be. But one needed to define "many" first. Handling twenty or more RAWs (or RAW-based layered documents) at once sure isn't a problem - I do this all of the time.

In my book it qualifies PS as an app which is good both with RAW and with layered files. Thus far I have not seen a program that does this job better.

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1 hour ago, hifred said:

This may well be. But one needed to define "many" first. Handling twenty or more RAWs (or RAW-based layered documents) at once sure isn't a problem - I do this all of the time.

In my book it qualifies PS as an app which is good both with RAW and with layered files. Thus far I have not seen a program that does this job better.

Perhaps I should have been clearer?

Not 'many' numerically eg: 200 RAW but 'many' as in 'Many Varieties or Types" of file.

AP handling of Fuji up until this 1.7 beta has been 'problematic'! This applies across the application landscape.

Each application has its own strengths and weaknesses. If, for instance, Serif had produced a DAM/Browser before they had sorted the Fuji File problems it would have been a total Pig for Fuji shooters. The Adobe Raw Developer is (personally speaking) well below C1,AP and Fuji's own developer so to use their offering at the moment is going to not satisfy my wants; but their file handling (including Rafs) is fine.

In a way I 'get' "Polygonius" in that each of us have a tool box in our heads that each of us feels would suit what we want to do with our images.

The developers seem set on providing a 'one fits all' solution no matter what and we, it seems actually want to pick our own workflow tools.

So the only choice we have is to use a non-custom toolbox as is provided by the mainstream developers to ensure ease of use and cost control or pick and choose from everything out there and create personalised (some would say clunky) production lines that move from one application to another in ways that we can justify to ourselves but rarely to anyone else.

Perhaps if the developers actually asked 'Jo Public' eg. ME ;-) we might get there a bit sooner.

MacPro (late 2013), 24Gb Ram, D300GPU, Eizo 24",1TB Samsung 850 Archive, 2x2Tb Time Machine,X-t2 plus 50-140mm & 18-55mm. AP, FRV & RawFile Converter (Silkypix).

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2 hours ago, Sharkey said:

Perhaps I should have been clearer?

Not 'many' numerically eg: 200 RAW but 'many' as in 'Many Varieties or Types" of file. 

Sharkey, in the section you quoted I had answered to @Fixx - we were discussing performance-differences between Photoshop and Lightroom.

I do agree that the amount of supported camera/lense types still needs a lot of work. I also agree with the statement, that Affinity Apps still offer too little flexibility for people with different editing habits and needs.

 

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On 11/25/2018 at 2:54 PM, hifred said:

 

Sharkey, in the section you quoted I had answered to @Fixx - we were discussing performance-differences between Photoshop and Lightroom.

I do agree that the amount of supported camera/lense types still needs a lot of work. I also agree with the statement, that Affinity Apps still offer too little flexibility for people with different editing habits and needs.

 

Oooops!

MacPro (late 2013), 24Gb Ram, D300GPU, Eizo 24",1TB Samsung 850 Archive, 2x2Tb Time Machine,X-t2 plus 50-140mm & 18-55mm. AP, FRV & RawFile Converter (Silkypix).

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