First Impressions of the 'Plus'

[timesnaps]

Perhaps years of talk has been falsly hyping expectations on this software. I am very underwhelmed for a first look. As a iView Media fan, I had high hopes for this. But same interface, almost identical to PM6. Need to dig deeper and test it more.

(I have decided to remove my earlier post, in order to test it more thoroughly before adding my more detailed views)


Specs of environment:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
Mac OS X 10.12.6
8GB RAM
512GB SSD

Catalog:
Image type(s): JPG's
Image Numbers: 1067
Camera: various
Disk used: internal SSD of Macbook Pro

[RobertE]

PM6 Plus is a different beast to iView. The UI is different and which is better is personal preference, however I do however agree with you . PM6 Plus will have other benefits:

• Support!
• Updates!
• Multi-user
• 64 bit
• In theory, unlimited catalog

For the moment I'm still maintaining a Media Pro catalog alongside PM6 Plus and Lightroom. With Media Pro now dead and Phase One unlikely to offer a robust catalog maybe Capture One users have an alternative.

[Hayo Baan]

Perhaps years of talk has been falsly hyping expectations on this software. I am very underwhelmed for a first look. As a iView Media fan, I had high hopes for this. But same interface, almost identical to PM6. Need to dig deeper and test it more.

Sure, the base interface is the same. Didn't you expect that? To me this has the advantage that all familiar tools are still available to be used on a catalog.  That said, there are certainly some areas that can be improved upon. And others we will just have to get used to. One of the things (for me) to get used to is the impact of having the ability to everywhere use multiple catalogs. This oftentimes leads to a more complex interface than one would like (need).

I've been playing with the catalog for some time now (I'm one of the private beta testers) and I know  Camerabits will do what it can to make the software work well for everyone. They just need to be told about our wishes (and any bugs we find). So be sure to tell us what you think can be improved (and how)

[timesnaps]

I've been playing with the catalog for some time now (I'm one of the private beta testers) and I know  Camerabits will do what it can to make the software work well for everyone. They just need to be told about our wishes (and any bugs we find). So be sure to tell us what you think can be improved (and how)

Hi, although I wish iView could be re-created - an amazing useful, intuitive interface, and great function - I understand that this is not the plan, nor even on the developers minds. But I have been reaching out in the past, even offering to test it (I have worked as a software tester in the past) on over 100,000 images. But I just feel the feedback is lost.

Obviously everyone has some different needs, but from my first look, I find the whole process of windows, tabs and panels frustrating to say the least. At present I find myself abandoning the idea of using PM6 Plus as go to catalogue editor and will need to stick to Lightroom, even I prefer not to. The interface is far too cluttered and fragemented for everyday use.

Have been looking at it and trying to work out whats what for over 4 hrs now, and it got so frustrating that I had to step away from it. Thats not a good sign - plus I am not an occasional IT users!

[Hayo Baan]

I've been playing with the catalog for some time now (I'm one of the private beta testers) and I know  Camerabits will do what it can to make the software work well for everyone. They just need to be told about our wishes (and any bugs we find). So be sure to tell us what you think can be improved (and how)

Hi, although I wish iView could be re-created - an amazing useful, intuitive interface, and great function - I understand that this is not the plan, nor even on the developers minds. But I have been reaching out in the past, even offering to test it (I have worked as a software tester in the past) on over 100,000 images. But I just feel the feedback is lost.

Obviously everyone has some different needs, but from my first look, I find the whole process of windows, tabs and panels frustrating to say the least. At present I find myself abandoning the idea of using PM6 Plus as go to catalogue editor and will need to stick to Lightroom, even I prefer not to. The interface is far too cluttered and fragemented for everyday use.

Have been looking at it and trying to work out whats what for over 4 hrs now, and it got so frustrating that I had to step away from it. Thats not a good sign - plus I am not an occasional IT users!

I don't think your feedback is “lost” and I am sure if you provide feedback in a way that describes what you want in a clear way, then Camerabits will listen.
Because Camerabits took the (imo bold and radical) approach to support multiple catalogs simultaneously, the GUI design took a usability hit. Most of this should be solvable though (for one there's tons of useless spacing in many of the dialogs), perhaps in the future we will even see a single catalog mode, one that abolishes all the required fluff of being able to select (from) multiple catalogs.

