image management: Portfolio7 vs Thumbsplus7

I have a growing photo collection (2000+) and would like to have some advice on these two applications.

My photos are kept in year folders and event subfolders. I plan to assign keywords to them and embed those keywords into the keyword iptc field, with the intent of searching/finding photos by keyword combinations.

After trying various applications, I have narrowed it down to Thumbs+7 and Portfolio7 and would like to know how they compare -in the long run- in terms of:

• performance and stability
• keeping track of file movements in my photo collection (it seems to me that Thumbs+ can do this automatically while Portfolio syncs on request only)
• general ease of use

Thanks for the feedback

I might also be in the market for such a program someday, so I'm collecting notes.

--

This space reserved for a clever phrase, as soon as I find one that hasn't already been taken.

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Equipment list in profile

jnrob said:

I have a growing photo collection (2000+) and would like to have
some advice on these two applications.
My photos are kept in year folders and event subfolders. I plan to
assign keywords to them and embed those keywords into the keyword
iptc field, with the intent of searching/finding photos by keyword
combinations.

Click to expand...

I use Portfolio and chose it 3 months ago after giving 6-7 programs a trial run (iMatch was my 2nd choice). You can add keywords and search in Portfolio, but at present it can only write IPTC keywords and other metadata for JPEGs and TIFFs. They won't say when it will be available for other formats (I keep telling them iMatch can do so, even to raw files). It is possible to script your way around this problem.

jnrob said:

After trying various applications, I have narrowed it down to
Thumbs+7 and Portfolio7 and would like to know how they compare -in
the long run- in terms of:

• performance and stability

Click to expand...

I find Portfolio 7 very stable and quick. I run xp pro and have over 10000 images in my main catalogue. I have no indications of problems in these areas.

jnrob said:

• keeping track of file movements in my photo collection (it seems

to me that Thumbs+ can do this automatically while Portfolio syncs
on request only)

Click to expand...

Tis is an important feature, and one of my criteria. But a slight correction. Portfolio always watches and alerts you if there is a movement, but syncs on request. That's not a bad thing. Portfolio is good if you do a bulk move - eg I recently moved 12gb of images to a new drive, I could have done it entirely through Portfolio or through Windows Explorer. I did it the latter way, and then in Portfolio did a bulk file path update (just a couple of right clicks). I feel it handles file movements well.

jnrob said:

• general ease of use

Click to expand...

That's mainly why I chose Portfolio over iMatch - it's as easy to use as the more consumer oriented products such as PS Album but offers high end scalability and scripting.

jnrob said:

Thanks for the feedback

Click to expand...

HTH

I have used TP for years and am currently testing Portfolio.

I like the interface of TP best but prefer the keywording and searching of Portfolio.

TP, however, is much faster at creating thumbs and doing rotations and renaming etc.

neither are as good as Imatch for IPTC management, but Imatch is well known for its clunky interface and its not exactly speedy.

I wish it was that you got what you paid for, but instead you get the different priorities of different developers
John Bradbury

jnrob said:

I have a growing photo collection (2000+) and would like to have
some advice on these two applications.
My photos are kept in year folders and event subfolders. I plan to
assign keywords to them and embed those keywords into the keyword
iptc field, with the intent of searching/finding photos by keyword
combinations.
After trying various applications, I have narrowed it down to
Thumbs+7 and Portfolio7 and would like to know how they compare -in
the long run- in terms of:

• performance and stability
• keeping track of file movements in my photo collection (it seems

to me that Thumbs+ can do this automatically while Portfolio syncs
on request only)

• general ease of use

Thanks for the feedback

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that raw or tiff support were not a requirement in my case, as my camera only produces jpeg files. Testing was brief and on a small photo collection.

Imatch: proven and great reviews but did not like the interface-

Idimager: as mentionned in other posts, it is SLOW; also although it claims to write categories into IPTC, it did not seem to work (or else they don´t use standard iptc fields?).

Picajet: nice GUI and writes keywords (including location and people) into IPTC keyword field (although adding some characters), but does not track file movement at all.

Brilliantphoto: no folder view, poor file movement tracking and crashes way too often. Does write everything into iptc though. Crashes also reported in official forums.

IviewMediaPro(PC): nice GUI but I´ve gotten freezes and iptc writing errors. Crashes reported in official forums.

