Google Does it Again

ManuH said:

True, I could use the import facility in Lightroom but if I modify
any file outside Lightroom or move files around with my favourite
utility (Total Commander) it's a PITA to have to do a full sync of
all the files. It takes a long time to detect all the changes, it's
sloooooooooow and even crashed more than once doing that. Maybe there
is something I missing but I didn't find it.

Click to expand...

Well, if you're just randomly messing with files outside of LR, that's definitely not a good thing. The LR use model assumes you are doing everything you need to do within the application. Is there a reason you are moving files around outside of LR? Adding files with a third party import utility - that much I can see. But as I said, if you put them all in one folder, it's trivial to then import that folder.

ManuH said:

I like what I saw in ACDsee but there are some things that are not as
nice as LR.

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Definitely, as well as vice versa. If one were just better in every way, that would make the choice too easy

ManuH said:

For example the metadata database seems more limited. For
example apertures database seems limited to full stops.

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Hmm. There is no special aperture database. I suppose you are referring to the "Auto Categories" facility, but that's not the only way to access aperture info. For instance, you could list the files you care about, hit F12 to enter Details mode, then sort on aperture. But if you wanted to find every picture you had ever taken at f/5.6, that is indeed not straightforward as it could be.

Anyhow, for sure, searching on specific EXIF or IPTC fields is far more awkward than it should be. On the other hand, for most of my purposes, where I am searching on IPTC Keywords, Caption, or Headline, the Quick Search facility is incredibly simple.

ManuH said:

And K20D
default raw conversion to display thumbnails is horrible

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It's actually just simply broken. It is supposed to be fixed in the 2.5 update that they have announced for will be September 9, which is tomorrow as I write this. I don't know if that will actually happen or not, but for the sake of all the K20D owners out there, I sure hope so. The update will be free for users of 2.0.

ManuH said:

Not bad for ACDsee but I don't really like it to add to the database
anything I could browse

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I tend to agree, although it's basically free to add files, since all it's really doing is remember a few miscellaneous details about the file. Unlike with LR and Picasa, there's really no important difference between files in the db versus files not in, so it doesn't hurt to have file in there unnecessarily except to waste a very small amount of space. But FWIW, you can use the Exclude facility to exclude whole folder trees so you can browse without worrying that the files encountered will start showing up in the Calendar view or whatever.

--
Marc Sabatella
http://www.marcsabatella.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcsabatella/

Marc Sabatella said:

ManuH said:

all the files. It takes a long time to detect all the changes, it's
sloooooooooow and even crashed more than once doing that. Maybe there
is something I missing but I didn't find it.

Click to expand...

Well, if you're just randomly messing with files outside of LR,
that's definitely not a good thing. The LR use model assumes you are
doing everything you need to do within the application. Is there a
reason you are moving files around outside of LR?

Click to expand...

It looks like I have to justify myself doing that ;-) There could be many reasons. For example, I could use CS3 to develop an old raw. I would have to put in an import folder, etc. But the main reason is that even if I use LR, I will still have to use Picasa for videos and letting my family browse the files easily and any changes done in Picasa are not reflected in LR2 automatically. And I often delete old pictures when I have time to sort them. For example, I took 6000 pictures during a travel I did in Feb.2008. I still not have sorted them all.

Marc Sabatella said:

Marc Sabatella said:

I like what I saw in ACDsee but there are some things that are not as
nice as LR.

Click to expand...

Definitely, as well as vice versa. If one were just better in every
way, that would make the choice too easy

Click to expand...

That's why I'm looking for alternatives. Picasa: too basic. LR: too slow. ACDsee: not quite convincing. If someone has another one for me to check, I'll be glad to hear about it.

Marc Sabatella said:

amount of space. But FWIW, you can use the Exclude facility to
exclude whole folder trees so you can browse without worrying that
the files encountered will start showing up in the Calendar view or
whatever.

Click to expand...

The Calendar view is one thing I like about ACDsee, the only problem is that I have some files with broken EXIF date appearing as year 2053. I don't know if ACDsee allow to quickly change the date on them.

--
Manu

DNG files store the edits done by ACR in the file itself. However, Picasa 2 was unable to show the edits.

Additionally, Picasa's rendering of PSD files was much different than that of Photoshop. Might be because of Photoshop using color profile while Picasa defaulted to sRGB.
Has anything changed in this front.
Akhil

--
Latest Work: Carnival Shots http://www.pbase.com/akhil80/asakusa_carnival

scottyja said:

Thanks for the post. I didn't even realize that .pef files were
supported. I looked into Picassa a while ago, but didn't like the
inability to automatically rename edited photos. I would have much
preferred for the original to remain in the same directory and save
the new one as edited.jpg. Instead, it puts the originals in a
hidden directory.

