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Post by splash3313 on Mar 7, 2024 9:15:38 GMT
what is the best cataloging software to use along side paintshop pro
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Post by jeanluc on Mar 7, 2024 11:28:11 GMT
LightRoom.
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Post by Candive on Mar 7, 2024 20:53:06 GMT
Hi jeanluc Now that we know which one is the best, is there a cataloging software that isn't subscription based you would recommend? I suspect a lot of PSP users prefer a perpetual license rather than a subscription.
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Radim
Junior Member
Posts: 13
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Post by Radim on Mar 8, 2024 14:13:25 GMT
what is the best cataloging software to use along side paintshop pro What makes a cataloguing software? What's the difference with freeware like XnView, XnViewMP, etc.?
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Post by jeanluc on Mar 8, 2024 18:11:39 GMT
My LightRoom is version 6, a boxed version with perpetual license found in a store. Other cataloging software : ACDSee Adobe Bridge Zoner Photo Studio X PixFiler Magix Photo Manager digiKam FastStone Image Viewer Phototheca 3 I haven't tried them. I found them on Google. I would be interested in comments from users of any of these programs.
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Post by Candive on Mar 9, 2024 5:52:17 GMT
what is the best cataloging software to use along side paintshop pro What makes a cataloguing software? What's the difference with freeware like XnView, XnViewMP, etc.? @radimqu You've asked a very important question. splash3313 question was quite concise and jeanluc's answer was just as succinct but her answer would be considered accurate. It really depends on what an individual is looking for. XnView has a cataloging feature that obviously suits your needs. The ability to catagorise, tag, rate and sort photos based on this criteria is the main function of a catalog. But someone may be looking for AI assisted face recognition technology - and there may be a photo cataloging software that can do that well. Also Lightroom is a Raw editor. Is that a feature important to the user or do they just edit jpgs? These are just some of the many factors that need to be taken into consideration when choosing such an application. If splash3313 had provided more detail on his requirements perhaps free software such as XnView or Faststone would have met his needs. As jeanluc has suggested, it would be interesting to have members comment on the specific cataloging software they use. Even PSP has catalogs which may be sufficient for most users.
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Post by JCBrown on Mar 14, 2024 2:34:22 GMT
Magix Photo Manager I would be interested in comments from users of any of these programs. Hi Jean-Luc, I have and use Magix Photo Manager. It's great but outdated, the database is fragile, there are some bugs (column headers wrong). It desperately needs a facelift but I think that Magix is letting it die. Too bad. It handles audio and video files as well as photos and has many useful tools. One that got dropped from PaintShop Pro was the ability to have the geo-location, if in the photo file, open in Google Maps, no problem with Photo Manager. One can do rudimentary editing in the program or open the image in PaintShop Pro as it can be the external bitmap editor. There are tagging (categories/sub-catagories) and ability to add description, rating, etc. A nice feature is the ability to record a audio commentary with a photo, saved automatically with the photo filename.wav or .ogg. One can quickly create albums that are actually video project files that use to be able to be opened directly in Magix video editors, Movie Edit Pro/Movie Studio/Video Pro X, but the more recent version no longer open the album file (grrr). I mentioned the fragility of the database, it often crashes on me. However, it is quite useful, with sorts and printing - creating formatted HTML files. However, one cannot address the database with any normal query tools. There is facial recognition, but it is now quite outdated. There is a lot more, but again, outdated. It's missing some CODECS for audio and video. Worst, it won't work on Windows 11. It would be really good if Magix updated this and marketed it properly, as it's a very good tool. Right now, I'm looking to see if there is a way to print thumbnails along with a description put in the General Details (Caption) of photos. The idea is to have someone go down the list, type in a caption, on to the next one, then print that out or export at least filename and caption to a csv or Excel file. I tried in Photo Manager but the routine is iffy. I was looking to see if this could be done with PaintShop Pro. That said, PaintShop Pro has features for Collections, tagging and quickly adding in captions, so it looks like it goes a long way towards doing the job.
