Posted by Bob Ludwig on August 17, 2007 at 9:15 AM
I am considering getting Lightroom. I already have iView Media Pro. As far as data storage only, does LR do the same thing as iView ? What are the pros and cons of each? How are they different?
Posted by Walter Rowe on August 17, 2007 at 2:47 PM
One powerful feature of iView Media Pro is that it can write its catalog data back to the original files, depending on the file types you are cataloging. I don't know if Lightroom can do that. Why that is a powerful feature is because it makes that catalog information portable to other catalog tools should you ever decide iView is no longer the tool of choice for you, or should your iView catalogs become corrupt. iView also has a very powerful search feature. I am not sure if Lightroom has that degree of search power. Does Lightroom create all of the automatic catalog sets that iView creates? Does it support all of the custom catalog set features provided in iView? For iView, the files do not have to be online. Does Lightroom require that the original files be online?
I have iView and Photoshop CS3. I cannot see any benefit for me to have Lightroom or Aperture because neither brings any capability I do not already have or cannot live without. Both of these products seem to have a subset of CS3 and iView combined into a single product. Lightroom and Aperture seem to fit in between the high grade products I already own, and the more consumer oriented products like Photoshop Elements or Google's Picasa.
I'm using Lightroom but on the other hand don't know iView so I'll stick to what LR has/does.
LR does not write any data to the original files but stores all information in its catalog/database (in the case of RAW files this wouldn't be possible unless you convert them to dng).
LR can write information/settings to XMP sidecar files which can be used for importing in other applications.
The orignal files do not have to be online - LR creates previews of the files so the catalog can be used offline (it's possible to generate Full Size previews). In "Offline Mode" you can only use the Library module and none of the others (Develop ecc) as they obviously need access to the original file.
LR version 1.1 is very similar to CS3 ACR 4.1 - if you already know ACR 4.1 you shouldn't have problems using LR. One difference or advantage of LR is that you don't have to create several copies of your file if you'd like to try different settings - you can just create virtual copies which are always based on the same source file. LR stores all your settings and changes as instruction to the catalog and applies them once you export the file.
The best thing would be to make a one-to-one comparison of the two application so you can see which one makes for you. On the Adobe website you'll find a fully-functional trial version which runs 30 days, just enough time to evaluate and compare it to iView or any other application.
Posted by Mel Ladewig on August 17, 2007 at 6:37 PM
I haven't used iView before, so I don't really know how it does its file organization and management.
I don't know for certain about lightroom, but I know that PS Elements Organizer (which runs in a very similar fashion to Lightroom Library) automatically attaches tags and such to the images. I know this because when I move images from one computer to another, I get import tag notifications.
PSE Organizer and Lightroom share a similar database structure. If you like a database driven digital file management system, then you'll probably like this. If you've always worked on a file folder, file name based DAM system, then you'll probably have issues converting to these metadata catalogs.
There's one thing I didn't mention before: Lightroom is not a browser - unlike applications like Adobe Bridge or ACD See which show you the content of your folder structure, in LR you have to import the files you want in your catalog/database.
If you're writing changes into XMP files you should be able to import your pictures into any XMP-aware application along with the metadata, keywords ecc you changed in LR.
Discussion
4 repliesI am considering getting Lightroom. I already have iView Media Pro. As far as data storage only, does LR do the same thing as iView ? What are the pros and cons of each? How are they different?
I have iView and Photoshop CS3. I cannot see any benefit for me to have Lightroom or Aperture because neither brings any capability I do not already have or cannot live without. Both of these products seem to have a subset of CS3 and iView combined into a single product. Lightroom and Aperture seem to fit in between the high grade products I already own, and the more consumer oriented products like Photoshop Elements or Google's Picasa.
LR does not write any data to the original files but stores all information in its catalog/database (in the case of RAW files this wouldn't be possible unless you convert them to dng).
LR can write information/settings to XMP sidecar files which can be used for importing in other applications.
The orignal files do not have to be online - LR creates previews of the files so the catalog can be used offline (it's possible to generate Full Size previews). In "Offline Mode" you can only use the Library module and none of the others (Develop ecc) as they obviously need access to the original file.
LR version 1.1 is very similar to CS3 ACR 4.1 - if you already know ACR 4.1 you shouldn't have problems using LR. One difference or advantage of LR is that you don't have to create several copies of your file if you'd like to try different settings - you can just create virtual copies which are always based on the same source file. LR stores all your settings and changes as instruction to the catalog and applies them once you export the file.
The best thing would be to make a one-to-one comparison of the two application so you can see which one makes for you. On the Adobe website you'll find a fully-functional trial version which runs 30 days, just enough time to evaluate and compare it to iView or any other application.
I don't know for certain about lightroom, but I know that PS Elements Organizer (which runs in a very similar fashion to Lightroom Library) automatically attaches tags and such to the images. I know this because when I move images from one computer to another, I get import tag notifications.
PSE Organizer and Lightroom share a similar database structure. If you like a database driven digital file management system, then you'll probably like this. If you've always worked on a file folder, file name based DAM system, then you'll probably have issues converting to these metadata catalogs.
If you're writing changes into XMP files you should be able to import your pictures into any XMP-aware application along with the metadata, keywords ecc you changed in LR.