As said I've been working with the catalog for some time now and it took me a while to get used to most of it (still learning, I'm sure). But now I find I can do most of the tasks I expect to be able to do from within the single catalog mode window, switching between the browse and filter tabs to be able to get to the images I want quickly (PM's catalog is quick as soon as it has fully finished building its image database).

Yes, there is still missing functionality (e.g. filtering is not yet as powerful as it should – and will be) and there are still some (known) bugs as well. But that's what we are here to help with as well

P.S. Other than LR, I have no image catalog usage experience so I also have no idea what iView Media used to offer in this respect.

[boltoch]

I'm an amateur, so software isn't critical for my livelihood.

I've been a Media Pro (in its various forms - including the Microsoft era) user for many years. Not a fan of LR. Sorry to see Phase One drop Media Pro, so have been desperately looking for a replacement as I don't feel comfortable with Capture One's catalog system (still too buggy). I know that PM Plus has been in development for many years and feel confident that Camera Bits will turn this into a first rate product.

Wishing the team all the best.

Chris

[RobertE]

I think Camera Bits are heading in the right direction. The Photo Mechanic UI is quite intuitive and existing users will feel right at home.

I've been an alpha and a beta tester for image cataloging applications for two and half decades. UI is very important to creatives. The DAM applications that struck a cord with photographers were those that had a clean, can I say "Apple" design aesthetic? As digital photography grew many of us looked at existing DAM programs from Canto, Photools, Fotoware, Extensis, iView Multimedia, etc. The former few of those applications felt like Excel, both in UI and UX. The latter were more visually appealing and attracted photographers. Then Aperture disrupted the whole market. For a standalone program it's worth noting all but FotoStation no longer exist!

Camera Bits advantage is they are a nimble team, agile before it was even a term, with a very customer focussed outlook. Building a catalog program is not easy with the most important part being the database. Exposing the database to users through the UI can be polished as the program matures along with constructive user feedback.

[retief]

I was the Dev Manager for a very large document management system that manages hundreds of thousands of documents for large enterprise across many industries.  Since that time I have used many systems, including some specifically for photographers.  I have also been a long time Photo Mechanic user, back to Version 1, and was very unhappy when the first catalog announcements were made some years ago.  Having to use multiple products is a royal pain in the tookus, keeping things in synch an extra royal pain.  I was late to the party downloading this Beta, I only did it 45 minutes ago.  Here are my first impressions:

1. installation quite easy, I was not expecting that PM6+ is a "superset" of PM6, not an extra program, kudos to Camerabits.  I probably just wasn't paying attention earlier.
2. Within 10 minutes, including installation, I was able to add images to the catalog, figure out how to create added catalogs, have not done that yet.  All surprisingly intuitive.
3. Biggest difficulty was figuring out how to search the catalog, found the answer, the Organizer, on the Forums.
4. Adding images from network drives is a snap, accessing them much faster than PM5.
5. Browsing in the Organizer very easy, still working to figure out how to do a Filter and use Collections.

It has taken me as long to read this thread and make this post as it took me to figure out how to add 100 images to the catalog and do simple browsing by keywords.

I'm still pissed that it took so long to arrive, but if the rest of my testing goes as well as the first 1/2 hour it will have been worth the wait.

To those who find the UI "difficult", it really follows much the way the entire UI works in PM6 from what I see.  Yes, getting used to the Organizer will take me a bit.  Keywording and searching is far faster than either LR or On1 for me, especially working on a laptop over the network.

So far, so good.  Now to figure out how not show those pesky On1 sidecar files ... I know it is in there someplace.

Thanks, Camerabits, the thing I like the most is how seamless the process seems to be.

[Dub]

Hello everyone,
First, congratulations to the team for PM +.

Confusing for MediaPro users !!!
I understand that your catalog is only used to filter / search.
Can not tag an image, by dragging a photo on a keyword, for example.

Two things that will probably be changed for the final version:
-All EXIF / IPTC fields should be accessible to filter.
-It would be necessary to be able to deactivate a choice in a list, without having to close this one to cancel this choice.

