If you take lots of digital photographs, sooner or later you are going to need to develop a good way to find an individual image among the hundreds or thousands stored on your computer. No matter how you use folders or directories they will eventually become a cumbersome way of searching for an image. Although you could build your own cataloging application using a database program such as Filemaker or Oracle, most of us are not all that interested in starting from scratch.
Click “Read the Rest of This Entry” for some ready made cataloging solutions.
Applications such as Adobe’s Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture (Macintosh only), Expression Media from Microsoft (previously called iView MediaPro, an application from a company Microsoft acquired in June 2006) are designed to let you search your collection of images using the EXIF data recorded when the image was made or by keywords or other information added by the photographer. Although they do it in different ways, each of the applications lets you add ratings to the images, assemble collections, and in the case of Aperture or Lightroom, do extensive editing of your images. Current prices are $299.00 for Lightroom or Expression Media, and $199.00 for Aperture. Since none of these applications are inexpensive, it is worth spending some time with them to decide which best meets your needs. A thirty day fully functional trial version of each application is available from the manufacturers. The 30 day trial version of Expression Media 2 is available for Windows XP or Vista as well as Macintosh OS X. Windows XP, Vista or Macintosh OS X users can get the 30 day trial of the current version of (Lightroom 1.4) from Adobe as well as the beta version of Lightroom 2.0. Aperture is an OS X only product from Apple. Mac users can get a serial number that lets you use Aperture for 30 days from Apple.
Be sure to fully explore the software during the 30 day trial – you only get one 30 day shot at it that cannot be extended.
Although working with the trial versions are the best way to determine which works best for you, I can give you a head start on some of the differences:
It may be possible to find & use iView MediaPro, however it is no longer supported. If you have a legitimate copy, you can upgrade for $99.00 to Microsoft’s Expression Media. If you have used iView Media Pro you will have no problem making the transition to Expression Media, and Microsoft has made some major improvements in version 2. Expression Media is by far the fastest at importing & sorting through your images. If indexing is all you want to do, it has much going for it. It will index most image formats as well as video. You can search your collection by date or file type, and can add labels, keywords, ratings, events, etc. The searches are very fast, even for large catalogs. Images are displayed as a list containing file name, size, type & location, as a thumbnail (variable sized), or as the image itself, which can also be what ever size you wish. Another advantage is the indexing & thumbnails can be created in the background – you can do other things while Expression media builds your catalog. Although it is very fast, its image editing capabilities are limited and more difficult to use when compared to Lightroom or Aperture.
Both Lightroom & Aperture are designed to provide a workflow for the photographer that starts with the download from the camera, and ends with a finished product such as a printed image, a completely post processed image of almost any size & file type, a finished web page, and, in the case of Aperture, a ready to publish coffee table photo book! Both are easy to use, include RAW converters, and provide “batch” controls that let the photographer edit one image & apply those edits to an selected group of images. For example, if you decide that all the images you shot during a session need the color temperature (white balance) tweaked, all you need to do is adjust one, copy the adjustment(s) and with one click, paste it into all the others. The cataloging capabilities are similar to Expression Media, however neither is as fast at generating thumbnails. Most photographers find either Lightroom or Aperture handles at least 90% of their editing needs, and saves considerable time compared to working in Photoshop or other image editors.
Since Apple’s Aperture is a Mac OS X only application, it is limited to Mac users, and, because it is a heavy user of resources, a high end Mac at that. If you are a Mac user, you have a choice – I suggest you spend the full 30 days working with Aperture & Lightroom. Although they do much the same thing, they work differently. Once you are used to the workflow in one, you may not be comfortable moving to the other. Both are being constantly improved – If a popular feature appears in one, it is likely it will end up in the other in the next release. If you are interested in discussions of the differences, advantages of each, etc. do a Google search for Compare Lightoom Aperture. Be sure you are comparing the latest versions of each. Another place to find discussions of the differences is the Mac Talk Forum at dpreview.com.
In my case, I started with iView Media Pro, and moved to Microsoft’s Expression Media after they acquired iView. As a Macintosh user I have not been all that secure with Microsoft’s support of the Macintosh operating system and, having been a Photoshop user for years, decided to switch to Lightroom. My main catalog of over 28,000 images as well as a couple of other large catalogs are maintained using Lightroom. I have found that although I still prefer to do spotting & sharpening in Photoshop, I do most of my post processing in Lightroom. If I want a quick, temporary catalog of a group of images, I sometimes still use Expression Media, however the editing capabilities and the natural workflow it provides makes Lightroom my cataloging software of choice.
Not everyone needs cataloging software, however if you find yourself spending more time than you would like trying to find a particular image from an old trip or days gone by, cataloging software will help.