Click to expand...

You can take control of Picasa, check the Folder manager, and set the folder view to Tree structure, nothing is actually hidden. You can export your edits then remove the adjustment from the original file at any stage to allow a completely different edit.

scottyja said:

I'll check out the new version and see what I think. In the
meantime, can you specify the import destination?

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Yes, the option is under the devices listed in the device select button menu.

--
Rob

Marc Sabatella said:

ozbrit said:

Why would anyone
choose to download all 20 to a PC as Picasa demands

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Because it takes only seconds, and then you can put the card back in
your camera, reformat it, and be back on your way to either shooting
or editing. At that point you can choose to delete the bad shots if
you like. Really, that's the way virtually everyone does it, and I
guess I don't see what possible advantage there would be to trying to
do things differently in that regard.

--
Marc Sabatella
http://www.marcsabatella.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcsabatella/

Click to expand...

But If I wanted to store images on my PC I don't need Picasa to do it, its not hard to select all images from the card and move them to wherever! You appear to miss the points I've made (your prerogative I guess), there are imo better free software programs around for image editing, some of which also display raw files and full exifs. Its my opinion that FastStone has considerably better editing tools than Picasa, though I accept there may be a few features that Picasa has and FastStone doesn't. I'm not looking for a centralisedl photo album for all the images kept on my PC. My wife keeps images, my stepson keeps images and when I download Picasa I get to see them all, before painstakingly deleting those I don't want, its my main gripe with Picasa. Another one is the inability to view your newly taken images on a monitor screen if you haven't already downloaded them into the Picasa album. You can't really know what your pictures are like when viewing them on the Cameras LCD screen. I often take dozens of pics for fun and then dispense with virtually all of theml after seeing them on my PC's monitor - its one of the beauties of digital camera technology, you can do that.

Instead of taking issue with peoples posts and attempting to marginalise them by suggesting you know what almost everyone does, wouldn't it be more polite to accept that many of us will decide for ourselves how we wish to do things.

ozbrit said:

But If I wanted to store images on my PC I don't need Picasa to do
it

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True enough. The point of programs like Picasa is not that they do the copying for you - it's what they allow you to do after the copying. But most people just accept without questioning that it makes sense to copy the images. I'm just not understanding why you seem to be resisting this idea. I assume you have your reasons, but I do wish you'd explain them rather than simply accusing me of, well, whatever it is you are accusing me of.

So, don't get me wrong: I agree that if for some reason it does not work for you to copy images to your computer first, Picasa isn't going to work so well, and other programs do still manage to work. But without explaining why you are reluctant to do that, it's pretty much impossible for me to understand.

ozbrit said:

there are imo better free software programs around for image
editing

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No doubt. But Picasa is not just an image editor. The strength of Picasa is not in image editing per se, but in image organization and the way editing is integrated into that. In particular, the way it supports non-destructive editing, which the other programs you mention do not, as far as I know.

ozbrit said:

I'm not looking for a centralisedl photo album
for all the images kept on my PC.

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OK, but given that this is basically what Picasa is, it doesn't really make sense to criticize it for doing it's job well...

ozbrit said:

You can't really know what your pictures are like when
viewing them on the Cameras LCD screen. I often take dozens of pics
for fun and then dispense with virtually all of theml after seeing
them on my PC's monitor - its one of the beauties of digital camera
technology, you can do that.

Click to expand...

Precislely. And that's one of the nice things about applications like Picasa - they make this process pretty easy, if you accept that you should copy the pictures to your hard drive first. And again, if you have reasons for not doing this, I do wish you'd explain them.

ozbrit said:

Instead of taking issue with peoples posts and attempting to
marginalise them by suggesting you know what almost everyone does

Click to expand...

I am not "taking issues" with your post or attempting to marginalize anything. I am simply trying to explain how applications like this are meant to be used. If you have reasons for not wanting to use them in this way, why not simply explain what your reasons are, and then maybe I could help suggest other ways of accomplishing those goals? Unless of course you are already totally happy with the tools you are using, in which case, there is no need.

ozbrit said:

wouldn't it be more polite to accept that many of us will decide for
ourselves how we wish to do things.

Click to expand...

Of course we all want to decide how we wish to do things. But most of us like to have as much information as we can in order to make the best decision we can. I am simply trying to help provide some information that - if you choose to take advantage of it - could almost certainly allow you to make better decisions. Providing useful information does not strike me as impolite.