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Post by Candive on Mar 14, 2024 8:58:35 GMT
Hi JCBrown , Thankyou for your honest review of Magix Photo Manager. It looks like its on the right track but needs a bit of an update - particularly compatibility with Win 11. I noted another photo app on the Magix site which is compatible with Win 11 called; Magix Photostory Deluxe. Do you know if it builds on the core functionality of Photo Manager and adds a slideshow capability or is it a completely different program? Also I noticed that you are looking for a feature to add notes to a photo. I believe Faststone Image Viewer may meet your needs. Faststone Image Viewer I've attached examples for you to view. Its very easy to add short notes to each photo. Just hit the T key (text) which brings up a little window and add your note. Within this window you can move to the next photo in the folder and continue adding notes to photos. You can then generate a contact sheet with the file name and note. You can also add other fields to the contact sheet if you wish. The only limitation is that the photos must be jpg. Faststone can also produce a vertical or horizontal film strip which you can paste into a spreadsheet. You can then add information in the cells along the sides of the photos. Hope this helps. Oh, another thing. If your photo has GPS data, you can view Google Maps, Google Earth and Open Street using Faststone. You can also get it as a portable program so you don't have to install it on your machine and you can link an external Photo app like Paintshop Pro to edit your photos. And best of all, its freeware!! Although you can make a donation to help future development. Contact sheet example.pdf (264.9 KB)
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Post by JCBrown on Mar 14, 2024 12:21:50 GMT
CandiveThanks for the information about Fast Image Viewer. Interesting and free. But, image files only. Photo Manager is making a liar out of me. Last night and this morning I played around again with the database and search filters. There are indeed filters to find files in different ways and to get them into HTML reports, including grouping. In the database view, I have almost 32,000 image files, 14,484 video files - poof, that is where the database is fragile - reopened and no problem, and 62,816 audio files - poof again. The number of files being asked for taxes the memory, which may be a problem, especially since Photo Manager is a 32 bit program. The program recommends displaying 5000 records at a time due to a limited amount of memory. Going through in Folder view is not a problem, nor it searching the database. While not super easy, I can add comments to photos by opening the properties. There may be an easier way but I haven't found it. There are 2 viewers - a small one and a large one. The latter can be set to run as a slideshow. Photo Manager is somewhat like Windows Explorer in that you can drag and drop files from Photo Manager into a video editing program. I just tried with Video Studio 2021. As I pointed out, PaintShop Pro can be the Photo Editor for Photo Manager. As for Magix PhotoStory, it's basically the same program as the video editors, Movie Studio and Video Pro X with a slightly different look, less features, particularly with respect to video and audio editing. As well, it's limited to 8 tracks unless you add a collage template which can somewhat cheat the program into having more tracks. It has a feature that is, strangely, not in the video editors and that is the ability to have the effects tools show up on the full screen monitor.
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Post by Candive on Mar 15, 2024 0:18:59 GMT
Hi JCBrown , Thanks for the feedback on Magix Photostory and what it entails. To confirm Faststone Image Viewer can only add notes to jpegs (photos). In your post you indicated; " Right now, I'm looking to see if there is a way to print thumbnails along with a description put in the General Details (Caption) of photos. The idea is to have someone go down the list, type in a caption, on to the next one, then print that out or export at least filename and caption to a csv or Excel file. I tried in Photo Manager but the routine is iffy. I was looking to see if this could be done with PaintShop Pro."
In Fastone, its very easy to add notes to photos; not "iffy" at all.
If you were also thinking of adding notes to video clips, or music then Faststone would only be a partial solution. Pinnacle Studio has a virtual Library where you can star rate, add tags and comments to video clips, photos and music. Other video editors probably can as well but only within the context of the project and not the entire library of elements. The only problem is, I don't think you can export the information from Pinnacle Studio to a csv or excel file. The information stays within the virtual Library itself. But who knows, there may be a way; I'm just not familiar with it.
Thanks again for the summaries of the Magix products. I also heard ACDsee was a good photo management system but I have never used it myself.
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Post by JCBrown on Mar 15, 2024 12:00:34 GMT
Hi Candive, After my initial thoughts on this, it morphed into having audio comments on the photos as well as written comments and tags. After playing around more with Photo Manager, I managed to figure out how to extract the information - comments - from the database into html. I'll keep on working with Photo Manager to see if there are more features that I can use. Thanks, John CB
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Post by juergen on Mar 16, 2024 10:20:07 GMT
If it is only a matter of transferring information from the images(?) into your "own" application (Excel, database...) you could also include Exiftool in your considerations.
