Serious cataloguing program?

[Fionanoc]

Hi there,

I'm a Photo Mechanic user for over a year now and am very happy with the program.

Recently, however, I have the need to catalogue a very serious number of photo files- both scans from negative & transparency and digital (mostly Jpeg) and want to know if Photo Mechanic will serve my purposes well. I really do have aspirations to set up a huge photo data-base, which I eventually want to put out there as a commercial idea so I don't want to find that PM isn't up to the task when I'm half way through the project! I know of the Extensis and iView programs but really am at a loss as to which would best suit my needs and would appreciate any help you guys out there can offer. I'd like to keep it relatively simple- like, I can't see the need or usefullness of masses of 'metadata' etc and overly complex cross-referencing.

Thanks, in advance, for your kind attention,

Fionanoc
Dublin, Ireland.

[Kirk Baker]

Fionanoc,

I'm a Photo Mechanic user for over a year now and am very happy with the program.

Recently, however, I have the need to catalogue a very serious number of photo files- both scans from negative & transparency and digital (mostly Jpeg) and want to know if Photo Mechanic will serve my purposes well. I really do have aspirations to set up a huge photo data-base, which I eventually want to put out there as a commercial idea so I don't want to find that PM isn't up to the task when I'm half way through the project! I know of the Extensis and iView programs but really am at a loss as to which would best suit my needs and would appreciate any help you guys out there can offer. I'd like to keep it relatively simple- like, I can't see the need or usefullness of masses of 'metadata' etc and overly complex cross-referencing.

At this time, Photo Mechanic is not a cataloging application.  We are adding cataloging capabilities to Photo Mechanic but its availability is a while off yet.

So you'll need to choose one of the other applications you mentioned for the time being.

-Kirk

[Juerg]

At this time, Photo Mechanic is not a cataloging application.  We are adding cataloging capabilities to Photo Mechanic but its availability is a while off yet.

So you'll need to choose one of the other applications you mentioned for the time being.

-Kirk

Kirk,

Will the catologing capability be available for the Windows version as well, or only the MAC version?
I strongly hope for both.

I tried several others, but each of them seems to be either very slow and has problems with ratings and labels entered in PM.

Thanks,
Archer

[Kirk Baker]

Archer,

At this time, Photo Mechanic is not a cataloging application.  We are adding cataloging capabilities to Photo Mechanic but its availability is a while off yet.

So you'll need to choose one of the other applications you mentioned for the time being.

Will the catologing capability be available for the Windows version as well, or only the MAC version?
I strongly hope for both.

I tried several others, but each of them seems to be either very slow and has problems with ratings and labels entered in PM.

It will be cross-platform code which will work on both Mac OS X and Windows equally well.

-Kirk

[rpruden]

Fionanoc, i haven't used either, but my sister is a pro-PJ for her day job.  They use Extensis and PM.  She got me on the PM bandwagon and I am so glad she did.  From what she has mentioned, Extensis is a really powerful cataloging program with database backend for photo storage and retrieval.  Their older shoots are stored on CD/DVD and Extensis Portfolio can reference them and call for CD/DVD #xxx to access the originals (as I understand it).

Rick

[Pavel]

I'm in  the same boat, patiently waiting for what will undoubtedly be "the" cataloguing app when it comes out (quality takes time) but in the meanwhile I have over 60,000 shots cluttering up several drives that I'm trying to force into submission.  I've found that while I don't like many aspects of the program, That Aperture is a great cataloguing program (and fantastic beyond compare with keywording).  So I use it for cataloguing, keywording and web-page creation.  It does a good job there - thought with the changes in keywording in 4.5 I am finding it different but as good now so I am going to keyword in PM from now on.

I can live without photoshop, but how one could live without Photomechanic is completely beyond my ability to imagine.  This is the best program in existence!