(Sorry for my english ... I'm French user, it's Google translation)
Best regards

[jose]

I was the Dev Manager for a very large document management system that manages hundreds of thousands of documents for large enterprise across many industries.  Since that time I have used many systems, including some specifically for photographers.  I have also been a long time Photo Mechanic user, back to Version 1, and was very unhappy when the first catalog announcements were made some years ago.  Having to use multiple products is a royal pain in the tookus, keeping things in synch an extra royal pain.  I was late to the party downloading this Beta, I only did it 45 minutes ago.  Here are my first impressions:

1. installation quite easy, I was not expecting that PM6+ is a "superset" of PM6, not an extra program, kudos to Camerabits.  I probably just wasn't paying attention earlier.
2. Within 10 minutes, including installation, I was able to add images to the catalog, figure out how to create added catalogs, have not done that yet.  All surprisingly intuitive.
3. Biggest difficulty was figuring out how to search the catalog, found the answer, the Organizer, on the Forums.
4. Adding images from network drives is a snap, accessing them much faster than PM5.
5. Browsing in the Organizer very easy, still working to figure out how to do a Filter and use Collections.

It has taken me as long to read this thread and make this post as it took me to figure out how to add 100 images to the catalog and do simple browsing by keywords.

I'm still pissed that it took so long to arrive, but if the rest of my testing goes as well as the first 1/2 hour it will have been worth the wait.

To those who find the UI "difficult", it really follows much the way the entire UI works in PM6 from what I see.  Yes, getting used to the Organizer will take me a bit.  Keywording and searching is far faster than either LR or On1 for me, especially working on a laptop over the network.

So far, so good.  Now to figure out how not show those pesky On1 sidecar files ... I know it is in there someplace.

Thanks, Camerabits, the thing I like the most is how seamless the process seems to be.

good analysis, 100% agreement.

thanks, CameraBits tream,
jose.

[cfen31]

Longtime iView -> Media Pro user here and I agree with others that PMP doesn't yet fit the bill as a replacement. It seems to me there's a great opportunity to increase user base with Media Pro getting the axe, so I hope Camera Bits will study what made Media Pro unique and bring in some of those features.

For me, Media Pro's killer features were the ability to drag/drop images to assign metadata (labels, ratings, categories, etc.) and one-click filtering of near limitless metadata fields.

[ruimleal]

Although I could not try the beta yet, since it's only available to buying users of PM6 and not to all of PM5 users, from what I was expecting to see and from the posts and screens on the forum I do not see any new UI improvements over PM6. So it seems that PM6+ is PM6 on steroids.

I was looking for a god DAM for my collection over Lightroom catalogs and find it a couple years ago with iMatch that was expecting to see something like it on PM6+. Since I moved from PC to Mac I lost the ability to quickly use iMatch and never found a really good replacement for it over Mac systems that maybe I was hoping too much of PM6+.

Give us something solid to use and after so many years in development, as you guys claim, is that the best you can offer us professionals a rough unpolished beta for us to figure it out how it works?

Not liking the direction Camara Bits is taking with PM6 and PM6+ that I'm now starting to look for an alternative after so many years using PM exclusively.

[timesnaps]

Earlier in the year, a reply from Kirk indicated that the Plus version would allow similiar functionality as some of us were used to in iView for selecting images based on META/EXIF attributes, such as camera model, size, rating, label etc...:

http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=12026.msg58827#msg58827

As of now and several hours into using the Plus version I cannot figure out how this would work here. There are too many tabs, and too many windows that open - and obviously it is anything but intuitive (else I wouldnt be writing this). In the below screenshot there are a few images starred 3 stars, and all are labelled winners, yet that seems no where reflected in the left hand side, neither under browse, nor filter, nor whether they selected or not. Very confusing....

[Kirk Baker]

You haven't added any images to your catalog.  Since there are no images added to your catalog, the counts of the criteria in your filters are all zero.

Use the "Scan to Catalog..." command on the Catalog menu to scan folders (or entire hard drives) into your catalog.  Then you will be able to filter/search/browse.

HTH,

-Kirk

[timesnaps]

Thanks Kirk for the quick response. Just finding the software overly complicated in its UI. There are too many tabs and procedures to add images... I need to read more on it, but I dont have the time really. So my point is that this whole UI really needs simplifying. Perhaps make this an option if possible in the preferences.  I dont really get the distinction between 'catalogue', 'contact', 'collection'.