Hi Fulvio - its a good effort but it is missing some really basic abilities in a DAM such as the ability to edit XMP info and add IPTC / keywording information. Also, since everything is only stored in a propriatary database, switching to another product is not easily obtained. I hope you can make modifictions to bring these necessary features to the table?
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REQ Best photo management software
- Thread starter Powdercarrot
- Start date
Martin Frost
Senior Member
yes, thats a good idea.
I see, lightrom does that.
Which other software does that ?
Martin Frost
Senior Member
Wow, vvvp seems to be very interrresting.
It's C++ !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_%28database_server%29
Looks like open source.
When i have time i will install vvvp
It's C++ !
For me thas not a problem, it can be quite rudimentary
Is firebird proprietary ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_%28database_server%29
Looks like open source.
When i have time i will install vvvp
hbx2004
Senior Member
As far I know, LR can't write metadata into raw image files. I don't know if that changed in v4.xx -surprise me
Bogdan
Fulvio Senore
Forum Enthusiast
XMP and IPTC support can be surely added, it is just a matter of finding the time.
At the moment I think that the program can do reasonably well what it has been designed for: finding photographs, viewing and handling them.
Changing the image files is a second step.
Data are not stored in a proprietary database: Firebird is open source so everybody with the needed knowledge can extract the info from it.
Adding an export feature is planned anyway.
I believe that being open source is important for this kind of program. Users are likely to store images of a full life in it so using a program with a long life is important. A successful open source program is likely to have a very long life: even if the author(s) stop working at it it is easy for other people to keep maintaining it.
Glad to hear... however I am curious what kinda of advanced searching is available - can you for example find: (keyword="Flower" AND keyword="Lily" AND keyword="red" AND rating=4+) NOT (date
Thx..
dj_paige
Senior Member
And then again, sometimes no one works on it and you have an abandoned program. It happens.
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Paige Miller
Agree .. I honestly had heard of this program though but give the general lack of DAM functionality skipped it and moved on. I love open source and wish the author full success though - hopefully he can build a community around the project and get others invovled..
Fulvio Senore
Forum Enthusiast
Yes, of course. But with an open source program there is a chance that other people will keep working on it.
With a closed source one there is no hope. If Adobe should kill Lightroom, for example, users would be surely in big trouble.
Fulvio Senore
Fulvio Senore
Forum Enthusiast
At the moment the program has a search functionality, but it not so advanced.
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Fulvio Senore
dj_paige
Senior Member
So in some sense, this boils down to what you perceive the probability of these events happening is. I think there is little chance Adobe will kill Lightroom (it makes money for them, and they haven't killed Photoshop in 20 years or so) and a much higher chance that an open source program that one or two people work on will die and not get picked up by new developers. But no one knows. Its all a gamble.
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Paige Miller
The bigger risk with Lightroom is not that Adobe will kill it, rather that they will take its development in some direction you don't like. For instance, they might drop some capability that you consider absolutely essential, so that they can add something you consider a needless frill.
The real question is your ability to get your data in and out of any system, and your ability to migrate from one to another, while preserving as much value as possible. OSS databases are generally some implementation of SQL, so while there may be implementation differences, and some finagling required, metadata should be transportable. Also being OSS, if you have to be migrating out of one OSS DAM to another, you're likely to find others making the transition as well, and likely to find others have already made scripts to tweak your SQL to make the transition.
Proprietary software is frequently (though not always) all about lock-in - keeping you as a future customer.
A general question about this kind of software...
I presume it really stores metadata, not the photographs themselves. Correct? Does it move the photographs into its own directory structure, or does it leave them where it finds them?
I have no DAM at all, at the moment. I did recently write some scripts to handle this for me. The download software I've seen organizes the photos in directories by download date, which may not be terribly useful. The scripts I wrote grab photos from "somewhere", (you specify the directory) reads the EXIF data, and stores them in a directory structure by the date the photo was taken. The target structure is 3 layers deep, year, then month (numerical), then day. (again, numerical)
Lacking any sort of DAM, I have a second directory tree, basically by-event. So I have a directory, "events/2011/Hawaii" with symlinks into "jpeg/2011/10/".
Having a DAM to ease this task might be nice - I need to look into it.
I presume it really stores metadata, not the photographs themselves. Correct? Does it move the photographs into its own directory structure, or does it leave them where it finds them?
I have no DAM at all, at the moment. I did recently write some scripts to handle this for me. The download software I've seen organizes the photos in directories by download date, which may not be terribly useful. The scripts I wrote grab photos from "somewhere", (you specify the directory) reads the EXIF data, and stores them in a directory structure by the date the photo was taken. The target structure is 3 layers deep, year, then month (numerical), then day. (again, numerical)
Lacking any sort of DAM, I have a second directory tree, basically by-event. So I have a directory, "events/2011/Hawaii" with symlinks into "jpeg/2011/10/".
Having a DAM to ease this task might be nice - I need to look into it.
Zoner Photo Studio is pretty good. Though I got it for free (thanks to GAotD), it not free but not going to break the bank either. Can open RAW files too and lots of cool features besides having a fantastic management interface. Can't directly link the site since it's commercial, but will PM you that info shortly.
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Psalm 109:8
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20109:8&version=KJV
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Psalm 109:8
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20109:8&version=KJV
dj_paige
Senior Member
The Lightroom database never stores the photos. They remain on your hard disk wherever you put them. Lightroom does not move photos unless you specifically tell Lightroom to do so. Creating its own directory structure would be dis-organization (unless you specifically tell Lightroom to do so), rather than organization which I believe is the goal.
This is exactly where the DAM provides benefits, you can have as many hierarchies as you want, and still only one copy of the photo, and one folder tree.
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Paige Miller
dj_paige
Senior Member
This is a risk with all software, commercial and open source. I am not aware of examples where Lightroom dropped a capability to add a needless frill in the entire history of Lightroom. Perhaps someone who is familiar with the entire history of Photoshop can say if Adobe has ever done such a thing to Photoshop. But nevertheless, as I said, any software poses this risk.
Should the day come where I choose to stop using Lightroom, I would have no trouble retrieving the metadata and edited photos. The IPTC metadata is fully portable to other software.
True, and it also means that there is a need on the part of the software developer to continue to provide software that is "worth" being locked into. But I do not feel locked into Lightroom, I continue to use it because I feel it is a very valuable tool to me. Should the time come where it stops being valuable, or another tool has clearly surpassed Lightroom, I would not hesitate to switch.
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Paige Miller
Fulvio Senore
Forum Enthusiast
I can speak for vvvP, but I think that most DAM programs work the same way.
The program does not change or move the images in any way. It stores metadata and image thumbnails in its database, so you can quickly browse images.
It also stores an SHA-1 hash for each image, so it can know if the file has changed in any way.
Using a DAM you can leave the images in unorganized folders. You organize images at the database level so the program can show you different views of the same images, based on you needs. Then the program always knows where you can find an image if you want to know it.
vvvP can also copy one or more images to a given folder for you.
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Fulvio Senore
True for the metadata.. though your LR edits themselves will be lost so you'd need to export all your images out to retain the catalog edits or they will be lost since no other software can recreate your LR edits from the embedded metadata..
dj_paige
Senior Member
That's exactly what I said I was going to do.
And by the way, there are other Adobe software that can make use of the edits in the embedded metadata.
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Paige Miller
Just curious - which programs can make use of the Lightroom edits besides say ACR?
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