Since Adobe has announced Lightroom one and the new version of Iview, Media Pro 3, which one would be the favorite? Is either one better than the other by a significant amount? Price is the same, $299.00. Adobe is offering a discount of $100.00 offer until April 30. I am debating which one will have the advantage. Which one would be easier to use? What are thoughts of others?
While I happen to really like Lightroom, one feature that I don't think the Lightroom 1.0 release will have is the ability to "follow" your files around, i.e., if you move your files to a different backup drive, it doesn't keep track of where they went. iView DOES have that feature and I feel it's a really important feature if you're saving lots of images and have numerous backup drives, etc. I've been beta testing Lightroom, and that's the one complaint I've had all along. I'll be curious what others think on the differences between the two and which is the better value for the $$.
I'm interested in seeing the new demo for the Lightroom release. I agree with Nancy that Lightroom's DAM features were a little light in the Beta versions. I use iView now to catalog my images, but it doesn't have nearly the image editing capabilities that Lightroom's Develop module does.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Lightroom builds a fairly large database of your images, this means it takes up some space on the drive, but, IMHO, the previews you get are slightly sharper than those in iView. iView creates a database file as well, but it is much smaller than the Lightroom files.
I know they both have demos out; I think the best thing to do would be to try them both. I think it really depends on your personal workflow and where you do most of your image editing. Keep in mind that iView was recently bought out by Microsoft, and that there will be a new version called Microsoft Expression Media coming out in the Spring of '07. I'm slightly interested in what Microsoft comes up with.
Cheers,
Alex
Posted by Mel Ladewig on January 29, 2007 at 7:47 PM
If Lightroom works like the database in the PSE organizer (which it appears to do) then there are ways to move files from one location to another and have the database keep track of the image location. I don't know how iView is setup to work, but one thing I really like about PSE is the organizer database. I work on extremely complicated database systems for my day job (Oracle, MS SQL Server and DB2) so this is a comfortable way for me to work. The interface for the PSE organizer's database is so simple to setup and maintain and has several search options including calendars, collections, categories, subcategories, tags and stars. I haven't tried lightroom yet myself, but it appears that Adobe took this basic structure and expanded on it to make the Lightroom organizer.
When you add the Raw editor capabilities to what is available with Lightroom, I think it is a very compelling product.
I have looked at Lightroom quickly and it amazes me that you can not export RAW files.
If you can I didn't find it.
Posted by Ed Cordes on January 30, 2007 at 9:19 AM
If Lightroom works like the database in the PSE organizer (which it appears to do) then there are ways to move files from one location to another and have the database keep track of the image location.
Mel, I too like the data base in PSE3. As a matter of fact I keep PSE3 on my computer just for this. I generally back up my images to a DVD, while keeping the originals on an external drive. I then upload thumbs of the originals to PSE3. The tag system in PSE3 allows me to tag the thumbs with catagories, explicit names, dates, etc. which I can search for in any method I wish later.
Question is will LR allow me to import the current PSE3 file structure and continue using the same system? If it does, I will get LR while the discount is in place.
Discussion
5 repliesJohn
While I happen to really like Lightroom, one feature that I don't think the Lightroom 1.0 release will have is the ability to "follow" your files around, i.e., if you move your files to a different backup drive, it doesn't keep track of where they went. iView DOES have that feature and I feel it's a really important feature if you're saving lots of images and have numerous backup drives, etc. I've been beta testing Lightroom, and that's the one complaint I've had all along. I'll be curious what others think on the differences between the two and which is the better value for the $$.
Nancy
Another thing to keep in mind is that Lightroom builds a fairly large database of your images, this means it takes up some space on the drive, but, IMHO, the previews you get are slightly sharper than those in iView. iView creates a database file as well, but it is much smaller than the Lightroom files.
I know they both have demos out; I think the best thing to do would be to try them both. I think it really depends on your personal workflow and where you do most of your image editing. Keep in mind that iView was recently bought out by Microsoft, and that there will be a new version called Microsoft Expression Media coming out in the Spring of '07. I'm slightly interested in what Microsoft comes up with.
Cheers,
Alex
When you add the Raw editor capabilities to what is available with Lightroom, I think it is a very compelling product.
If you can I didn't find it.
Mel, I too like the data base in PSE3. As a matter of fact I keep PSE3 on my computer just for this. I generally back up my images to a DVD, while keeping the originals on an external drive. I then upload thumbs of the originals to PSE3. The tag system in PSE3 allows me to tag the thumbs with catagories, explicit names, dates, etc. which I can search for in any method I wish later.
Question is will LR allow me to import the current PSE3 file structure and continue using the same system? If it does, I will get LR while the discount is in place.