Ingest/Organization Software for an iMac?

turnthedarncranks

Howdy, all! Long time, no visit. Busy dealing with what Prince called "get[ting] through this thing called life." But it looks like I finally have time to play with my camera again. When I sat down to start doing so, I realized that Aperture was dead as a doornail and running like molasses. Moreover, Photos sucks. So I moved my photo files to regular folders and set about to figure out how to replace Aperture.

Editing isn't a problem as I don't do a ton and, when I do, I have both Luminar and Pixelmator. But ingest and organization are both now a puzzle. I really don't want to spring for Photomechanic as it's overkill for me (both in features and price), and I would prefer to stay away from Lightroom as I don't like the CC concept or cost.

It seems like I have two options. One is to buy another all-in-one package, likely either Aftershot Pro 3 or On1 Photo 2017. It seems like I can use either and eventually switch to Luminar if, as promised, it adds DAM later this year. The other is to use a file browser like Lyn. But that leaves ingest either to dragging the files onto my hard drive from SD cards or finding a basic ingest program. The latter would be my preference, but such an animal doesn't seem to exist with the death of Ingestamatic.

TL; DR? I'm moving on from Aperture, find Photos to be terrible, would like to avoid Lightroom, and am not sure what to get as a replacement. Any and all thoughts welcome!

I look forward to your thoughts, and hopefully getting back to being a regular visitor around here.

Thanks!

heartyfisher

I am a PC / Linux guy .. so my suggestions may be off ... but I kind of like digikam.

https://www.digikam.org/download/binary/

But I am used to open source .. so i dont get as frustrated with little bugs as long as I can get the main things done.. YMMV :-)

Rx4Photo

Lightroom!! Why are you avoiding it!

spraynpray

Another for Lightroom/PS CC here. By the time you consider everything, the cost of CC isn't bad. I was very 'against' CC when the concept was announced, but the reality of having it is better than I expected.

webmastadj

Like @spraynpray, I would say bite the bullet and get Lightroom. Based on what I have seen and read, there really isn't anything that has a better workflow. I was against their new pricing structure, but for the lightroom and photoshop combo at $9/mo, it isn't bad. They seem to update them regularly including new lens profiles which gives me the illusion I am getting what I paid for. Plus considering photoshop alone is $29/month vs lightroom and photoshop for $9/mo. I don't know who would ever pay the $29/mo ($20/mo on annual contract) just for photoshop.

Now for my web development, I dropped Adobe, $50/mo or $600/yr. is too much when I can pick up other applications that do a better job for a quarter of the cost.

In addition, I do have Pixelmator as well. It was my replacement for photoshop when I dropped Adobe years ago. It is a great program. With that, there are a lot more tutorials for Photoshop so I find myself using photoshop more and more now. I guess I am also trying help justify that $9/mo. by using it.

turnthedarncranks

Thanks, all. I have no intention of using Photoshop. So that really means I'll be paying $120/yr for Lightroom alone. That seems crazy. But maybe what's crazy is that I don't want to learn to use PS? This said, no other suggestions? I can't believe everyone uses Lightroom!

Ironheart

I use a variety of programs, NX-D, DxO OpticsPro, Photoshop, a bunch of open source. I only fire up lightroom if there is a specific feature I want to mess with. This also means I don't use a DAM. I use the finder, and just drag files off of the camera media. If I need to do anything complicated with file syncing, or only copy certain files, or rename a bunch, I pop open a Terminal window (I'm on a Mac) and use the power of the shell, wildcards, and even a script if I'm that crazy.

Thom has some good thoughts on this as well:

http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-articles/file-hierarchy.html

http://www.bythom.com/workflow.htm

turnthedarncranks

Thanks. These are very helpful. I had a memory of Thom having some thoughts on this issue, but I only saw his most recent article that talks about Photomechanic, Ingestamatic, etc.

No fans of any DAM other than Lightroom, huh? Fascinating!

PB_PM

Not a big fan of LR, but I use it because there really aren't many other apps out there that do all the things it does. I would drop CC in a heart beat if there was since LR is a terrible app, the UI and speed are appalling for a modern program.

Ton14

Here I don't agree with you @PB_PM

LR does everything at the moment, PC, mobile phone, tablet, MAC, Windows and fast, but you need computer power. You can edit and look at your photo's everywhere via the collections you make. LR put smart previews in your own LR cloud, no need to download photo's on your phone. Use only RAW, because there is the most photo information and convert to JPG at the end, with a click for every JPG format you want.