--
Marc Sabatella
http://www.marcsabatella.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcsabatella/

I use Picasa a lot. But it's not all I use for browsing - I also use Xnview and more and more Faststone, which had really matured now. Picasa 3 certainly displays my RAW's much quicker. It also now has a movieshow function, while not as customizable as Windows Movie Maker is still good. I find the straighten tool nice and also the filtered B&W useful too. Each to their own but I really find the interface a great design both too look at and to use, and I recommend it to anyone that doesn't need a very advanced program.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leithant/

LR V2 has a 'watched' folders feature although it is limited in so far as the files in a watched folder must be copied to a user-specified destination before being added to the library. In other words, it won't watch files in situ. I would imagine the reason for this limitation is to prevent users making their complete image tree 'watchable' - one might see possible usability/performance issues resulting from such an approach. Otherwise i can't see why Adobe would not have added this.

Incidentally having upgraded from LR v1, I'm finding v2 to be a bit of mixed bag. The user interface is mostly improved, and the mask feature is clever and occasionally useful. However the masking feature can be very slow, at least on my system, and the program is generally less responsive. I'm also finding that my workflow is less clear cut - in the past anything which required a mask would inevitably be done in Photoshop, and Photoshop is still a better tool for this nine times out of ten. If computer power is already borderline with V1 then I would advise anyone to think twice before upgrading unless there are specific new features that are needed.

Regards

Mike
http://flickr.com/rc-soar

..but overall i was not impressed by picasa at all in previous versions.

eats up a lot memory, although i had quite acceptebale results with red-eye removal tool. if useable for automatic small corrections, i will keep it
--
http://flickr.com/photos/kockas

imi507484 said:

..but overall i was not impressed by picasa at all in previous versions.
eats up a lot memory,

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Are you sure? Just took a snapshot of the top 4 memory intensive processes on my system which are:

lightroom.exe : 210 MB
firefox.exe : 96
outlook.exe: 76
picasa2.exe : 38

Admittedly Picasa is indexing fewer folders so this is not exactly a scientific test.

Mike

imi said:

..but overall i was not impressed by picasa at all in previous versions.
eats up a lot memory,

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I'm surprised here. On my system, Picasa3 sitting idle at 93Mb RAM with a collection of 34000 pictures, and a 2-3Gb database. Not bad and most important the program is very responsive.

imi507484 said:

although i had quite acceptebale results with
red-eye removal tool. if useable for automatic small corrections, i
will keep it

Click to expand...

The red-eye tool is much much improved in Picasa 3. It now can auto-detect eyes and the correction works much better. It seems as good or better than Photoshop now.

--
Manu

Model Mike said:

LR V2 has a 'watched' folders feature although it is limited in so
far as the files in a watched folder must be copied to a
user-specified destination before being added to the library. In
other words, it won't watch files in situ. I would imagine the reason
for this limitation is to prevent users making their complete image
tree 'watchable' - one might see possible usability/performance
issues resulting from such an approach. Otherwise i can't see why
Adobe would not have added this.

Click to expand...

They should just hire some Google programmers ;-) Seriously, I'm a programmer and I know it is very easy to implement, "watching" folders is included in the Windows API, no complex programming required. But then, I don't know if it works on Mac, and Lightroom supports both platforms. Picasa has yet to release a Mac version.

Too bad because LR has so much to like.

--
Manu

ozbrit said:

Another one is the inability to view your newly taken images
on a monitor screen if you haven't already downloaded them into the
Picasa album. You can't really know what your pictures are like when
viewing them on the Cameras LCD screen.

Click to expand...

I just don't understand why you couldn't use both Picasa and a viewer. I do that myself, I can do a quick sort with Irfanview or Faststone before downloading them to Picasa. But usually, I copy everything from the card to the computer for one simple reason: SD cards are relatively slow to work with, so I prefer to copy them on the hard disk before sorting or cataloguing them.

The other thing you may have overlooked is how Picasa facilitate picture sharing. There is the built-in send by e-mail with automatic resizing to the size you want. And what I prefer to use is the Picasa Web Albums. You upload your pictures for your friends and family to see. It even has a Diaporama feature and a download all so that your friends can download all the pictures to their own Picasa. There are also plug-ins to upload pictures to your favorite site.

--
Manu

I like the new beta. It's user-friendly and does a reasonably good job of modifiying images. I use CS3 for modifying my favorite and best photos, but don't have the time or energy to carefully manipulate each photo I might share with family and friends. Picasa is good enough for this purpose (for me, at least).