Confusion at Phase One about Expression Media 2?

I just posted this on Peter Krough's DAM forum:

I had a disturbing conversation with one of the sales people at Phase One yesterday regarding EM2.

Backstory: I had called earlier in the day and left a voicemail at their generic sales number in the US explaining that i was looking for updated information on the future of EM2. I explained I was the digital photo librarian for a large university in New England and that we had been using Bridge CS4 for nearly two years to archive and share our large image library (140k+ photos among 18 workstations) and I felt the time was running out on using Bridge. After researching catalog software -- and spending no little amount of time with the DAM Book and here on the various fora -- I had tested EM2 on my own image archive last year and found it a very impressive tool indeed.

Unfortunately, the person from Phase One who called me back left me with the distinct impression that there is uncertainty underlying the future of the software. I had heard from an acquaintance here on my team that he suspected they were going to integrate EM2 into their Capture One software system -- which does make some sense I grant you.

Anyway, the fellow who called me -- horrible connection so I never did get his name right -- I asked if any future upgrade was planned and if so would it be free to existing users. At first he said, "The upgrade was supposed to have already happened," but then he backpedaled right away and said it was going to happen soon, and then probably pretty soon. . .  I asked if it would be free to existing users and he said there would be a fee charged then right away he said it might be free but there would perhaps be some kind of charge. I asked about new features in the "upgrade" and he finally admitted that he didn't really know anything about the future of the product and very little about the product itself.

Finally, I inquired about notification for updates and he said "check back on the website from time-to-time."

Well, you get the picture.

None of this was very reassuring about the future of EM2 as a standalone and certainly not for multiple users.

Lightroom Collections: the Big Drawback

Before discussing the nuts and bolts of using Lightroom 2 to catalog our photo library, I do want to mention one cautionary note about "collections."

While the ability to create collections or smart collections or "nested groupings" (a concept developed by Peter Krough in his superb DAM Book) is one of the most valuable features of Lightroom, sadly they cannot be shared between and among multiple users, not yet at any rate.

The important thing is that, as I understand it, catalogs can be shared among different users, and that's something we'll look into more closely in future postings.

A very brief review of cataloging software

No matter how well Bridge works right now, at some point it will no longer do what we want and expect it to do -- of course, it shouldn't be doing it now but it does. And for that we should be thankful.

But someday the image library will have to migrate to a program specifically designed to manage a large collection of photos, probably a catalog-based,  database software program that focuses on organizing and cataloging images and digital assets.

Adobe Lightroom, Apple's Aperture (Mac only), Expressions Media (Phase One) and Extensis Portfolio are four of the more well-known programs that also allow non-destructive image editing and offline workflow as well.

I should mention that hybrid programs such as Apple's iPhoto and Photoshop Elements both have cataloging and image adjustment features. However, iPhoto is Mac only and neither were really designed to handle the demands of large image libraries. iPhoto also lacks the more (much more) robust tagging, search and editing features required for anything other than the most basic of image collections.

For those of us in search of the holy grail of photo archiving, finding a resource that compares the wide variety of tools is scarce indeed. Fortunately, there is an excellent, albeit dated source on the Impulse Adventure website. There you can find a very helpful table comparing the various large- and small-scale programs. (You can also cut and paste this URL: http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/flow-catalog-compare.html.)

For enterprise level collections (50k images on up) you would probably do well to consider cross-platform systems with robust cataloging features:

1. ACDSee Pro 4 (WIndows only) - $240
2. ACDSee Pro (Mac)  - $170
3. Expression Media 2 -  $200
4. FotoStation Pro - €489/$700
5. Lightroom (Adobe) - $300
6. Photo Mechanic - $150
7. Portfolio 8.5 (Extensis) - $200

All have trial versions with varying restrictions. I did not include Canton's Cumulus or Extensis Portfolio Server 9 since they apply to Workgroup and Enterprise levels and have an entirely different pricing structure (read: expensive).

Of course, licensing for large numbers of users will drive the costs up no matter which catalog program you settle on.

Anyway, last year I tested Expression Media 2 and Portfolio 8.5 (single user) products. My primary criterion was discovering how many image files could one catalog handle before it slowed to a crawl or simply stopped working altogether. Our unique situation requires that users in our creative group be able to search as many images as quickly as possible. It's pointless to create 10, or 30 or 50 or more catalogs since searching requires searching across ALL images, and not just selected catalogs. And searching across catalogs is not possible.

That's the challenge.

I spent some time with Expression Media 2 (before it was sold to Phase One) and found its features robust and catalogs responsive. I liked it's easy to learn and easy to use interface. Cataloging was not a problem and searching within catalogs seemed to work fine. Please note I only catalogued a fraction of our image library, however. The process at the time was simply too tedious and time-consuming.

Portfolio 8.5 also has a nice interface but I found the cataloging of our large library incredibly slow and the catalogs it did produce were often unresponsive in searching. In earlier tests with Portfolio I was disappointed in the program's handling of xmp metadata, particularly keywords created in Adobe programs.

I have to admit that my tests were by no means systematic and I never did catalog the entire library so your experience may be different.

I am presently finishing cataloging our entire library using Adobe Lightroom 2 and my next series of posts will focus on the ongoing lessons from that experience.

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact me: steve at steve soper dot com.

Have a great spring.

Smart Collections won't help reindexing

If you have a large photo library and are sharing it from a central server/hard drive among other creative team members (and why else would you be here, right?) then you already know what a hassle it is to continually and constantly have to reindex your images.

In our case we have a fairly simple folder hierarchy of (right now) 61 folders of images, each containing between 1-3k image files. But new metadata is added frequently to images and so not a week goes by when at least several folders have to be reindexed in order for each machine to be able to effectively and accurately search the entire library. But reindexing is time-consuming and is affected by the variety of workflows within the department. So, naturally this results is a fairly long process for some team members.

As a consequence, I'm always on the lookout for some workaround that might expedite the reindexing process and thought I had struck pay dirt with Smart Collections (SC).

Here's what happened:

Last week, for no particular reason, the question popped into my head that since SCs seemed smart enough to update itself automatically when an image with specific search criteria was added to the library, did it do this on its own without any further attention from my part? The short answer, for you spoiler fans, is no.

Anyway, my first thought (prayer really) when working with a SC the other day was, "Hey, maybe I can use this as a workaround for continually reindexing!" I ran a quick test by creating a new smart collection, then added an image to the library with the same search criteria and went back to the SC to see if it updated automatically.

No such luck.

I had to go in and reindex the folder where the test image resided and then sure it popped up just fine in the SC.

Two other rather unpleasant side notes: (1) They don't like lots of photos -- my SCs take several minutes to load each and every time I launch it. And (2) when going from one to another (with large number of files in each) and back again the SC selected always takes a long time to load, leading me to believe that the SCs are not indexed of course and wondering how/where Bridge stores these beasts.

Ciao for now

Using Collections to Manage Search Results in Bridge CS4

Using Bridge CS4 as the linchpin in our image library development has certainly made it much easier to both find and track specific images among more than 140,000 photos. But with our robust search and keywording strategy, searching can often produce many dozens or even hundreds (even thousands) of images.

The easiest way to manage such large searches -- particularly when you find yourself performing the same search again and again, is to create a collection out of the search results. And to make things easier, you can create a "smart" collection that will automatically update your collection when new images with specific metadata are added to the library.

To create a collection after you perform your search, select all the images you wish to use in the new collection.

Go to the collections panel and click either the "New Collection" or "New Smart Collection" icon at the bottom of the panel, give it a name and voila! That's it!

If you created a smart collection, each time an image or images are added to the library with the search criteria you used that image or those images will automatically be added to your collection.

Please note two important things:

1. collections cannot be shared
2. you must be connected to the image source to view the images in your collection (you cannot work offline)

Take care and good luck!