If you store your keywords and categories in the assigned IPTC fields, so they are part of the actual photo and not stored in a proprietary database owned by the indexing product, then aren't you index product agnostic? If you invest little in scripting and reporting, and only use the product as it comes off the shelf, then aside from learning a new user interface, why couldn't you install a new product, let it rip through your photos, and by the next morning, you have a whole new more powerful indexing tool. What am I missing?

--

This space reserved for a clever phrase, as soon as I find one that hasn't already been taken.

Photos linked from http://www.defenbaugh.com
Equipment list in profile

johnbeardy said:

Tis is an important feature, and one of my criteria. But a slight
correction. Portfolio always watches and alerts you if there is a
movement, but syncs on request. That's not a bad thing. Portfolio
is good if you do a bulk move - eg I recently moved 12gb of images
to a new drive, I could have done it entirely through Portfolio or
through Windows Explorer. I did it the latter way, and then in
Portfolio did a bulk file path update (just a couple of right
clicks). I feel it handles file movements well.

Click to expand...

Yes I am aware that Portfolio does watch and does sync on request, although in my case I would prefer to have it done automatically (as TP7 can be set to do ). I also noticed that you mention in your website that there is a bug in its folder watch/warning implementation. Would you care to elaborate on this?

Otherwise I prefer Portfolio´s GUI which I find more attractive, cleaner, and with easy access to search and sort functions. I also find its search function more flexible than TP7´s.

Nonetheless when it comes to editing IPTC keywords and having those in sync with DB keywords I prefer TP7:

• both apps can ADD keywords from iptc fields,
• but DELETING keywords in the database (Portfolio) or in the iptc field (TP7) will not remove the corresponding entry in the iptc field (Portfolio embed in metadata op) or database keyword (TP7 does not autodelete database keyword from iptc delete). To achieve sync in Portfolio you would have to delete the iptc keywords field prior to embedding into metadata, which would require to use an external iptc editor. In TP7 it is much easier, simply delete database keywords (there is a command for that), edit iptc keywords with the built-in iptc editor and then TP7 will autogenerate the new corresponding database keywords.

Perhaps there is an easier way of doing this, am I just not aware of it?

So right now, because of its folder autosync and its builtin iptc editor, I am leaning towards TP7, despite its somewhat clunkier interface.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, customer demand is pushing most of these packages towards also writing the keywords back to the photo. Largely it's because customers want it (eg to help submit to stock agencies). But if you ever decide to jump to another program, your keywording and other metadata isn't locked inside the proprietary format. I tend to think of it a serial monogamy rather than agnosticism.

tdhg566 said:

If you store your keywords and categories in the assigned IPTC
fields, so they are part of the actual photo and not stored in a
proprietary database owned by the indexing product, then aren't you
index product agnostic? If you invest little in scripting and
reporting, and only use the product as it comes off the shelf, then
aside from learning a new user interface, why couldn't you install
a new product, let it rip through your photos, and by the next
morning, you have a whole new more powerful indexing tool. What am
I missing?

--
This space reserved for a clever phrase, as soon as I find one that
hasn't already been taken.

Photos linked from http://www.defenbaugh.com
Equipment list in profile

Click to expand...

The bug is that Portfolio 7 falsely reports that some folders need synchronizing (shows them in bold). It doesn't do any harm, and when you run a sync it simply reports no items to sync. It worked fine in v6 and is caused when a folder contains file types that you aren't cataloguing (eg a single Word files in a folder of PSD files). Until they buggered it up in v7, this feature worked really well, and Extensis understand the issue, so I'd expect a fix in a month or so.

I regard keywording and all these cataloguing activities as a chore with no certain benefit. It's only when I need to find a file that I pat myself on the back for finally having bought such a database. With this perspective, I want to waste as little time as possible on the activity, and that's why I like Portfolio. I cheated on Portfolio and had a one week affair with iMatch (I had dated it along with the 6-7 others before choosing Portfolio), but it took me so much longer to do what I wanted to do. So I went back to Portfolio - usability is its strongest suit.

I feel scripting is an important feature as there's always something you will need to do that isn't in the interface. You can script Portfolio from VB, Excel or any other VB-based product. Thumbsplus seems to have only "DDE and command line utility".

I'd have to check what you say about deleting IPTC data. The majority of my files are Nikon Raw, so I had to develop a custom solution (using iMatch's vb engine) and have not tested deleting keywords as you describe. I'm pretty sure Portfolio allows you to script such deletion prior to embedding, but I'd have to check.

