background colors

[courtlevephoto]

I can not select different background and select colors now...  Any clue?  I go into preferences, try to choose different colors but no luck.  If I choose a white background it stays gray....  Nothing will change?

[Kirk Baker]

I can not select different background and select colors now...  Any clue?  I go into preferences, try to choose different colors but no luck.  If I choose a white background it stays gray....  Nothing will change?

Are you clicking on the color well for the background color?  Then adjusting the color palette?  Then OKing the Preferences dialog?

Which background color are you trying to change?  The Background color, Sheet color, or the Background color for the Color Class and 5-star ratings?

-Kirk

[courtlevephoto]

The problem required a restart of my computer, now it is okay to change the colors.  PM seems to have a LOT of quarks....  It's VERY quick with some tasks, VERY non-user friendly with others.  I'm not sure if I'd call this a 'pro' software program, not being able to handle PSD's is a serious problem in PM's workflow.....  I'm almost back to ground zero on looking at software here.. 

[Kirk Baker]

The problem required a restart of my computer, now it is okay to change the colors.  PM seems to have a LOT of quarks....  It's VERY quick with some tasks, VERY non-user friendly with others.  I'm not sure if I'd call this a 'pro' software program, not being able to handle PSD's is a serious problem in PM's workflow.....  I'm almost back to ground zero on looking at software here.. 

It may be the case that Photo Mechanic does not currently meet your needs.  Based on your usage of the program and the questions you have asked in other threads, I think you're looking for more of a cataloging solution.  I understand that you're an iView Media Pro user already.  Why do you feel a need to look elsewhere?

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

The problem required a restart of my computer, now it is okay to change the colors.

Since we use Apple's color picker, I would suspect that the problem that was afflicting your computer would have affected other applications that used Apple's color picker as well.  I doubt it was the fault of Photo Mechanic.

PM seems to have a LOT of quarks....  It's VERY quick with some tasks, VERY non-user friendly with others.  I'm not sure if I'd call this a 'pro' software program, not being able to handle PSD's is a serious problem in PM's workflow....

What part is non-user friendly?  I'd like to know since we're constantly working on making Photo Mechanic a better tool for professional photographers.

Adobe Photoshop files are not at all an open standard file format.  The PSD file format predates digital photography and was designed for general purpose image editing.  It is no longer publicly documented.  Even Photoshop takes a long time to open PSD files which can be very large.  Large amounts of data take longer to process.

I'm not sure what you're expecting of PM.  Photo Mechanic is first and foremost a photojournalist's tool meant to handle a day's worth of photos from downloading to renaming, captioning to uploading.  At these tasks it excels.

I get the feeling that you're pointing Photo Mechanic at a directory full of thousands of files that are not from a digital camera.  While PM can handle that task, it will do it far less efficiently than working with images straight out of a digital camera.

What are your needs?  Maybe I can recommend settings to make PM work faster, or even recommend a competitor's product if it would be a better fit for your needs.

-Kirk

[Serge Nelissen]

I can not select different background and select colors now...  Any clue?  I go into preferences, try to choose different colors but no luck.  If I choose a white background it stays gray....  Nothing will change?

I would like to change the backgrouond color of the navigator/favorites window.

Serge

[Kirk Baker]

I can not select different background and select colors now...  Any clue?  I go into preferences, try to choose different colors but no luck.  If I choose a white background it stays gray....  Nothing will change?

I would like to change the backgrouond color of the navigator/favorites window.

On Windows, the colors of the tree views are drawn by the OS according to your display preferences.

-Kirk

[courtlevephoto]

Kirk, thanks for your help and replies.  It would seem that after reinstalling PM the program is working MUCH MUCH better.  Something was obvioiusly very wrong with the program from the first insalation.  The search wouldn't work properly, the colors wouldn't change in the background and the program would hand and need to be forced to quit if I tried to look at a folder of images with psd file inside.  This has all be corrected with the reinstal of PM. 

I'll be purchasing this program soon.  Now that it is working as it should, I like the software and see what it was designed for.  I'm blown away with how quickly it writes metadata to files, particularly jpegs.  Also, it is the quickest viewer of images I've used to date.

My recommendations of making it better?  The only reason I would still use iview is to create catalogs.  This feature is extremely helpful for putting out submissions to a client.  I can create a catalog of images without duplicating them, create a web page from these images, etc...  i have found that I can drag and drop from PM to iview to complete this task when needed.  I'm sure I"m not the only one that would like this feature.

Integrating a more refined search feature would be awesome.  Maybe you can recommend a better searching software?  I think it would be nice if you had a pull-down menu of all of your metada fields.  So for instance you could search only by location or keyword or photographer. 

Outside of that, your program rocks now that it's working well.  This was the casue of my frustration and why I couldn't possibly imagine that it was a professional tool.  Now I see it working in full swing and it is what you say it is.

What other cataloging type of software would you recommend out of curiosity?

[Kirk Baker]

My recommendations of making it better?  The only reason I would still use iview is to create catalogs.  This feature is extremely helpful for putting out submissions to a client.  I can create a catalog of images without duplicating them, create a web page from these images, etc...  i have found that I can drag and drop from PM to iview to complete this task when needed.  I'm sure I"m not the only one that would like this feature.

