Adobe Bridge alternative - DAM needed

[Auf Reisen]

After finally being fed up with Adobe once and for all (just try and check for yourself how many completely unkillable background processes they run, even when none of their programs are active), I am looking for a DAM to replace the crash-prone Adobe Bridge and hope the forum can help.

I do most of my editing either in Affinity Photo or DXO Optics Pro 11, so the DAM does not need to come with a powerful RAW processor that can replicate the catalogueing features of Bridge, especially the batch keywording features and the smart catalogues.

Here are my must-haves:

• Runs on Windows
• Able to display Olympus RAW files (ORF)
• Able to execute normal windows file functions: copy and move files, execute third party programme upon double click, etc.
• Able to follow the logic of the parent file folder system rather than importing the file into its own catalogue, able to display folder structure in side window
• Read exif data
• Star rating system
• Able to write keywords into the exif
• Write keywords to a range of selected files
• Able to let me display only those files in a folder that meet certain rating, keyword, and exif data conditions
• Able to let me create smart collections where all files in a metafolder and all subfolders are displayed that meet certain conditions set by me

Nice to have:

• Colour (category) rating system
• Hierarchical keywords
• RAW editor

Not needed:

• I'm not a professional and don't often have to cull long sessions with hundreds of instances of essentially the same picture, so I don't need very powerful culling or batch processing features
• Fast processing speed is really of no concern

I am probably going to get DXO Photolab 2 at some point because I have been very impressed with their noise reduction. But while DXO has a barebones DAM, the featureset has been rather limited. Lightroom, as an Adobe product, is completely out of the question. I might check out CaptureOne instead of getting DXO. Their noise reduction is apparently not quite as powerful, but should work OK for me. As far as I know, CaptureOne allows the user to both work from a catalogue and from the parent OS file system. But does it have the kind of sorting and catalogueing features Bridge has?

I very much appreciate your help!

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Check out iMatch and ACDSee.

IMatch ( https://www.photools.com/imatch/ ) is probably the most complete photo DAM out there. It might be too much for you; it might not be.

ACDSee Standard ( https://www.acdsee.com/en/index ) is the DAM, and they have optional packages that include a RAW processor.

I tested both out with Capture One. Both work fine, though I prefer iMatch.

I currently use both Capture one and LR Classic in parallel. If I ever abandon LR (or they abandon me) I will use iMatch with CO.

 

[Gesture]

I agree. Why does a program have to send out 7-10 network connections requests before one has even used it? Adobe is not the only culprit here.

 

[Auf Reisen]

Check out iMatch and ACDSee.

IMatch ( https://www.photools.com/imatch/ ) is probably the most complete photo DAM out there. It might be too much for you; it might not be.

ACDSee Standard ( https://www.acdsee.com/en/index ) is the DAM, and they have optional packages that include a RAW processor.

I tested both out with Capture One. Both work fine, though I prefer iMatch.

I currently use both Capture one and LR Classic in parallel. If I ever abandon LR (or they abandon me) I will use iMatch with CO.

Both very interesting options, thank you!

IMatch might enable me to catalogue my other files as well, which is an interesting option.

ACDSee has attractive pricing. I suppose its RAW editor is not quite up to the level of the competition, though, as I never see it in comparisons with other editors.

May I ask why you used both a more deidicated DAM and Capture One? How does Capture One's DAM compare?

It would be nice, though not necessary, to do my RAW editing and my file management in one programme,

 

[Auf Reisen]

I agree. Why does a program have to send out 7-10 network connections requests before one has even used it? Adobe is not the only culprit here.

No, but they are one of the worst offenders. At least other companies let me eventually get rid of their spyware. It's next to impossible with Adobe. It's running permanently, the tasks keep popping back up after you kill them, they start up although you disabled them, and they constantly phone home and hog resources. I consider them malware at this point.

 

[Jim B (MSP)]

Check out iMatch and ACDSee.

