Author Topic: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter  (Read 16077 times)

Offline lanzi

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To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« on: November 08, 2012, 02:22:29 PM »
Hi everyone,

i am new to the forum but not new to photomechanic. using it for ages and if I would have to name three essential pieces of software for my photo pp workflow, photomechanic would be number one. as many of you i am waiting for CATALOG.
in the waiting time i have been testing many other solutions (cumulus, portfolio, media pro) just to name the usual suspects. none of them really convinced due to the fact that the single user versions are all catalog based and not sql based. when trying to jam all my files in one catalog they all collapsed under my roughly 340.000 raws.

2 months ago i gave NEOFINDER a go (formally known as cdfinder). and i have to say, (although catalog based as well) neofinder hits the spot in every regard.
cataloged my entire lib of raws living on a nas in less than 24 hours and the catalog is rock solid and fast. the catalog is networkable from many computers (mac and pc)
and the best thing, all the metadata applied in photomechanic just come through perfectly into NEOFINDER.
what a piece of software!!!

i think this is a pretty good solution for all you shooters looking for a dam software (until PM Catalog is finished)

www.cdfinder.de

Offline Frederic

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2012, 12:41:25 AM »
Thank you Lanzi for these informations.
Infortunately (at least for me) it is reserved to the happy owners of a Mac.

Offline HvTFoto

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2012, 01:08:21 AM »
Does edits of RAW-files show up? The only program I've seen this far that recognozes RAW-edits done in NX2 (e.g. edits done outside the software that displays the files) is PhotoMechanic. To me, it is imperative that the catalog program shows/displays the RAW-files as it is edited.

//Hans

Offline Luiz Muzzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #3 on: November 09, 2012, 02:06:47 AM »
Thanks a lot, Lanzi, for the information.
I'll give it a try (I've looked up, there's a free trial).
Regards,

-Luiz Muzzi

Offline lanzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #4 on: November 09, 2012, 01:41:46 PM »
hello hans,
i hope i understand your question correctly. neofinder generates thumbnails of whatever image file it finds. raw files are no exception. and as far as i can tell it can show every raw file which is supported by osx. so whenever apple comes up with a support update for new rawfiles neofinder will pick that up as well.
does that answer your question or am i missing something?

cheers
lanzi

Offline HvTFoto

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2012, 03:06:44 PM »
Thanks for the answer. However, what I have found from other programs (and I fear that the same goes with Neofinder but I will download and test) is that the Nikon raw files displayed are the jpeg previewfiles and and that any edits done by CaptureNX2 is not displayed- I've tested PhotoSupreme (IdiImager), LR, Bridge and PhaseOne. In order to have these programs correctly display edited raw files you have to edit the raw files with the associated program. I use Capture NX2 to edit rawfiles and the only program that runs under Mac that I've seen correctly displaying the edits is PM but I'll give neofinder a try. 

//Hans

Offline lanzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2012, 04:24:48 PM »
hi hans, i think neofinder will not make you happy as well in that regard.
i don't think actual raw edits will show up, since only the native raw editor will understand those edits unless you save them as a sidecar xml file along with the raw image.

neofinder is a pure cataloging software and no image editing software (editing meaning image manipulation).

so it depends a little bit on your personal workflow.

personally i am working with cr2 and orf raw files. once the raw file has been edited (image manipulated) i will always save out my 16 bit adobe rgb tif and alongside a full res jpeg srgb.
that gives me the advantage of seeing the final image in my catalog as well and i do not have to rely on any soft edits (done in acr, lr, nx2 .. you name them) being stored with the raw files.

i know many people do it differently and that is only my way of doing it. ahhh post processing workflows are just too tricky!!!
so many different ways


Offline vAfotoriporter

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2012, 06:08:18 PM »
Thank you Lanzi for these informations.
Infortunately (at least for me) it is reserved to the happy owners of a Mac.

I too have good news, especially for you Frederic. NeoFinder (the former CDfinder) has a Windows version too, formerly called CDwinder, now it is called abeMeda - I don't know why they started renaming them and I even less understand why they keep developing them so much separated instead of calling it the same and making it obvious that they are cross platform with the two versions. (Correction: in the download section they display there is an app for the other platform - but why they chose this not so obvious method?)
You find it at http://cdwinder.de

As much as I could observe during the years (and the current, rebranded screenshots) they look the same, they feel (roughly) the same and of course they use the same features and catalog files too, so you can use them cross platform. Even use the very same catalog files on a network drive from a PC and a Mac.
I've done part of the cataloging on CDwinder when I still had my old PC with HDDs built into it. And now I still can find files on the very same hard drives that now sit in a locker and I only connect them via a USB adapter to the Mac when some data is needed from them.

