This is probably a case of "you'll know when you you find you need it". If LR is doing all the tasks you require, then great. On the other hand, if you find you want to perform some type of image enhancement that is beyond LR, you will naturally start looking into Photoshop (and the like) programs.

Not using LR yet (I am still EM2 for DAM), some things I do in Ps which may or may not be easily done in LR:
- blending of two or more images together (with blend modes, transparency differences, etc)
- targeted value adjustments (adjusting only mid-values, or darker-mid-values)
- as mentioned elsewhere, HDR and stitching
- files making use of Smart Objects (both other Ps images, and also Ai shapes)

and so on. You will know when/if you need a Ps type application.
--Bill

Hello all, back here visiting after a long absence.

I started with iView, eventually moved to EM2, and have not moved to Media Pro because of all the forum (Phase One) complaints about the product.
I now also see John B's new site focusing on Lightroom, and LR4 seems to be getting a good reception.

So: for a 15K-20K image database, mostly jpg and tif files, and a user (me) who is very comfortable with iView/EM2, (PC, Vista),
which DAM software is now recommended by this forum community?

- stick with EM2? Move on to MediaPro? Or is LR(4) looking like the future?

I think another consideration is my experience, as we've all had, with the lack of support and development of iView and then EM. I am just not sure that Phase One is fully supporting MediaPro either, given the barrage of issues that seem to have started from the very beginning of their taking over the product.

Any feedback is welcome, and if Peter and JohnB have some thoughts on this, that would be great.
Thanks. --Bill

OK, John, thanks for the clarification. (The "backup to Lightroom" phrasing had confused me.)

I am staying with EM2 for now, watching and hopeful that MediaPro will get straightened out.
Thanks for the response. --Bill

John B.- I'm not sure I understood your answer re Media Pro or EM2. Are you using Lightroom now, rather than EM2 or Media Pro? Is Lightroom close enough to the EM2/iView experience to warrant my looking at it more closely?

An interesting and frustrating journey of iView -> EM/EM2 -> Media Pro. The original wasn't broken, but the successor programs seem to make things more problematic rather than smoother. Thanks. --Bill

John- Good points.

I also realize that I don't yet know the Phase One forum, in the sense that I don't have a sense of the backgrounds, knowledge, attitudes, etc of the posters there. On the other hand, I am familiar with this DAM forum, and know the posts and ideas of numerous folk, and I know the "reliability" of many of these authors.

So I look forward to seeing, on DAM forum, feedback on MediaPro. --Bill

I've just read over the Phase One forum's MediaPro posts as of 5/11, and I am somewhat concerned to see mostly (pretty much overwhelmingly) negative feedback. The complaints about the UI don't particularly bother me, because that is merely cosmetic and if user color options are provided, easily resolved to suit individual tastes.

On the other hand, I see a number of posts indicating that MediaPro is slow (compared to EM2), crashes, some reports of flickering text on panels, etc. These types of things do concern me, particularly the speed criticisms. One of the reasons I returned to EM2 from Idimager was my experience of sluggishness in the latter. EM2 (and iView before it) is light on its feet and quick. I can't tell whether the posts re MediaPro speed are just gripes, or represent a real identified problem.

I plan to take MediaPro out for a spin in a week or two, and I hope that it is closer to "nearly identical to EM2" as John B. suggested, rather than being so "new and improved" as to be a problem.
--Bill

Thanks for the info, John. I've been using scripts from the iView days (some based on the scripts you made available), modifying them for EM2. I imagine with some MediaPro related tweaking, they ought to work there, as well. --Bill

Does MediaPro have a scripting capability similar to EM2/iView? I've found this to be quite a helpful feature over the years. --Bill

Great. Thanks John, Rich. I will also check out the tutorials at link given by Rich.
--Bill

Quick question for Peter/John B./anyone knowledgeable:

Will the upgrade to Media Pro overwrite my current EM2? I don't want overwriting, in the event I run into any problems with MediaPro.
(I posed this Q to Phase1 earlier today, awaiting their reply).

Thanks. --Bill

(forgot signature!) --Bill

Also- If you have been Sync Annotating your metadata to the original media files, you can at least begin to reconstruct a new catalog with that metadata. (I believe that PNG files would still be a problem, since metadata is not written to them.)

Make that:

Hope that is of some help. --Bill
(my comment somehow got posted before I finished)

Btw
- is there no "edit your post" button, or did I miss something obvious?
- in "Preview", the word "null" appears at the end of the Preview. Apparently it does not appear in the post itself.

--Bill

Francis-

1. I don't think Photoshop (I am using CS3) displays a "Ratings" field in its File Info. I checked, and don't see it anywhere.
However, this does not mean that your Ratings are not part of the file. Even as basic an app as Windows Photo Gallery displays a Rating for a sync'd file.

2. From the very beginning, I've used a recommendation from Peter's DAM book:
In Keywords, also include a keyword for any rating you give.

-If I give an image a 1-star rating, I also add a keyword "1star" to the file.

-If I give an image a higher rating, I make sure I include keywords for the rating and lesser ratings:
A 3-star rating has keywords: 3star, 2star, 1star.
(the idea is that when you search for 1-star items by keyword, you probably really mean "1 star or higher". By including the lesser star ratings in a 3-star item, it will also come up in a keyword search for "1star"

I really like this Rating+keyword idea. Keywords are rock solid, and are always carried with the image and successfully displayed in another DAM app. Ratings (at least used to be) a bit less solid in terms of saving, porting, etc.

Hope that is of some help. --

Mike-
(I was away from all things internet for awhile...)

Thanks for your reply. I will spend some time at the forum- I know that DPreview is a good resource. Appreciate the link.
--Bill