controlled vocab keywording: in iView/ExMed or LR?

[mikeseb]

Fellow DAM'ed:

I've maintained my image catalog in iView/ExMedia as my preferred DAM solution, until and unless LR's DAM capabilities ever match it. Thus I use LR as a raw converter and image editor. Other than bulk ingestion keywording done in IIP, I have found ExMedia's keywording process more to my liking than LR's. I am yet to be convinced of the advantage of hierarchical keywording in my situation, but remain open to the idea, and I expect that ExMedia will one day have this capability. I have done extensive keywording already on my 12,000 image files, but plan to start using / retrofitting a controlled keyword vocabulary from here on out.

On that lengthy intro, the question: given that I could purchase a version of David R's controlled keyword vocabulary for either LR or ExMedia, which one makes more sense moving forward into an uncertain future? The obvious answer, since I use ExMedia, is, well, "ExMedia"; but which option do you think preserves the most future options? Am I even making any sense? Obviously $70 won't break the bank, but I'd prefer not having to buy the list twice.

I think, on rereading this, that I need to get out more, or at least find more weighty matters to worry about!

Thanks for your advice, DAM sages!

Mike Sebastian

[roberte]

Hi Mike,

AFAIK when you license David's CV you get access to all the versions he supports.

Which program you use to keyword depends on your workflow and the file formats you annotate. Ideally what you want is roundtrip metadata where the information travels between applications.

iView for example can write keywords into some RAW files if you sync annotations and you can extract the metadata as sidecars before* ACR accesses them. With metadata embedded into the files IPTC smart apps like Lightroom will pick it up automatically. If you annotate in Lightroom to sidecar files iView will pick that up on ititial import.

FWIW I prefer to keyword in iView. A large sets of keywords slows Lightroom down.

-- Robert.

*If you extract metadata in iView it will replace existing sidecar file not append them thus losing any ACR settings.