Alternatives to Extensis Portfolio

[DBenz01]

Hi,

I have always cataloged my photos using Extensis Portfolio, applying keywords using various custom fields such as vehicle type, town, aircraft type etc etc , select all pics of a Ferrari, select tab called vehicle type, select ferrari and apply it. if yellow then select colour tab and choose yellow and apply it, To find all yellow Ferrari pics simply run a search on the keywords, but Extensis have ceased the program, It runs on win7 but there is no tech support and now I am unable to create a custom field and find it, it makes it, it shows in list, then I cant display it with windows>display custom fields.

There is no forum that is open, they even closed that, so no fellow users could help each other.

Clearly sooner or later its time to re-catalog thousands of images all over again, with a program that wont get dropped.

What is there that can do what portfolio did ?

and will open their catalogs I hope !

Its going to take thousands of hours to redo a lifetimes work again.

There should be a law against companies doing that., and as for disallowing users to help each other...

DBenz.

 

[Nansen]

...Clearly sooner or later its time to re-catalog thousands of images all over again, with a program that wont get dropped...

All software vendors are mortal.

Photo-archiving application vendors are software vendors.

Photo-archiving application vendors are mortal.

(barbara)

 

[greg 123]

Hi,

I have always cataloged my photos using Extensis Portfolio, applying keywords using various custom fields such as vehicle type, town, aircraft type etc etc , select all pics of a Ferrari, select tab called vehicle type, select ferrari and apply it. if yellow then select colour tab and choose yellow and apply it, To find all yellow Ferrari pics simply run a search on the keywords, but Extensis have ceased the program, It runs on win7 but there is no tech support and now I am unable to create a custom field and find it, it makes it, it shows in list, then I cant display it with windows>display custom fields.

There is no forum that is open, they even closed that, so no fellow users could help each other.

Clearly sooner or later its time to re-catalog thousands of images all over again, with a program that wont get dropped.

What is there that can do what portfolio did ?

and will open their catalogs I hope !

Its going to take thousands of hours to redo a lifetimes work again.

There should be a law against companies doing that., and as for disallowing users to help each other...

DBenz.

Checkout iMatch https://www.photools.com/imatch/ for a free trial. This is an excellent digital asset manager that could fit your need. It's likely that the keywords are stored in your image files or related xmp files. Then you just need iMatch to index them into it's database, minimal effort on your part. Excellent support. If you have a question post it in their community forum. Expect an answer the next day as the company is located in Europe.

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

...Clearly sooner or later its time to re-catalog thousands of images all over again, with a program that wont get dropped...

All software vendors are mortal.

Photo-archiving application vendors are software vendors.

Photo-archiving application vendors are mortal.

(barbara)

Precisely.

This is why it is so important that you use a digital asset management software (DAM) that is designed to be an 'open system', that supports all relevant standards and stores your precious metadata in your files (or XMP sidecar files).

This way your data is independent from your DAM software and you can switch vendors or platforms at any, time and without nasty surprises.

Users unfortunately often learn to late how important that is. Or how half-hearted and buggy metadata support in many (popular) applications really is.

--

Mario M. Westphal - Author of IMatch

 

[Glen Barrington]

Equal to Lightroom in power (at least). Hierarchical database, not relational so it's fast. Can embed metadata in the photo and supports database export.

Extensive search capabilities.

 

[robgendreau]

Yes, by all accounts iMatch is a ripping good program (I can't use it; not for macOS).

But you did it right IF those keywords and other metadata are standard image metadata, like IPTC keywords, descriptions, etc. The key is whether that metadata has been embedded in the image files, or in sidecars if the files are RAW files. If so, most of the other DAMs will recognize that metadata. You can then use it to replicate virtually any structure you had in Portfolio; keywords can function the same as albums, collections, etc, for for folder structure, or for ratings, picks, labels, whatever.