Write metadata to images ...path-to-tool...\exiftool.exe -config ExifTool_config.ini -ImageDescription="...description of a picture from italy" -Country="I" -City="Florenz" -Location="market place" -Keywords="bird;pigeon" -Copyright="Copyright ..., ...year..., all rights reserved" ...path-to-image...\1989_florenz_tauben_imagon.jpg
Read metadata from the images ...path-to-tool...\exiftool.exe -config ExifTool_config.ini -ImageDataMD5 -LastPathname -FilePath -Year -Month -Day -Hour -Minute -ScaleFactor35efl -LensID -FocalLength35efl -HyperfocalDistance -Make -Software -ExposureCompensation -ExposureMode -ExposureProgram -MeteringMode -Common -ImageDescription -Country -City -Location -Keywords -Copyright -csv -csvDelim ; -r -ext JPG ...path-to-image... > ...path-to-result...\foto\exif\exiftool\metadata.csv
Example of getting customised tags from existing tags (ExifTool_config.ini)
%Image::ExifTool::UserDefined = ( # Composite tags are added to the Composite table: 'Image::ExifTool::Composite' => { # Composite tags have values that are derived from the values of # other tags. ... Year => { Require => 'DateTimeOriginal', ValueConv => 'substr($val,0,4)', }, Month => { Require => 'DateTimeOriginal', ValueConv => 'substr($val,5,2)', }, Day => { Require => 'DateTimeOriginal', ValueConv => 'substr($val,8,2)', }, Hour => { Require => 'DateTimeOriginal', ValueConv => 'substr($val,11,2)', }, Minute => { Require => 'DateTimeOriginal', ValueConv => 'substr($val,14,2)', }, LastPathname => { Require => 'Directory', ValueConv => '(split(/\//,$val))[-1]', }, }, ); #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1; #end
...metadata.csv... SourceFile;ImageDataHash;LastPathname;FilePath;AspectRatio;Year;Month;Day;Hour;Minute;ScaleFactor35efl;LensID;FocalLength35efl;HyperfocalDistance;Make;Software;ExposureCompensation;ExposureMode;ExposureProgram;MeteringMode;FileName;FileSize;Model;DateTimeOriginal;ImageSize;Quality;FocalLength;ShutterSpeed;Aperture;ISO;WhiteBalance;Flash;ImageDescription;Country;City;Location;Keywords;Copyright
C:/_DATEN/install/foto/exif/Exif-Testbilder/1989_florenz_tauben_2024_imagon.jpg;17dad2f63118138d215397e485cf763c;Exif-Testbilder;C:/_DATEN/install/foto/exif/Exif-Testbilder/1989_florenz_tauben_2024_imagon.jpg;2:3;2024;02;20;19;01;;;;;Canon;PaintShop Pro 23,00;;;;;1989_florenz_tauben_2024_imagon.jpg;768 kB;Canon TS9500 series Network;2024:02:20 19:01:44;1440x2160;;;;;;;;Stadttauben;I;Florenz;In der Innenstadt;"Vogel;Taube;Fahrrad";Copyright 1989 by Juergen ***, all rights reserved
... (DateTimeOriginal does not fit because photoscan and not further adjusted)
Regards, Jürgen
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Post by JCBrown on Mar 18, 2024 16:18:35 GMT
juergenHi, That is really good. I didn't know about that tool. For anyone reading this, EXIFTOOL is available for free at: exiftool.org/There are some tutorials on YouTube about how to use it. The only drawback I see is that the management programs like PaintShop Pro and Photo Manager contain comments in their database and not in the EXIF of the photo. Is there a way to extract this from the PaintShop Pro database using EXIFTOOL? As for Magix Photo Manager, I managed to get the filename and comments using the Database, Print Export, filter and save to HTML feature. The HTML file can be opened directly in Excel, which is exactly what I needed.
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Post by jrmach on Mar 19, 2024 1:40:33 GMT
I have been using this software for more than 10 years and it works very well and is reasonably priced. During my years in business I have tagged, cataloged, organized, and categorized thousands upon thousands of images. Check out the link and decide for yourself. Uses ExifTool by Phil Harvey and can link to other programs directly like psp, exiftoolGui, Faststone, etc. If you also want to print thumbnails etc. to pdf then Piestudio is an option.
Added note. Very clean install. Everything is basically in one directory 78.1mb.
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Post by Candive on Mar 19, 2024 8:48:12 GMT
Thanks jrmach, Would I be correct in assuming that Piestudio is the better option because it combines PIE and Printstation?
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