Pre-purchase questions for an amateur/newbie

[RichB]

I am new to digitalI first heard about PM at the Nikon School.  In researching PM, it seems like it is .  I am not a pro, I am a newbie to digital photography.  I demo’d it, but it has expired.  I am  demoing ACDSee, which, along with BreezeBrowser seem to be more popular among the amateurs, perhaps it is the price of PM.

I did notice that ACDSee was much slower than PM, but it appears to have more features, most noticeably the ability to catalog, although I haven’t looked at much of the detail.  But I deem it is not a leader in cataloging capability.  I'm not sure if I want to catalog our family pictures.  I’m not sure if it will be worth the disk space.  It’s probably one of those things that you don’t need it, until you need it. 

I would appreciate help from you.  I am willing to buy PM, if it will be “worth it.”  I assume speed is the biggest feature.  I am also quite impressed with the support forum.  I would like to have the ability to create a list of names (grandchildren, etc.) or types of activities (dance recital, etc.) with the pictures and perhaps search them, especially if I do have some kind of catalog system.  I’m confused on that as well.  At first I assumed IPTC could be used to track that, but it seems like IPTC is for professional use and not really geared toward my amateur application.

Is PM a wise purchase for me?  Can I enter information about the pictures so that I can search on them and is the method (IPTC, EXIF, etc.) the right use for an amateur?   

Any help will be appreciated.  I am already heavily leaning toward spending the money for PM after reading reviews.

[Kirk Baker]

I am new to digitalI first heard about PM at the Nikon School.  In researching PM, it seems like it is .  I am not a pro, I am a newbie to digital photography.  I demo’d it, but it has expired.  I am  demoing ACDSee, which, along with BreezeBrowser seem to be more popular among the amateurs, perhaps it is the price of PM.

I did notice that ACDSee was much slower than PM, but it appears to have more features, most noticeably the ability to catalog, although I haven’t looked at much of the detail.  But I deem it is not a leader in cataloging capability.  I'm not sure if I want to catalog our family pictures.  I’m not sure if it will be worth the disk space.  It’s probably one of those things that you don’t need it, until you need it. 

I would appreciate help from you.  I am willing to buy PM, if it will be “worth it.”  I assume speed is the biggest feature.  I am also quite impressed with the support forum.  I would like to have the ability to create a list of names (grandchildren, etc.) or types of activities (dance recital, etc.) with the pictures and perhaps search them, especially if I do have some kind of catalog system.  I’m confused on that as well.  At first I assumed IPTC could be used to track that, but it seems like IPTC is for professional use and not really geared toward my amateur application.

Is PM a wise purchase for me?  Can I enter information about the pictures so that I can search on them and is the method (IPTC, EXIF, etc.) the right use for an amateur?   

Any help will be appreciated.  I am already heavily leaning toward spending the money for PM after reading reviews.

While I would agree that Photo Mechanic is fast at getting images up on the screen (we work very hard at this) I would say that it isn't its main selling point.  It is the workflow that pros use to get their images culled, captioned and uploaded to their final destination that is its main selling point.

A lot of folks use Photo Mechanic along with iView Media Pro, and Photoshop, but the combination of the three can be upwards of $1000.00.

I'll let others give you their 2 cents.

-Kirk

[RichB]

Kirk,

Thanks for your insight.  I already have Photoshop CS2 and used PM during the demo to download from my memory card and schedule either Nikon Capture or Photoshop.  I forgot to add that I was quite impressed with PM's renaming capabilities ... very intuitive and flexible.  I also liked how it named the RAW and JPEG files with the same counter.  Another browser I tested did not do that and I now realize how helpful PM does.

If I wanted to track the subjects, etc. associated with my pictures, not from a pro use standpoint, will PM make the information available so iView can efficiently use it or am I trying to pound a square peg into a round hole?