Unfortunately, I don't think Portfolio does hierarchical keywords. Too bad, cuz these make it easier to replicate a hierarchical folder or other virtual container structure (US>California>Oakland as a keyword hierarchy being the same as US/California/Oakland as folders basically). If you can still use Portfolio, it might help to add some info via standard metadata like keywords, since that can help in restructuring and organizing in your new DAM, like iMatch or Lightroom.

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

Equal to Lightroom in power (at least). Hierarchical database, not relational so it's fast. Can embed metadata in the photo and supports database export.

Extensive search capabilities.

Just out of curiosity: Does ACDSee properly handle metadata synchronization between IPTC, EXIF, GPS and XMP? Can you control how hierarchical keywords are mapped to flat keywords? Do they handle the recommendations and rules of the Metadata Working Group?

These are the areas where you typically run into trouble when using multiple products which update metadata, you exchange files with clients or services or you migrate from one product to another. Important to check up-front.

--

Mario M. Westphal - Author of IMatch

 

[Glen Barrington]

Equal to Lightroom in power (at least). Hierarchical database, not relational so it's fast. Can embed metadata in the photo and supports database export.

Extensive search capabilities.

Just out of curiosity: Does ACDSee properly handle metadata synchronization between IPTC, EXIF, GPS and XMP? Can you control how hierarchical keywords are mapped to flat keywords? Do they handle the recommendations and rules of the Metadata Working Group?

I have no idea! I'm sure a post to Tech support could answer that.

The embed dialog is pretty simple. See screen print.

These are the areas where you typically run into trouble when using multiple products which update metadata, you exchange files with clients or services or you migrate from one product to another. Important to check up-front.

I don't use other products, so I'm not sure how to even go about testing such a thing.

--

Mario M. Westphal - Author of IMatch

--
I look good fat, I'm gonna look good old. . .
http://glenbarrington.blogspot.com/
http://glenbarringtonphotos.blogspot.com/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130525321@N05/

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

Thanks for checking!

XMP ist just one part of the puzzle.

 

[markmark]

I just upgraded to mac el capitan

Extensis portfolio won't work

I have years of old images archived on external drives but indexed in portfolio (i now use lightroom for archiving)

what do i do now??

keep an old mac with an old os exclusivly for the infrequent times i need to find an old image (or play tetris)??

CAN I SOMEHOW GET THE DATA INTO Lightroom ??

what have others done???

 

[markmark]

continuing on my quest to import my portfolio data base to lightroom

when setting up portfolio, i just took on photo from each shoot , keyworded it and put it into portfolio data base..indicating where the actual photo and job lived on cds and HDs

so i have a 50MB FDB file with i assume thumbnails and keywords and info as to what cd the actual iimage is

How do i open the PDB file (i still have old computer so i can access) and convert it to a folder of thumbnails that lightroom will accept..

 

[DBenz01]

I tried iMatch as it was highly talked of, but it failed to complete a scan of any drive I fed it,

I also couldnt name the drive with the label I had stuck to it.

Searches didnt find all the folders I knew existed with the same word in the name.

had hierarchy set, filters set, used various ways of searching, puzzling in fact.

Bit unsettling. I had high hopes for it as well.

DBenz

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

I have shown you how you can search for folders in IMatch. See my reply to your related post in the community .

IMatch has no dedicated feature to somehow stick a custom name to a media. IMatch displays the media label you have specified when createing your DVD and also the drive letter and media serial number to uniquely identify each external media you manage.

Looking at the screen shots you posted in the IMatch community, IMatch has indexed files from your disk D: and from at least four other media on your K: and G: drive.

To see the files on any of your media, remove the folder and file name filters you have enabled in the Filter Panel. Also enable the hierarchical mode in the file window so IMatch not only shows the contents of the selected folder but also its sub-folders.

 

[Bryan Regan]

Mark, just curious if you found a solution. I have @ 500,000 images in Extensis Portfolio and want to move them to Lightroom. I've searched the web and haven't really found a solution.thanks

Bryan