John

PS I assume you've also looked at the PortfolioFAQ and its forums?

jnrob said:

johnbeardy said:

Tis is an important feature, and one of my criteria. But a slight
correction. Portfolio always watches and alerts you if there is a
movement, but syncs on request. That's not a bad thing. Portfolio
is good if you do a bulk move - eg I recently moved 12gb of images
to a new drive, I could have done it entirely through Portfolio or
through Windows Explorer. I did it the latter way, and then in
Portfolio did a bulk file path update (just a couple of right
clicks). I feel it handles file movements well.

Click to expand...

Yes I am aware that Portfolio does watch and does sync on request,
although in my case I would prefer to have it done automatically
(as TP7 can be set to do ). I also noticed that you mention in your
website that there is a bug in its folder watch/warning
implementation. Would you care to elaborate on this?

Otherwise I prefer Portfolio´s GUI which I find more attractive,
cleaner, and with easy access to search and sort functions. I also
find its search function more flexible than TP7´s.

Nonetheless when it comes to editing IPTC keywords and having those
in sync with DB keywords I prefer TP7:

• both apps can ADD keywords from iptc fields,
• but DELETING keywords in the database (Portfolio) or in the iptc

field (TP7) will not remove the corresponding entry in the iptc
field (Portfolio embed in metadata op) or database keyword (TP7
does not autodelete database keyword from iptc delete). To achieve
sync in Portfolio you would have to delete the iptc keywords field
prior to embedding into metadata, which would require to use an
external iptc editor. In TP7 it is much easier, simply delete
database keywords (there is a command for that), edit iptc keywords
with the built-in iptc editor and then TP7 will autogenerate the
new corresponding database keywords.
Perhaps there is an easier way of doing this, am I just not aware
of it?

So right now, because of its folder autosync and its builtin iptc
editor, I am leaning towards TP7, despite its somewhat clunkier
interface.

Thanks for the feedback.

Click to expand...

johnbeardy wrote:
Where are the portfolio forums?
And when I embed IPTC info it doesn't read in other programs (Photoshop etc)

johnbeardy said:

John

PS I assume you've also looked at the PortfolioFAQ and its forums?

Click to expand...

They're part of the PortfolioFAQ site - I helped set them up a month ago:

http://www.portfoliofaq.com/forum/index.php

John Bradbury said:

John Bradbury said:

John

PS I assume you've also looked at the PortfolioFAQ and its forums?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Certainly my meger purchasing power isn't going to drive anything, but I personally will never begin using an indexing tool that stores index data outside the photo. I have no interest in being held hostage to a conversion gut wrench. Fortunately I have some time before I'll feel significant pressure to begin indexing. Hopefully the problem will be solved by then.

--

This space reserved for a clever phrase, as soon as I find one that hasn't already been taken.

Photos linked from http://www.defenbaugh.com
Equipment list in profile

Hi Guys!

My question is: does Portfolio 7 recognize Canon´s .CR2 files or do i have to convert them all to jpeg or whatever so that they can be catalogued?

Thanks in advance.

I have studied some more TP7 and have to correct my previous post. In TP7's iptc editing tool you have the option of replacing or adding to the iptc keyword field with the database keywords; so it is even simpler than I thought! You can do it in batch too.

On the issue of keywording chores I find also very useful to check the option "create keywords from words contained in the path foldernames". That allows me to effortlessly create lots of keywords by simply carefully choosing my folder-structure and foldernames. In my idea of simple image management I find this more useful than Portfolio´s "create keyword from path" option.

I also have to point out that, although TP7's GUI is not as good, TP7 does allow to customize it and to bring out icons for functions that were hidden in menus by default.

I did check the PortfolioFAQ on the iptc issue, but they do not have current v7 info on iptc writing. Neither do I know anything about VB scripting, so I have no need for it at the moment.

Thanks again for your feedback John,

Noel

jnrob said:

On the issue of keywording chores I find also very useful to check
the option "create keywords from words contained in the path
foldernames". That allows me to effortlessly create lots of
keywords by simply carefully choosing my folder-structure and
foldernames. In my idea of simple image management I find this more
useful than Portfolio´s "create keyword from path" option.

Click to expand...

This is what Portfolio does. Let's say I have a file "DSC_9877 Girl in red hat.psd" in a folder "D\images from paris". If you check that "create keyword from path" option, new records are automatically keyworded with each and every word in the filename and path: "DSC_9877" "Girl" "Girl in" "Girl in red" ... "from Paris". It sounds the same as TP7.

