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[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
I keep making noises about this book by Peter Krogh and the workflow it outlines. The more I use Pro 2 Beta, the more convinced I am that disciples (and that is absolutely the right word) of this approach would *love* this product, *if only* a few things were addressed. Because I feel this could be a huge
win for ACDSee, I want to see if we can come up with a prioritized list of things that might currently be inhibiting readers of "The DAM Book" from considering ACDSee, so the folks at ACD can determine what might sense to address sooner rather than later. I have a pretty good of what the major ones are, and have been expressing those ideas, but I'd like this thread to serve as a place for folks familiar with this book to help me out.
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@*if only* a few things were addressed: Can you still recall those things and are they addressed in the meantime? What is the approach of this book in terms of cataloging?
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
First, I should mention that in "The DAM Book" world, there are RAW processing programs and there are cataloging programs, and a DAM solution consists of one of each. At the time of publication of the book Adobe PS2 / Bridge / Camera RAW was essentially the only choice anyone considered in the first category. The release of Lightroom, and to a lesser extent, Aperture and Nikon Capture, has changed this somewhat, and with Aperture and Lightroom in particular, people are also trying to figure out if these can serve well enough as cataloging programs, but for for the most part, are finding the answer is "no". So there are quite a few people out there already doing RAW processing in some other program, but looking for cataloging only. The main competitors out there are iView and idImager. For ACDSee to compete in that market, the main improvements it needs have to do with how it treats DNG files. See below.
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Have things changed in the meantime? Is lightroom filling the gaps in the new version 1.3?
What is going on with Iview - they have been acquired now - is the new product still focusing on DAM or are they going into a different direction now? idimager looks like a nice program at first glance but how can it be competitive with only one developer? What changes have been made to ACDsee in the meantime - is it closer to the process now?
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
There are, of course, plenty of photographers who have not already figured out their RAW processing story. ACDSee is now (with Pro 2) reasonably competitive in this regard (the background processing helps *a lot*), but in order for "The DAM Book" disciples to feel comfortable about using ACDSee for RAW processing, there are other enhancements with regard to DNG that would make a difference.
So I will try be clear about which group of photographers would care about which enhancements.
First, the main issue that will affect *everyone* looking for a cataloging application, regardless of which RAW processing application they use:
1) Must read and write IPTC in DNG files
This is the hurdle ACDSee Pro *must* clear in order to even enter the ballgame, as pretty much everything in "The DAM Book" depends on this. And of course, it should be possible for JPEG's that might eventually be generated from those DNG files to inherit the same metadata.
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I remember the first issue I had with ACDsee and DNG when I was new to the program in October.
I was playing around with my raw files and wanted to save to the DNG format in ACDsee. And when you double click a raw files and choose file->save as you will still be presented with DNG as a possible write format in the list of formats available. But when you try to save to that format you will get the error "can´t write format"
I do remember after posting this the first time many people throwing phrases at me "That is correct ACDsee cannot write DNG" but I am wondering till today why that format is even in the list then.
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Is it possible to add meta data to DNG now?
There are a few other minor issues with the cataloging aspect of ACDSee Pro that I suspect might be used as reasons to choose another application. The following would help:
1a) support for spaces in IPTC keywords
1b) support for boolean search queries
1c) an open as opposed to proprietary database
Realistically, I think 1a) would be the highest bang-for-the-buck fix. The search facility is already good enough for most purposes, and changing the database of course would be too huge to even consider at this point, especially considering that relatively few people would make an issue of this, and there is a text-file export option as well as other ways of exporting specific info into the image files themselves. I think 1 & 1a would be enough to satisfy most people.
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If 1 means the possibility of typing Peter Parker Florida instead of Peter, Parker, Florida in the CTRL +K field my hand is way up on the I badly want this scale.
1b would not be so imortant for me as I fell ACDsee search to be quite comfortable at the moment.
1c is a point I have started numerous posts at. Not only because this will lead to the possibility to implement security (different users - owner, user) but also to better performance, multiuser and so on.
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Now, on to things that would matter to folks using other RAW processing software. The software these folks would be using would all be writing high-quality previews into the DNG file, and folks would be expecting their cataloging software to deal with those. So, we have
2) Must be able to display and otherwise use (email, print, use in slideshows, etc) the embedded preview in a DNG file
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Is this the case now? What is the current status?
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Again, this is the absolute deal-breaker here, although it seems Pro 2 may already be able to do this to some extent. I'm unclear on the details, as various threads have described different experiences. I gather it is a matter of which camera you are using. Note I'm not talking about just thumbnails - I mean, one should be able to view the thing full size and *use* it (for emailing, printing, etc, if not actually edit it).
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It took me some time to understand the difference between the real raw data and the embedded (by the camera and unprocessed) preview thumbnail and it took me even longer to understand that there might be a second high quality thumbnail which incorporates changes made in raw processing. Because I was wondering so much about it I also started reading in the forum how ACDsee is dealing with it but as you already stated I have to clear or final idea about it.
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Some of these folks, once they see the power of an all-in-one solution like ACDSee, may wish to start using the ACDSee RAW processing. They'd be much more likely to do so if ACDSee had:
2a) support for reading and applying raw processing parameters recorded by other programs in DNG metadata or sidecar files (XMP)
Now, folks (like me) who are planning on using ACDSee for both RAW processing *and* cataloging won't care so much about using embedded previews. They will, however, care about whether the processing done by ACDSee can be made visible to other programs for whatever purpose.
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That is not quite true because if I had understood it correctly and you are able to save your results of raw processing inside the DNG without the need of a sidecar file this is a major advantage. ACDSee on the other side does not yet support stacking and versions which I´m badly waiting on. You could either integrate your work results in the DNG in order to group files or stacking is needed for that. So far both is missing is that correct? I´m not that knowledgeable of that subject as it might seem. i just got an update on this topic from samdring today: He told me that he hates sidecars and DNG is just his solution for it.
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
So:
3) Must be able to create a high-quality preview (the equivalent of the current RIP, not sure about resolution differences) and embed it into the DNG file
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But maybe not only a preview but a current view of the raw processing results.
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Similarly, some folks might also like it if the processing parameters could be stored in the DNG file just in case the occasion arose to further process the file elsewhere. As far as *I* am concerned, the only "elsewhere" I care about is on my desktop system also running ACDSee Pro - anything that facilitated transferring DNG files from PC to PC and having the processing intact would be most welcome. So:
3a) support for writing raw processing parameters to DNG metadata or sidecar files (XMP)
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Talking so much about DNG how open is the format and is it even possible for ACD to implement the wishes if it is decided to do so?
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
Also, for those of us with cameras without orientation sensors:
3b) support for rotating RAW files, even if simply by setting the orientation bits
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As I see in 238 raw rotation is implemented now so that point is sorted out right?
But how come Pentax does not have this? Even if I would finally get my K100D which comes without it....
[quote name='Marc Sabatella']
I should note there will also be questions from folks about what the maximum size of the database is, and ACDSee should be prepared to have an answer. And assuming the answer is not "as big as you want", there should be a reasonably straightforward way of changing databases. The author of "The DAM Book" has each year's photographs in a separate database, for example, because that is how he got around size limitations in iView. If ACDSee had a better story, that would be great, but you don't want it to be worse.
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I´m also questioning the max. size of the ACDsee database since I use the program but so far did not come to an answer. Can an answer be given to this question?
Mgt
P.S. I tried everything I could but there was no way getting this .... quote thing right </forums.acdsystems.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />
