nightfly
Well-known
Been using iView Media Pro for awhile now as my photo cataloging solution on my Mac running OS X.5. I never upgraded after Microsoft bought it, fearing the worst and it still works.
I just had a show and didn't want to mess with anything in my process but now that it's done, I feel like I might like something a bit easier to use than iView. iView just feels not very intuitive to me after using it for a long time I still find myself having to refer to the manual to figure out how to do simple things like create a new group of photos (it seems like there are 10 ways, some like labels are exclusive, while others like sets aren't).
Was wondering if maybe something like Picasa (the desktop version that recently came out for Mac) or PhotoMechanic or Lightroom (probably overkill as I edit in Photoshop) might be better.
My requirements are:
1) It can catalog PSD files.
2) It can monitor folders and add things to the main catalog automatically so when I scan into Photoshop and save to a file, it gets imported.
3) It can easily export thumbnails and fullsize image for web display. I DON'T NEED OR WANT IT TO GENERATE HTML GALLERIES. I use a content management system so with iView I basically generate HTML galleries to get the thumbnails and regulars and then throw out the HTML and re-name the files to fit my system.
4) Easy way to catalog images and have them exist in multiple sets. So it may exist in my street gallery for the web, in another set for an upcoming show, in another set for a contest it was submitted to etc. This is different than the tags I might use to identify the image as a specific type.
5) Allows back and forth to Photoshop for actual editing.
6) Would be great if I could also somehow maintain a connection to my "Print" files. Now I usually take the original edited scan and save a second version as "name_print.psd" so that if I need to some manipulations to make it print right, I have a file for this but my original is unaffected.
iView might well be the best solution for me, it's just sorta cumbersome and was wondering if there is something better out there.
Apologies for the long winded question.
I just had a show and didn't want to mess with anything in my process but now that it's done, I feel like I might like something a bit easier to use than iView. iView just feels not very intuitive to me after using it for a long time I still find myself having to refer to the manual to figure out how to do simple things like create a new group of photos (it seems like there are 10 ways, some like labels are exclusive, while others like sets aren't).
Was wondering if maybe something like Picasa (the desktop version that recently came out for Mac) or PhotoMechanic or Lightroom (probably overkill as I edit in Photoshop) might be better.
My requirements are:
1) It can catalog PSD files.
2) It can monitor folders and add things to the main catalog automatically so when I scan into Photoshop and save to a file, it gets imported.
3) It can easily export thumbnails and fullsize image for web display. I DON'T NEED OR WANT IT TO GENERATE HTML GALLERIES. I use a content management system so with iView I basically generate HTML galleries to get the thumbnails and regulars and then throw out the HTML and re-name the files to fit my system.
4) Easy way to catalog images and have them exist in multiple sets. So it may exist in my street gallery for the web, in another set for an upcoming show, in another set for a contest it was submitted to etc. This is different than the tags I might use to identify the image as a specific type.
5) Allows back and forth to Photoshop for actual editing.
6) Would be great if I could also somehow maintain a connection to my "Print" files. Now I usually take the original edited scan and save a second version as "name_print.psd" so that if I need to some manipulations to make it print right, I have a file for this but my original is unaffected.
iView might well be the best solution for me, it's just sorta cumbersome and was wondering if there is something better out there.
Apologies for the long winded question.