While this seems useful at first, I found it created far too many keywords, even the word "in" was a keyword. So I soon switched off this feature. While my folder structure partly reflects categrories, I'd rather have something more backup friendly (ie filling up each folder unitl it's 650mb) and relying on a database - after all, does that pic belong in the "Paris" or the "Portraits" folder? These image management tools free you from such constraints.

jnrob said:

I also have to point out that, although TP7's GUI is not as good,
TP7 does allow to customize it and to bring out icons for functions
that were hidden in menus by default.

Click to expand...

Porfolio has such icons. Its drag and drop features are also much more extensive and useful than may at first appear.

jnrob said:

I did check the PortfolioFAQ on the iptc issue, but they do not
have current v7 info on iptc writing.

Click to expand...

v7 is still new! The site's writer is focussing his efforts on NetPublish, the new web server program. BTW I tested embedding deleting keywords and embedding metadata and it does work how you say. I'm going to make an enhancement request.

jnrob said:

Neither do I know anything about VB scripting, so I have no need for it at the moment.

Click to expand...

That's a shame, no package is ever perfect. Give you one example of where I've used it. I wanted to copy the description from one record to 150 others. While I could copy the text and then go through each record with Ctrl V, it's a bore. Instead I run a small VB app that does it in a flash and can also copy keywords, even EXIF fields if you wanted.

jnrob said:

Thanks again for your feedback John,

Click to expand...

From your posts, it seems you have tried both hands on. It's the only way.

jnrob said:

Noel

Click to expand...

Are these what are sometimes called Mark II Canon raw. If so,not yet, but there are strong rumours that an update at the end of August will include these files.

Even if Portfolio can't yet recognise the thumbnail, you can catalogue the file. You can even catalogue files that don't yet exist, adding "placeholder" records (I've not used this, but a friend used it to migrate a text only image management database, leaving the client to scan their material and match to the placeholders)

Martelo Pilão said:

Hi Guys!

My question is: does Portfolio 7 recognize Canon´s .CR2 files or
do i have to convert them all to jpeg or whatever so that they can
be catalogued?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

johnbeardy said:

This is what Portfolio does. Let's say I have a file "DSC_9877
Girl in red hat.psd" in a folder "D\images from paris". If you
check that "create keyword from path" option, new records are
automatically keyworded with each and every word in the filename
and path: "DSC_9877" "Girl" "Girl in" "Girl in red" ... "from
Paris". It sounds the same as TP7.

Click to expand...

johnbeardy said:

Porfolio has such icons. Its drag and drop features are also much
more extensive and useful than may at first appear.

Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out; I certainly haven´t tried/discovered all Portfolio's features. Still I have to clarify that TP7 is more flexible (=selective) when it comes to generating keywords from filenames and folders: you can individually check whether you want keywords from: filenames and/or words in filenames and/or foldernane and/or words in foldername and/or words in path foldernames and/or iptc keywords... So with only words in path checked, you would get as keywords only "girl", "in", "red", and "Paris". Knowing that my idea is to use in foldernames only the keywords and no prepositions. It is not perfect, but it does help.

johnbeardy said:

johnbeardy said:

Neither do I know anything about VB scripting, so I have no need for it at the moment.

Click to expand...

That's a shame, no package is ever perfect. Give you one example of
where I've used it. I wanted to copy the description from one
record to 150 others. While I could copy the text and then go
through each record with Ctrl V, it's a bore. Instead I run a small
VB app that does it in a flash and can also copy keywords, even
EXIF fields if you wanted.

Click to expand...

In TP7, you would select all those 150 photos, open the iptc editor (right click or use the available icon), write the caption and hit "Enter". TP7 will then write the caption in batch in all 150 files. I was surprised that Portfolio would not do it, so I checked and you can do exactly the same (change the caption to a group selection and then embed it into the group selection). BTW I noticed that when editing a field in Portfolio they give you the choice between replacing and appending; it would be nice if they gave you this same choice for metadata embedding.

Thanks for the feedback,

Noel

John Bradbury said:

neither are as good as Imatch for IPTC management, but Imatch is
well known for its clunky interface and its not exactly speedy.

Click to expand...

No offense please, but that's kinda new for me (and most likely for current IMatch users too ;-) I wonder where you get that from.

In fact IMatch is known for it's speed when it comes to indexing images and handling larger image collections. Many users are switching to IMatch from other image management applications because of this fact.