Rich

[Kirk Baker]

Kirk,

Thanks for your insight.  I already have Photoshop CS2 and used PM during the demo to download from my memory card and schedule either Nikon Capture or Photoshop.  I forgot to add that I was quite impressed with PM's renaming capabilities ... very intuitive and flexible.  I also liked how it named the RAW and JPEG files with the same counter.  Another browser I tested did not do that and I now realize how helpful PM does.

If I wanted to track the subjects, etc. associated with my pictures, not from a pro use standpoint, will PM make the information available so iView can efficiently use it or am I trying to pound a square peg into a round hole?

While your IPTC captions, and filenames will be picked up by iView Media Pro, your color classes and tags won't be recognized.  I plan to find a way for them to be communicated to iView Media Pro in a future version of PM.

I think most people find that they work together pretty well.

Even as an amateur you should be captioning your images with descriptive text and keywords.  You will be able to use this information to find your photos in the future.  Photo Mechanic makes it very easy to get at least your baseline information into the photos (Photographer, Caption Writers, Copyright, City, State, Country) using the IPTC Stationery Pad and it does it very fast.

-Kirk

[RichB]

While your IPTC captions, and filenames will be picked up by iView Media Pro, your color classes and tags won't be recognized.  I plan to find a way for them to be communicated to iView Media Pro in a future version of PM.

I think most people find that they work together pretty well.

Even as an amateur you should be captioning your images with descriptive text and keywords.  You will be able to use this information to find your photos in the future.  Photo Mechanic makes it very easy to get at least your baseline information into the photos (Photographer, Caption Writers, Copyright, City, State, Country) using the IPTC Stationery Pad and it does it very fast.

-Kirk

Kirk, I am now leaning 95% toward PM, but I am uncertain about just one point - IPTC usage.  I gather I can easily add family names and captions/activities, etc. in fields to be eventually used by iView, etc.  I was under the impression that IPTC was set up for pros.  Is this also the medium that us amateurs are to use for our information or is there some other mechanism that might have a lesser footprint.  I guess I am concerned that if I am trying to use a mechanism for a purpose that is not generally recognized, I might find myself painted in the corner.  (I hope I articulated my concern correctly.)
I love your awesome support!
Rich

[Kirk Baker]

While your IPTC captions, and filenames will be picked up by iView Media Pro, your color classes and tags won't be recognized.  I plan to find a way for them to be communicated to iView Media Pro in a future version of PM.

I think most people find that they work together pretty well.

Even as an amateur you should be captioning your images with descriptive text and keywords.  You will be able to use this information to find your photos in the future.  Photo Mechanic makes it very easy to get at least your baseline information into the photos (Photographer, Caption Writers, Copyright, City, State, Country) using the IPTC Stationery Pad and it does it very fast.

-Kirk

Kirk, I am now leaning 95% toward PM, but I am uncertain about just one point - IPTC usage.  I gather I can easily add family names and captions/activities, etc. in fields to be eventually used by iView, etc.  I was under the impression that IPTC was set up for pros.  Is this also the medium that us amateurs are to use for our information or is there some other mechanism that might have a lesser footprint.  I guess I am concerned that if I am trying to use a mechanism for a purpose that is not generally recognized, I might find myself painted in the corner.  (I hope I articulated my concern correctly.)
I love your awesome support!

IPTC is the world-wide standard for adding metadata to images.  XMP is making inroads and we support that as well, simultaneously in fact, with IPTC.

You really can't find a better way to get metadata into your images, there is no lesser consumer-grade technology.  And as far as footprint goes, the size of the IPTC and XMP metadata is insignificant compared to the size of the images themselves.  The beauty of putting your metadata directly into the images is that wherever your images go so goes their metadata.

HTH,

-Kirk

[RichB]

Kirk,

I'll be calling for a purchase soon.  Thank you for being so gentle with me and being so thorough.

Rich

[Kirk Baker]

Kirk,

I'll be calling for a purchase soon.  Thank you for being so gentle with me and being so thorough.

Rich

You're welcome.  I hope you enjoy many fruitful years with Photo Mechanic.

-Kirk