IMatch ( https://www.photools.com/imatch/ ) is probably the most complete photo DAM out there. It might be too much for you; it might not be.

ACDSee Standard ( https://www.acdsee.com/en/index ) is the DAM, and they have optional packages that include a RAW processor.

I tested both out with Capture One. Both work fine, though I prefer iMatch.

I currently use both Capture one and LR Classic in parallel. If I ever abandon LR (or they abandon me) I will use iMatch with CO.

Both very interesting options, thank you!

IMatch might enable me to catalogue my other files as well, which is an interesting option.

I started down that road in my testing. I didn't conclude enough to drive me that way.

ACDSee has attractive pricing. I suppose its RAW editor is not quite up to the level of the competition, though, as I never see it in comparisons with other editors.

True. Though I have a good friend that really like it.

May I ask why you used both a more deidicated DAM and Capture One? How does Capture One's DAM compare?

Capture One's catalog is rather new and very basic. I also don't use it as I have read that it doesn't handle catalogs of >100,000 photos well. I have over 140,000. So, not direct experience, but I don't need to test it. I did use Media Pro - and loved it. But Phase One never could make it work well with CO.

My dedicated DAM is Lightroom right now. It does everything I need and it does it quite well. I use the Smart Collections quite a bit. IMatch also has that.

Many of my photo shoots are those that I shoot lots of photos - many hundreds, if not more; like birds in flight and airshows. I like LR's culling and rating capability. Then, when I have those few "real good" photos, I send those to Capture One for post processing.

It would be nice, though not necessary, to do my RAW editing and my file management in one programme,

That is one of the prime reasons that I stick with Lightroom right now. LR does my "good" photos very well. I send my best to CO.

Given the cost of cameras, lens, and computers, sticking with two good software packages, each with their strengths and weaknesses, make good sense to me.

 

[Robert Zanatta]

I agree. Why does a program have to send out 7-10 network connections requests before one has even used it? Adobe is not the only culprit here.

No, but they are one of the worst offenders. At least other companies let me eventually get rid of their spyware. It's next to impossible with Adobe. It's running permanently, the tasks keep popping back up after you kill them, they start up although you disabled them, and they constantly phone home and hog resources. I consider them malware at this point.

I was playing with blocking application telemetry yesterday. Adobe LR is the one application I have left to do. I'm using the v6 standalone, and it makes numerous outbound connections to various URLs. Pretty annoying.

 

[Hans de Zomers]

The most popular options for a dedicated DAM on Windows are Photo Supreme, Daminion and IMatch.

 

[Auf Reisen]

I agree. Why does a program have to send out 7-10 network connections requests before one has even used it? Adobe is not the only culprit here.

No, but they are one of the worst offenders. At least other companies let me eventually get rid of their spyware. It's next to impossible with Adobe. It's running permanently, the tasks keep popping back up after you kill them, they start up although you disabled them, and they constantly phone home and hog resources. I consider them malware at this point.

I was playing with blocking application telemetry yesterday. Adobe LR is the one application I have left to do. I'm using the v6 standalone, and it makes numerous outbound connections to various URLs. Pretty annoying.

If you ever figure it out, please let us know!

I was using the old 2017 version of Bridge on my old machine, and it did not require CC to run in the background. Not so with the newer version. I remember seeing a website explaining how to get around Adobe's spyware ecosystem, but can't seem to find it anymore.

 

[Auf Reisen]

The most popular options for a dedicated DAM on Windows are Photo Supreme, Daminion and IMatch.

Thank you! Those are interesting options as well.

So far, it seems like there are five options that match my criteria:

• IMatch - USD 120 - Looks like the most feature-rich DAM and can manage non-photographic files as well. Works with the existing folder structure.

• ACDSee - USD 40 (on sale) - Seems to do everything I want, and is very attractively priced at the moment. For 65 and 90 US Dollars, respectively, you also get a RAW editor and a more powerful editor supporting layers. This might be an interesting option for quickly editing my "good" photos. I could then edit the better ones in DXO and Affinity.