It can also be important that they are not too expensive with full or even multi user licences but for a test drive they are completely free yet fully functional and unlimited in time as far as you don't exceed 10 catalogs, what is fairly enough if you have only one or two computers and a handful of external drives. But network drives are not a free/basic feature it requires a licence.
A new catalog is created for each partition you add to the system. So each DVD and hard drive partition is a separate catalog that can be manually added or removed from the program. For example I have a complete catalog of my full archive (each HDD, CD, DVD, everything) and I store the whole catalog set on an external hard drive. Only my mostly used HDD catalogs are allways at hand on my MacBook Air (128GB is limited storage why waste it on CD/DVD disks that I didn't even touch in years). If I don't find something I can attach the external drive and switch to the whole set and start a new search.

Of course you can search the catalogs with the drives offline to find out what storage to find on the selves and connect, once connected you can click to show the found item in a Finder window or can simply drag+drop for immediate use.

For my home purposes I don't use its previews as mainly I search only by filename or metadata and once the shoot folder is located I browse it with PM for the rest.
But at a paper I worked for I used it as the main DAM with active previews and it worked great without problem. Using it seemed me almost as fast and somewhat more user friendly as the (can I say?) industry standard Canto Cumulus what is really far from it in price tag.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2012, 06:12:23 PM by szurkebarat »
Working on Mac, OSX, iOS and with some Canons.
Allways shooting RAW.

http://www.volgyiattila.com

Offline pano

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2012, 04:29:01 AM »
In fact I´m using neo finder for years side by side with pm, its one of the best and cheapest professional-solution on the market i think.
And its working fantastic fast and 100% stable.

Offline lanzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2012, 09:44:55 AM »
hi  pano,

i can only confirm that. especially the networking capability, the stability and the super fast response of the program finding assets just amazes me.
that is pretty much everything a catalog software needs to do and norber doerner, who writes the software is an amazing guy who listens to feedback.
i even managed to access my catalog from outside my lan via webdav

Offline platti

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2012, 07:27:42 AM »
Hi,

I know CDFinder, it is just a software to find files quickly, but no catalog software meant to e.g. show pictures to clients.
Neofinder didn't change that.
In my opinion Neofinder is no alternative for any practical catalog software. It is just an app to fiind files, nothing more. Besides, the quality of the previews is still very poor on my mac ...
greets from a hill
my gallery on zenfolio

Offline Soizic

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2012, 11:50:03 PM »
After this post, I tried CDFinder, and put iit in the trash.It i s only a super finder or spotlight, not a database.
Soizic (France)
MacBook Pro M1,Ventura, PM+ à jour, deepl translator

Offline lanzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2012, 01:24:24 AM »
Hi,

I know CDFinder, it is just a software to find files quickly, but no catalog software meant to e.g. show pictures to clients.
Neofinder didn't change that.
In my opinion Neofinder is no alternative for any practical catalog software. It is just an app to fiind files, nothing more. Besides, the quality of the previews is still very poor on my mac ...

hi platti,

out of curiosity, what exactly should a "practical catalog software" be able to do what neofinder can't?
what stops you showing pics to clients using neofinder using it in a lan or even a wan.
isn't the main purpose of a catalog software to find files quickly based on a bunch of search criteria?

regards
lanzi

Offline lanzi

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2012, 01:29:25 AM »
After this post, I tried CDFinder, and put iit in the trash.It i s only a super finder or spotlight, not a database.

hi soizic,

you have to create a database first with neofinder, before you can use it as such. once you have done that with your volumes or folders in question you have a full blown database you can work with online or offline?
do you know a database software that is solid and available until camerabits releases photomechanic catalog?
regards
lanzi

Offline Soizic

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Re: To make the waiting for Catalog a bit shorter
« Reply #14 on: November 16, 2012, 09:08:07 AM »
Hi Lanzi

I hope PM software…
I enjoyed a long time ago,with MediaPro for mac, then with Atomic View, beautiful soft  but no more maintenance, killed by Mountain Lion.

I use now LR, correct for JPG, not adequate for NEF+JPG. A lot of problems, but really good keywords organization.

Platti speaks well, not I, so he is able to explain what I think ! Thanks Platti !

Best regards
Soizic (France)
MacBook Pro M1,Ventura, PM+ à jour, deepl translator