iView Media Pro

[Pelao]

Hi
Does anyone use iView pro?
It appears to be what I need, but I wonder about stability etc?

[J Rabin]

Use it for about 0.5 year. It's fast. Fast to render, fast to scroll, irrespective of catalog size. It renders/rebuilds jpg thumbnails fast at excellent viewing quality, it does not crash or hang, it allows flexible modification of ITPC meta data (though you have to manually sync it back to original file). It's well supported. It has enough features and batch commands without having too many. Documentation is nice, with table to map its ITPC fields with international and PhonyShop field names. The company answers inquiries.
It compares well with Extensis Portfolio, also a solid product, which has more horsepower in multi-user network environments, but some arcane feature over-kill for single users.
The freely distributable viewer has been very handy to distribute viewable DVD/CDcatalogs or slide shows to folks who do not own it. Very slick, like an Adobe Reader for catalogs.
If you're a PC user (I run it on Macs) you will need to download Apple's latest version (free) of QuickTime, because I believe that's the rendering engine iView uses.

[Pelao]

Hi
Thanks for your reply - just the sort of info I am looking for.
I will be running it on my PowerBook.

Currently I use iPhoto and the latest version is very good. It's simple, very fast (storing about 4,300 images) but has a few limitations. For example, the info you can enter about each image is a little limited. in addition, when I enter info in PS Elements, iPhoto doesn't pick up the additional info.

What I would like to be able to do is download my images into iView Pro, delete the duds then open the images in PSE and enter additional info that may be useful for me. Then use iView to file the images and make backups.

iPhoto does not work with RAW images. Currently, I don't work with RAW either but I would like to start experimenting and want to keep my workflow consistent.

I have a poor understanding of the management of the information tagged onto each image, so I don't know if I can enter all the data i want in iView and it will be visible in PS. If so, I can reduce one element of my workflow.

Thanks again for replying.

[J Rabin]

Pelao:
The answer to your workflow issues with iView pretty much is: you can.
1. You can tag in and enter info either in PS CS new file Browser mode or iView (e.g., ©, Caption, author, location, etc.) both do batch, but I find iView easier, faster, slicker for that purpose. As noted in my first reply, just make sure you SYNC the iView entered meta data back to original files so it shows in PSCS, or any XMP or ITPC aware program.
2. There is NO comparison in speed between iView and iPhoto. Even iPhoto's latest release renders like a slug compared to iView. The real reason to abandon iPhoto even though it's fun for entry level, is that it does horrendous things with folder structure of photos. It stores originals versus edits in weird places, it creates ITS OWN arcane nested folder network on disk. With iView, you create want you want, where you want, across multiple drives or disks, and the catalog points to it.
3. I also use iView as THE first place to open RAW files. First, I let it do a "rebuild" of image thumbnails (because even though it takes time, iView's renderings based on Quicktime 6.5 under OS-X are HIGHER quality than camera RAW thumbs or PS Thumbs. Then, I use iView as a digital slide light table to do HARD elimination of outtakes and duds. Then, I batch enter meta data, sync (which means hard write these to file, which is why you're not seeing them now between iPhoto and PS) and last before opening in PS, I do a batch rename. [There is good technical a reason to batch rename before opening RAW in PS having to do with PS XMP file naming.]
4. From within iView, I select any RAW image, and click on it while holding the Control key and launch that file in PS, Nolise Ninja, DPP, EOS Viewer, or any program you choose from within iView. A nice feature.
5. Like any software, it has features I'd change, and like any, you get the most out of it if you read the documentation twice while fiddling with it.
Hope this helps.

[Pelao]

Hi again

Thanks for the comprehensive answers. Now I am much clearer on what this app can do for me. I agree with your comments about iPhoto - for basic use it is fine, but the way it files images is complex if you move beyond basics.