Pingback: site
David Sayed
Jon – I’m the product manager for Microsoft Expression Media. I wanted to let you and your readers know that Expression Media 2, which has just been released, has a new price of $199 rather than the previous $299.
The other point is that while the other products you mention are primarily RAW workflow tools, Expression Media is a cataloguing application. As such, it does not impose a particular workflow on you and can be used for more than just images.
David
As a Mac user, I would like to comment here.
No matter what software or operating system you use, the initial use of your application is going to be a very time-consuming one if you are importing a large library of images. I do know there are a fair number of free or low-cost cataloging applications out for Windows that may be better than Lightroom or iView since Jon did mention how pricy each of these apps is. In my own case, I just purchased Aperture 2 for its editing capability rather than its cataloging capability.
In all actuality, Apple’s iPhoto, part of iLife which is free with the purchase of any new Mac and $69 as a standalone suite, has the same cataloging features as Aperture; though perhaps a little more complete, I haven’t tried it yet.
If you shoot digital pictures, your camera inserts the EXIF data into every image. It is possible to use this data to separate your photos into “Events” in iPhoto using this information which can then help reduce the number of pictures you search to find any specific image. In fact, just running your mouse pointer across the the event’s Key photo will let you scroll through the entire event’s catalog without having to open the event itself. Very fast.
Once your initial catalog of events is set up, each time you connect your camera, iPhoto (or Aperture if you have it) will automatically open and import your images to the extent of even separating new events out by date if you wish. The events are easily named and from then on easy to review or search.
Jon Vermilye
I may not have made the retrieval issues as clear as I should have. Using these cataloging systems lets the photographer find an image in a number of different ways. If you don’t want to add any information yourself, you are limited to the EXIF data recorded by the camera when you took the picture. This often lets you narrow the search since you can choose a specific date(s), even a specific time(s) on that date. You can also search by camera, lens, flash or not, even a combination of these. After the search, the images left in the catalog view are only those that meet the search criteria. If it is narrow enough, a quick look through the thumbnails IDs the image.
By adding key words, you can often make future searches easier. They are not all that difficult to add – you can choose 1 or more (up to 9 in Lightroom) before you download the images & they will be automatically attached to each image. Of course you can also add them after they are downloaded, either in groups or individually. I would be the first to admit that doing the initial key wording was quite a project, but once it is done keeping it up is not that difficult.
It does make sense to think a bit about WHAT key words you are going to use – too many & it becomes difficult to find the words, too few & you get too many returns doing a search. As you type a key word Lightroom presents a list of those you have already used, letting you add the entire word with a click. That helps keep you from making typos, duplicates, etc. You can add & remove keywords as you refine your choices so none of your decisions need to be permanent.
Lightroom & Aperture also provide a method of grouping images with a single key stroke as you review thumbnails. You can assign a rating, place them in a “pick” group, reject them, etc.
One last suggestion – Whether you use the image file name assigned by your camera or change it to a new one during the download, keep that name for all further processing of the image. The extension may change if you save it as a jpg or tiff, but if the name is the same it will be much easier to find the original when you pull a modified copy from a web page. If you let the camera choose the file name you need to be sure your camera is set so that files are named in sequence rather than starting over each time you insert a new card. Also, if you take enough images to roll over your camera counter (10,000 for my Nikon D200) you need to change the alphabetic part of the file name.
Ken
Jon,
I have inhaled your posts and appreciate the (undoubtedly) tremendous time it must take to have shared your talent with those of us who benefit from your expertise. This discussion of cataloging was particularly troublesome for me, however. Your first sentence, “If you take lots of digital photographs . . .” GRABBED me instantly, but doggone it, at the end I was left with as many questions as answers.
As with my filing systems elsewhere — everywhere — FILING is no problem; it’s the RETRIEVAL that is so frustrating. By that I mean I may develop a magnificent catalog system, but ultimately to retrieve a given image 1) it has to be NAMED uniquely and 2) it has to be filed in an almost intuitive place so that when it comes time to retrieve it (and related ones), I can do so even if though I don’t have a photographic memory. The rub here is the comment “[application examples] . . . are designed to let you search your collection of images using the EXIF data recorded when the image was made or by keywords or other information added by the photographer.”
Putting aside the myriad of images I have stored already with only the camera’s alphanumeric “names”, the challenge is the monumental task of assigning the “. . . keywords or other information added by the photographer.” Putting aside (I say it once again) returning home after an outing and facing the time it takes to download, sort and discard all but the worthy of 50 to 100 images, how does one assign unique keywords or other information to each image to enable an intuitive system that allows me to retrieve one of them later?
Ken