The "clunkiness" ;-) of the user interface depends on the user and his expectations and experience.

It may not look as polished, colorful or flashy as user interfaces from other, more beginner-oriented programs, but it is workflow-oriented and fast to use after a couple of hours of playing with the app.

IMatch's feature set is much larger than most other applications and hence the user interface will always "seem" more complex than the interfaces of simpler applications.

--
Mario Westphal
Author of IMatch - The Digital Image Management Solution
[email protected]
http://www.photools.com

Mario,

No offense to your baby - I love(d) IMatch - but it is slower in some areas compared to other asset managers.

It indexes slower, perhaps because it is 'mapping' more data for it's image matching ability. It displays some files slower in slideshow mode like JPEG and TIFF, with or without color management.

Iit's much faster and efficient with large 10 000+ archives. It's lightning fast for writing IPTC. But it's not faster with absolutely everything.

As to IMatch's interface that's a personal thing and it never bothered me.

-- Robert.

Mario Westphal said:

Mario Westphal said:

neither are as good as Imatch for IPTC management, but Imatch is
well known for its clunky interface and its not exactly speedy.

Click to expand...

No offense please, but that's kinda new for me (and most likely for
current IMatch users too ;-) I wonder where you get that from.

In fact IMatch is known for it's speed when it comes to indexing
images and handling larger image collections. Many users are
switching to IMatch from other image management applications
because of this fact.

The "clunkiness" ;-) of the user interface depends on the user and
his expectations and experience.

It may not look as polished, colorful or flashy as user interfaces
from other, more beginner-oriented programs, but it is
workflow-oriented and fast to use after a couple of hours of
playing with the app.
IMatch's feature set is much larger than most other applications
and hence the user interface will always "seem" more complex than
the interfaces of simpler applications.

--
Mario Westphal
Author of IMatch - The Digital Image Management Solution
[email protected]
http://www.photools.com

Click to expand...

No offense Mario,

but, if you keep the same line of thinking, I predict that Imatch will be history in a few years. I’ve read every posts I can find the last few years about image management in this forum as well as others. It seems that 80% of the comments about imatch is, the program is probably one of the best image management programs around, but it has a clunky, hard to understand, difficult to use IU and a long learning curve. Your response is always the same. “There are thousands of satisfied users who don’t write” “You didn’t give the program enough time” “All good programs like photoshop are hard to use” etc. A group of sharp programmers with marketing ability, will copy (maybe coping it as I write) the good features of imatch, correct the problems with the IU and start selling the program like hotcakes.

As founder and former owner of “Computer Shopper” magazine , I watched and talked to thousands of young entrepreneurs, start their hardware and software business on a shoestring. Most were started in their homes or dorms. A lot of them started running a quarter page ad per month with me and ended up buying 10 to 30 pages a month and are very successful today. I spent a lot of time talking to the one that were unsuccessful, mainly because I wanted them to pay their advertising bill. The problems were usually the same, they had a good product, great idea, but didn’t have the management ability or money to capitalize on the market. A few months ago, you wrote a response to a gentleman who complained about your delayed, promised update, that would make imatch easy to use. You stated that, you don’t have a marketing dept. forcing you to release the update on time, you’re a one man shop and you will release it when you are ready.

If a competitor jumps in on top of you with a better product, better marketing, you will probably wish you had hired some help and released the update on time.

I for one, hope you make it, because you have certainly put a lot of effort into imatch and you deserve the rewards. I also hope, I don’t keep reading the same post, month after month.

Mario Westphal said:

Mario Westphal said:

neither are as good as Imatch for IPTC management, but Imatch is
well known for its clunky interface and its not exactly speedy.

Click to expand...

No offense please, but that's kinda new for me (and most likely for
current IMatch users too ;-) I wonder where you get that from.

In fact IMatch is known for it's speed when it comes to indexing
images and handling larger image collections. Many users are
switching to IMatch from other image management applications
because of this fact.

The "clunkiness" ;-) of the user interface depends on the user and
his expectations and experience.

It may not look as polished, colorful or flashy as user interfaces
from other, more beginner-oriented programs, but it is
workflow-oriented and fast to use after a couple of hours of
playing with the app.
IMatch's feature set is much larger than most other applications
and hence the user interface will always "seem" more complex than
the interfaces of simpler applications.

--
Mario Westphal
Author of IMatch - The Digital Image Management Solution
[email protected]
http://www.photools.com

Click to expand...