iView 3.0 upgrade cautions

[peterkrogh]

I have been playing with the new iView software, and I am very happy with the changes they have made.  I wanted to sound a note of caution, however to anyone who will be upgrading.  If you use this software as I do, to help run a photography business, then you need to be intelligent about how you upgrade.  General principles of upgrade and migration are covered in The DAM Book, but since you don't have that yet ;-( I thought I would give some advice here.

1. Before you even consider opening your catalog into iView 3.0 MAKE A BACKUP OF THE CATALOG!!!! (Yes, I'm shouting)  Once you open them in 3, you will not want to use them in 2.x again.  I would suggest that this would be a good time to make a DVD (or CD if it/they can fit) backup of the catalog, in addition to the regular hard drive backups you are making of your catalogs.  The "write once" backup you make will "freeze" the catalog in time, which can be helpful if you encounter any substantial problems in the upgrade procedure.

2. Test.  Since you are using new software, you will want to do a few tests.  Make a copy of a large catalog and open it into 3.0 and see if everything works fine.  Make sure information you expect to be there is, in fact, there.  Although iView tests the software themselves, there is simply no way to recreate every configuration and behavior that is out in the real world.  It's possible that some part of your configuration could cause a problem.  

ALWAYS TEST MISSION-CRITICAL SOFTWARE BEFORE MAKING AN IRREVERSIBLE LEAP.

3. You might want to wait for a second build of the software. depending on your reliance on the software, need for the new features, personal sense of risk, and investment in catalog documents, you might want to consider waiting a bit before committing to a 3.0 upgrade.  Even if you are going to wait a little while to make the workflow jump, there is a good reason to buy the software before November 24: the upgrade discount will be gone then.

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to post them here, or on the iView forum.
Peter

[dheaton]

Hi Peter

What made you go with Iview?

[peterkrogh]

I started with iView after much frustration with Cumulus, and obvious missing features in Portfolio.  Principally, I wanted to be able to write my organizational information back to the RAW files. 

Since that time, I have come to appreciate many other feateres that are not matched by the other software.
Peter

[kegley]

Peter,

1. I have upgraded to 3.0. I found tonight that when I tried to make a web gallery in iView 3.0 from DNG files adjusted in Bridge as NEFS and then converted to DNGs, most (but 
    not all) of the adjustments carried over to the web gallery. This has not been the case formerly. Could I have changed some setting somewhere inadvertently? Any ideas?

2. Another positive change, I was having trouble before accessing the FILE INFO panels in Bridge with all the files selected. For some unkown reason today, I was able to access the
   file info panels for all the NEF files in Bridge, saving me plenty of time later. It is a mystery why it worked after a few weeks where I could not do this. Of course I then converted
   to DNG, and then was able to see all the info in iView saving me the time later while adding those files to the master catalog.  An ideas wh this may have changed?

Thanks,

James

[kegley]

Peter, I just read my post and said it backwards....
the changes I made to thee NEF files in Bridge, ...most of them were NOT reflected in the iView web gallery. This resulted in a less than satisfactory web gallery. And that hasnt happened before that way. Any ideas?
James

[peterkrogh]

James,
If you need to ask further questions, start a new topic, so it's easier to find.

When you say changes were not reflected, do you mean adjustments to the way the image files looked? 

1. Adjusted NEF files will look like the Original (Camera-created) Embedded preview to iView unless you convert to DNG

2. DNG files that have be REadjusted in Bridge will NOT update the preview unless you change the Camera Raw Preferences to "Always update preview"

Are these the issues or did I misunderstand?
Peter

[peterkrogh]

I am still seeing some flakiness with keywords in iVIew 3.0.1 beta5 and DNG files.  I would suggest it's still not time to do a full switchover. I hope to have a status report soon.
Peter