• Photo Supreme - USD 130 - seems to be geared more towards catalogue users, with speed being the main selling point.

• Daminion - USD 175 - Seems to be geared towards multiple users

• Lightroom - Soul of your first-born - Very capable option, but you are stuck with Adobe's malware ecosystem.

I am testing ACDSee now and taking a close look at IMatch. It looks like DXO might bring PhotoLab's DAM capabilities up to snuff at some point (honestly, they just need to add exif tags and smart collections and I'm good to go). But until then, I will need a dedicated DAM.

 

[Auf Reisen]

To get back on topic, I just noticed I had another DAM on my thumbdrive: Faststone Image viewer. It runs from a stick, is very fast, doesn't hog resources, and supports the RAW files I'm interested in.

I still have to figure out if it supports IPTC tagging and smart collections. If so, I probably won't look any further.

Oh, which reminds me: I confused IPTC keywords and Exif tags in my OP. My bad.

 

[Hans de Zomers]

Faststone is a viewer, not a DAM

 

[Auf Reisen]

Faststone is a viewer, not a DAM

Yes, I've just seen it doesn't seem to support IPTC tagging, or any smart collection functionality. At least I wasn't able to find it.

A shame, it's by far the most intuitive, fastest, and lightweight programme I have tried in the last couple of days. I don't suppose there is an add-on for the missing functionality?

 

[Auf Reisen]

For the sake of completeness, I should also mention XnView. It is free and has a lot of the functionality I want.

One of the biggest obstacles I have now is how to keep working with IPTC tags. A lot of the programmes mentioned in this thread have the ability to read them, and write them into the file, but very few (if any) offer the functionality to do this in a dedicated toolbox like Bridge does. For example, in ACDSee, you have to go through the context menu to badge-tag images with IPTC keywords.

 

[kiriak]

I tried Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom in my dual boot (win 10 + Fedora) PC,

it took more then 3 hours for the installation to be complete (and more than 2 for the un-installation) while a complete fresh new install of Fedora Linux OS takes less than 20 mins.

CPU use was more than 30% even before staring any of these apps (Bridge or Lightroom),

what a crap software !!!

----------------

for a DAM at present I'm testing Daminion, I think it ticks most if not all your check boxes, it is free for a catalogue up to 15.000 images (you can use simultaneously many catalogues) and I think it's price is less than 100 € for unlimited catalogues.

I'm happy with it, but i'm not an expert user an I'm new in this. You should check yourself the free edition.

 

[apathyman]

Another possibility is the much under-rated Zoner Photo Studio. It's somewhat similar to ACDSee (from my limited trials with the latter) and seems to do most of what you want (not sure about Smart Collections)

The latest version is by annual subscription, which may be a deal-breaker for you? I use an earlier non-subscription version.

Zoner is also an editor although I don't use that component - I just use it as a DAM and edit in (gasp!) Photoshop - albeit an old version.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Bri W]

Both very interesting options, thank you!

IMatch might enable me to catalogue my other files as well, which is an interesting option.

It will

May I ask why you used both a more deidicated DAM and Capture One? How does Capture One's DAM compare?

It doesn't. C1's DAM is less featured than LR. It doesn't even do synonym keywords. I use IMatch to do all my DAM duties and C1 can read and filter the metadata. C1 like LR for many, not all, can get slow when you get too many photos in it. I use a catalog for each year in C1 and everything is tracked by IMatch, find the photo there and it's just matter of opening the right catalog in C1. Also like LR it is quite limited in the file types it will catalog. I do HDR, mostly true HDR for 3D, so I need to keep track of .exr files. Neither LR or C1 will. It seems much of C1's user base sticks to session workflow up til now so they don't have a lot of incentive to spend much time improving the DAM features. Plus, like I said, no one else seems to have solved getting a full featured DAM and raw editor in one package.