You have to put time in it !!!. You can even edit parts of your photo. Regular updates for camera's and lenses. It is a perfect database for your photo's, all in one catalog. The RAW converter becomes better and better and that for $ 9.- a month, the cheapest hobby there is

IanG

+1

In my experience there is no perfect software - and LR like pretty much any other app has it's problems, but it works for me. I too wasn't keen on the CC initially, but frankly I can afford the 11€ and it does pretty much everything I want or need. I actually make photographs (unlike certain people here) and with upwards of 50,000 images to handle each year I'm damn glad I don't do it image by image!!

I can only echo @Ton14 (who explained it far better than I ) and even if you pro-rate the 11€ over a year, the resulting price is quite similar to what we had to pay for the older versions at each iteration.

The 'added' bonus is the full version of PS included in this price - I use PS not for photo treatment but more for posters, text etc. as all the modification software is available to me in LR itself.

PB_PM

Ton14 said:

Here I don't agree with you @PB_PM

LR is a poorly optimized program, no if ands or buts about it. It uses a great deal of legacy code, which holds it back in many ways. If it was optimized for 4-8 core CPU's, it would be much faster, but Adobe is lazy. Other than exporting it can only use two cores at a time, as if it most users still had Core 2 Duo or Athalon 64 CPU's.

The UI looks like it was made for Windows 98, way to cluttered and cramped. It also needs some major improvement, particularly for use on higher resolution displays (1440p+).

I have two powerful computers, with fast CPUs, SSD's, good GPU, and even with those LR is sluggish compared to other DAMs out there. I only use LR because it does everything it does.

turnthedarncranks

Thanks again, all. This is a very interesting discussion! Still not sure I want to go th Lightroom route, but you are making me think twice about my initial rejection of it.

Ton -- I'm not sure I follow what you're saying about the Cloud feature. Are you saying that Lightroom effectively backs up your photos and makes them accessible on mobile devices? Or does it merely have a low res preview and then reaches out to your desktop when it needs the actual photo? The latter would be a heck of a bonus, but I suspect it's the latter you are describing.

Ton14

@PB_PM this is correct, ït is unbelievable but LR only uses the VRAM from a few graphic cards. Go to Edit - Preferences - Performance and switch off "use Graphics processor" often it will be quicker.

Ton14

@turnthedarncranks I start a new LR discussion for this.

turnthedarncranks

Thanks. I will check that thread out.

PB_PM

Ton14 said:

@PB_PM this is correct, ït is unbelievable but LR only uses the VRAM from a few graphic cards. Go to Edit - Preferences - Performance and switch off "use Graphics processor" often it will be quicker.

For unsupported GPU's sure. I just built a new desktop this past winter, so the GPU is modern and supported; it is faster with GPU acceleration on than not thankfully.

Ton14

Too many graphic cards are still not supported.

paulr

Not sure what level you want to push your PP Nik is free with Google and MacPhun for the mac is not expensive,Topaz are always doing special offers and as been said Nikons own software is free also.I use PCC but I have for years and don't like change. However most Photographers I know both Pro and amateur use Lightroom.

turnthedarncranks

Thanks, @paulr. I think I already am pushing my editing interests and skills to their limit with the Macphun software (including Luminar) and Pixelmator (which I've used only a handful of times, at most). My issue right now really is DAM. Still haven't found a killer solution. Am leaning towards either After Shot Pro 3 because it's cheap and seems fast, or sticking with dragging files into folders and then viewing them via something inexpensive like Lyn or maybe File Raw Viewer (or both). ID Imager seems impressive, but a $100 for something that is DAM only seems like a bit much.

paulr

Serif Affinity Photo Represent really good value for money and gives PCC a run for its money .Now on both platforms and free 30 day trial.

PB_PM

nm

turnthedarncranks

Thanks, @paulr. Looks like Affinity is competitive as an editor, but that it doesn't do DAM. (They reference creating a new DAM app, but say it's not likely to arrive until at least 2018.)

heartyfisher

:-) sorry did i scare you off the open source digikam ? can i say its FREE?

I may have put you off by saying that bits dont work..
Let me quickly explain how to use opensource software. First realise that the key functionalities are pretty solid (as solid {more solid} than most commercial).. it is the experimental functionalities or old and unused functionalities that depend on other software that may sometimes fail. Its like a building with the west wing under-construction. You don't really need to ever go in there. but if you do go in there, go in your hard hats on(report bugs). There are workers busily building things.

To summarise .. do give digikam a try.

turnthedarncranks

Thanks, @heartyfisher. You didn't scare me -- I use plenty of open source software. In the shuffle, however, I forgot you'd mentioned it! Probably I'll download it tonight. Thanks again.