jerphotography Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Hi- I'm inquiring for my wife who's shopping for some system to manage images at her job, which is PR for a college. Can anyone recommend a photo database/management program? Not talking Lightroom or Bridge or Aperture or even Photo Mechanic. What they need is what a newspaper or magazine would use in the office for various departments to manage a growing archive of images and metadata. Picture Desk comes up when I google and that may be the big player in the field but I know nothing about that end of the business. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Watkins Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 There are quite a few DAM systems that sound like the sort of thing you wife needs. Here's a link to open source applications for starters http://www.opensourcedigitalassetmanagement.org The reason I've given that link is that it nicely explains the slightly different types of DAM software and how they are suited to particular archive requirements.. This blog hasn't been updated for a while - http://imagearchivist.blogspot.co.uk/ - but again gives a good overview of how a digital image archivist approaches different problems. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 http://thedambook.com/ is pretty useful. Both the book and the site -with a good forum. (I don't have the 2nd edition, just the 1st) wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zigzagmtart Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Why not Lightroom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dlmphotog Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 I second the remmondation of "The Dam Book" by Peter Krogh. I use Phase One Media Pro, It's not perfect but it works for me. http://www.phaseone.com/en/Imaging-Software/Media-Pro.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Watkins Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Peter Krogh is now entirely LR, AFAIK. The book is great but the associated forum is dead although they still accept new user registrations and it is still a good archive for general DAM principles. As far as the likes of Aperture, Lightroom et al are concerned, they're designed for single user systems. The needs of organisations are a bit more complex (the OP suggests that like a newspaper, his wife would need to coordinate archive access across several departments). There are applications built for just this sort of complex, multi-user, multi-access environment. It needs a client-server arrangement. Try having a LR catalog open on Dropbox with two users accessing it at the same time. And that's ignoring the fact that LR doesn't play nice with your images hosted on a server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHill Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Jerphotography: you could try http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/. They get this kind of question all the time. David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 When worked PT at three Time Warner magazines (left in 2008) the Art Department used Photo Shop, but it was tied into their larger desktop publishing program. I understand they've changed that program recently. Time Warner is of course one of the largest publishing companies and they customize their software to suit their own needs. So it sounds as if your wife's company needs a desktop publishing system, but that's just a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerphotography Posted June 8, 2013 Author Share Posted June 8, 2013 Thank you all for the great info! I'm passing everything along to my wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotoDogue Posted June 8, 2013 Share Posted June 8, 2013 I used to use Cumulus, which was originally Aldus Fetch, until it became too high-end and expensive. http://www.canto.com DP Review has a review of Phase One Media Pro which might be worth looking into.http://www.dpreview.com/news/2011/5/10/mediapro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotstock Posted June 8, 2013 Share Posted June 8, 2013 We've been using Thumbs Plus for a good few years. The current V9 is a ground-up rewrite and working very well. It reads and writes XML metadata, runs happily in client server environments and scales to corporate levels. We have the 5-user Home Network edition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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