It would be nice, though not necessary, to do my RAW editing and my file management in one programme,

It would be nice, but I haven't seen one program that does both at a high level. LR probably does it best, and I don't think it does it all that well. IMatch doesn't do raw editing, it does DAM and does it better than anything I've tried in the last 20 years. It has a learning curve to make use of all that power, but the help file is very good and the guy behind it answers questions very fast in the forums along with many experts. Most importantly it doesn't lock you in. Everything has a way to get it out and into the next DAM and it follows standards.

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

(....) Most importantly it doesn't lock you in. Everything has a way to get it out and into the next DAM and it follows standards.

This is the important bit.

No software should lock you in by storing your metadata in some sort of proprietary database / cloud or making it hard / impossible to get your data out if you decide to switch to another software or platform.

This requires a real effort by the software vendor. It's way easier to built some proprietary database to tuck everything away than to embrace open standards, implement flexible import & export capabilities and making it easy for your users to switch to the product of some other company...

 

[Auf Reisen]

(....) Most importantly it doesn't lock you in. Everything has a way to get it out and into the next DAM and it follows standards.

This is the important bit.

No software should lock you in by storing your metadata in some sort of proprietary database / cloud or making it hard / impossible to get your data out if you decide to switch to another software or platform.

This requires a real effort by the software vendor. It's way easier to built some proprietary database to tuck everything away than to embrace open standards, implement flexible import & export capabilities and making it easy for your users to switch to the product of some other company...

I couldn't agree more.

This was one of the reasons I went with Bridge in the first place, as it writes ICPT metadata directly in the jpeg and creates an XMP for RAWs.

Now the problem I am running into is that other DAMs don't work seamlessly with my existing keywords. Most of them can read them, but integrating them into the new DAM's keyword database is everything but straightforward. I would really like to go with ACDSee, but the problems with my existing keywords and the fact that it is inconvenient to have ACDSee write new keywords into ICPT or in a XMP is the reason I am still looking for alternatives. I yet have to try IMatch.

 

[Mario M. Westphal]

I recommend to look at the actual metadata written by Bridge. Different versions of Bridge appear to have different issues with properly dealing with hierarchies, flattening keywords, mapping between legacy IPTC data, EXIF, XMP data etc.

This can cause problems when you try to import your files into another software. Use something capable like ExifTool to check the metadata in your files so you know what you are dealing with. This may help with your new software and migration of your metadata and keywords. ExifTool is free, good as gold (Thanks, Phil!) and there is also a graphical user interface so you don't need to work on the command line.

If you plan to try out IMatch anyway, you can see all metadata it has imported from your files in the Metadata Panel when you switch to the Browser layout. The keywords IMatch has imported from your files (it automatically merges IPTC, flat XMP and hierarchical XMP keywords on import) are shown in the Keywords Panel .

To see the native data actually contained in your files, you can use the ExifTool Command Processor (Commands menu in IMatch) with the "List Metadata" template. This will show you all data in your files, the keywords, potential problems etc.

Feel free to post questions in the IMatch community if you need help.

When users switch to IMatch, they often, for the first time, see the metadata mess other software has created in their files. This is not only the case for companies and institutes migrating to IMatch with a 20 years pile of files from dozens of sources, but also for normal people who just used various applications with their files over the years.

Things like keyword import, automatic creation of a thesaurus from existing keywords, automatic organization of your files by keyword are just a start. Any capable DAM can do that.

Whatever DAM you pick, getting your metadata in order will be the first and most important step. Most DAM functionality (searching, sorting, organizing) is based on the metadata in your files, so having high-quality, sensible, standard-compliant and relevant metadata is key.

The good news is, once you have done that,. it will be good forever. Assuming you pick a DAM which stores the metadata in the image / sidecar where it belongs and supports current standards (not always the case so beware).

--
Mario M. Westphal - Author of IMatch