We are working on an integrated cataloging solution as I write this.

Integrating a more refined search feature would be awesome.  Maybe you can recommend a better searching software?  I think it would be nice if you had a pull-down menu of all of your metada fields.  So for instance you could search only by location or keyword or photographer.

It sounds like you're using the Quick Search tool in the toolbar to do your searches.  Use the Search command on the Edit menu.  You can specifically do what you're asking to be able to do.

What other cataloging type of software would you recommend out of curiosity?

I hear that Extensis Portfolio and iView Media Pro are both very capable cataloging applications.  You already have iView.  Is there something lacking in it at the moment?

-Kirk

[courtlevephoto]

Iview is somewhat slow to build catalogs and if you don't use iview to move files, etc.. then your catalogs aren't kept in synch easily.  I know you can update, auto update, etc..  I have found though that they get out of synch from time to time.  And, if you make changes to the structure say in PM, you need to basically rebuild the iview catalog.  To do so, and have the images sized at a useable scale it can take a VERY long time compared to PM.  Same with editing metadata in PM, the changes simply aren't reflected in iview even if you refresh/rebuid the images, which again takes quite a bit of time.

I've tried the advanced find feature in PM but haven't found it to be terribly useful.  You have stated that PM isn't designed to search through thousand of images.  I'm often pulling images for submission and need a fast way to locate images across many folders/shoot/years.  For instance.


I need to pull skiing images.  I can search the main search field in PM and it will successfuly find all images with skiing or ski in the filename and metadata.  If I want to narrow this down to a location, say Squaw, it's tough to do unless you already know which folders to perform your advanced search in, which kind of defeats the purpose of an advanced search.

If I try a specific search on my file structure of thousands of images this doesn't seem to be the way to go, and I'm not sue if any software is available for this?

I haven't used extensis  for a  number of years, perhaps its worth a look again.   


I could easily see PM becoming my main viewer due to how quickly it builds thumbnails.  Also, the search that is using the mac spotlight is great because it's only pulling images, not data files like a word doc that may have a related keyword in the document. 

Like I sated before, it would be sweet to see a pulldown menu in that search that allowed you to search your entire library but allowing you to search specific fields only, like location, etc..   


In any event, the limited time I've been using PM I've increased my productivity for sure in being able to keyword and find data.  The only downside is that all my iview catalogs are now in need of being thrown away since they don't update the info.  This wouldn't seem to be  PM issue as much as a general fault of iview and/or 'that's just how it is.'.  Not sure really how to get around this.  But as I stated earlier, you can drop images into iview to create specific catalogs.  This may be the best solution for my needs.  It just would be nice to be able to do so from one piece of software. 


Thanks.

[Kirk Baker]

Iview is somewhat slow to build catalogs and if you don't use iview to move files, etc.. then your catalogs aren't kept in synch easily.  I know you can update, auto update, etc..  I have found though that they get out of synch from time to time.  And, if you make changes to the structure say in PM, you need to basically rebuild the iview catalog.  To do so, and have the images sized at a useable scale it can take a VERY long time compared to PM.  Same with editing metadata in PM, the changes simply aren't reflected in iview even if you refresh/rebuid the images, which again takes quite a bit of time.

I've tried the advanced find feature in PM but haven't found it to be terribly useful.  You have stated that PM isn't designed to search through thousand of images.  I'm often pulling images for submission and need a fast way to locate images across many folders/shoot/years.  For instance.

It sounds like you're using the Find panel and not the Search panel.  Go to the Edit menu and choose Search...  You can search specific fields for specified words.  Other fields that contain those words will not match the search and will not be shown.

I need to pull skiing images.  I can search the main search field in PM and it will successfuly find all images with skiing or ski in the filename and metadata.  If I want to narrow this down to a location, say Squaw, it's tough to do unless you already know which folders to perform your advanced search in, which kind of defeats the purpose of an advanced search.

If I try a specific search on my file structure of thousands of images this doesn't seem to be the way to go, and I'm not sue if any software is available for this?

Without creating a catalog, a Spotlight search is going to be the best there is since it reflects your filesystem as it is.  Just use the Search panel from within Photo Mechanic.

I haven't used extensis  for a  number of years, perhaps its worth a look again.   

I could easily see PM becoming my main viewer due to how quickly it builds thumbnails.  Also, the search that is using the mac spotlight is great because it's only pulling images, not data files like a word doc that may have a related keyword in the document. 

Like I sated before, it would be sweet to see a pulldown menu in that search that allowed you to search your entire library but allowing you to search specific fields only, like location, etc..

Everything that Spotlight indexes that is image related can be accessed directly from the Search panel.  The Location field does not get indexed by Spotlight so it isn't in the pull-down menus in the Search panel.

In any event, the limited time I've been using PM I've increased my productivity for sure in being able to keyword and find data.  The only downside is that all my iview catalogs are now in need of being thrown away since they don't update the info.  This wouldn't seem to be  PM issue as much as a general fault of iview and/or 'that's just how it is.'.  Not sure really how to get around this.  But as I stated earlier, you can drop images into iview to create specific catalogs.  This may be the best solution for my needs.  It just would be nice to be able to do so from one piece of software.

When PM has a cataloging capability you'll be able to do just that.

-Kirk