Still looking for a decent DAM.

Interestingly, I re-downloaded XNView MP just yesterday, but havent yet installed. and perhaps Darktable requires another look. I've still to look at ACDSee, I have it on my iPad, but not on the laptop or mac mini (yet).

And, in spite of your protestations, you have helped. A lot.
I'm indeed very sorry for my harsh tones, Sue - it wasn't really directed at you but mostly at the industry ... And at our tendency to be complacent, on the whole. I do hope you find a solution that helps you.

M.
 
Well then, after all that, I received an email from ON1 today, offering me a complimentary licence for Photo Raw 2018, plus all the courses and presets. I had had to install a special version of photo 10, because my licence for that had also been invalidated, I was pretty ticked off (but didn't get nasty about it.. that never achieves anything). Anyway they looked at my account and decided that since I had bought both, they would give me Photo Raw. I always liked the DAM of On1, so perhaps this is my solution :) Perhaps Luminar with its DAM will just be too little too late.
 
Matt was being Swiss harsh. :rofl:
I know that I was pretty angry when I wrote that post; if I managed to not let it show too much, all the better. But it really bugs me if software vendors try to hold their users hostage - which Adobe has done repeatedly (but so have Microsoft and Apple, and others - there's a reason why I use GNU/Linux if I can get away with it ...). I was just afraid that some of the vitriol I had poured into the post (maybe not too obviously - I was house-trained by a very polite society, after all) would offend - and I'm actually grateful it didn't. Anyhow, let's move on - this is just a very minor side show. I'm still interested in finding out if the original problem is solved ...

M.
 
Yes, problem is solved in a way. I am allowing apps to make modifications to my originals in Apple Photos, because I can revert any of them to the original version. I had always been a bit wary of this, having been brought up as it were, with destructive editing, meaning I would make copies and then end up with copies of copies.

I also rediscovered RAWPower this morning, and that has already made its way to the top of my favourites list.

So, I guess I am back to relying on Photos for image management and minimal editing, in both iOS and MacOS, as well as using RAWPower plus a few other apps which play nice with Photos, too (and there are more of those every month, it seems). I tried using On1, but on the laptop the screen is just too small, and thats an end to it. Its fine on the Mac Mini with my Dell U2410 monitor. RAWPower does bring a lot to the table though, and playing with it this morning has lightened my "load" a lot. I don't feel like I really need to look further.

Please dont be mad at me, Matt!

Other Mac/iOS users might be interested in RAWPower as well. Gentlemen Coders – Gentlemen Coders Home is the website, you can get links to App stores from there.
 
Please dont be mad at me, Matt!
Never was - I was angry at the fact that it would appear a matter of considerable concern to transition from one software to another and still keep control over one's assets, that's all. Apart from that, it's anyone's own choice - as it should be, minus the trouble!

As for RAWpower, it's indeed Mac only. But if it works for you - great! I will watch the market for interesting offers (Luminar may turn out to be worth a serious try once it's full-featured for Windows); for the time being, darktable is usable for RAW processing (though with its own issues, specifically as a DAM), and if I have to review lots of images, XNviewMP helps. But there's something else mentioned in your post that I find important: Big screens do help - that's what I have had to acknowledge after years of trying post processing on various laptop screens; I bought a PC again recently, mainly for image handling and processing. Ironically, Polarr does very well on small screens - but it's still way too limited for real RAW processing. However, it works very well with Canon files - so I have a very portable solution for my G1X III if I want to travel light ...

M.
 
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I really don’t understand the resistance to paying a fair price for software that makes my life easier. I have all of my photos in LR CC Classic, and can sync them as needed to my iPad and iPhone. I can also go the other way; if I’m traveling and want to edit on my iPad in LR, the photos and edits will sync back to my Mac. It’s about $120/year. It’s easy. It works pretty reliably. On the Mac, I can use LR Smart Collections and Collections to automatically sync with my Instagram, Flickr and Smugmug accounts.
 
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I really don’t understand the resistance to paying a fair price for software that makes my life easier. I have all of my photos in LR CC Classic, and can sync them as needed to my iPad and iPhone. I can also go the other way; if I’m traveling and want to edit on my iPad in LR, the photos and edits will sync back to my Mac. It’s about $120/year. It’s easy. It works pretty reliably. On the Mac, I can use LR Smart Collections and Collections to automatically sync with my Instagram, Flickr and Smugmug accounts.

A fair price? Not for someone from another country, where the costs increase ($180 pa in Australia). Not for someone who doesn't do photography as more than a hobby, and not for someone living on an age pension. I need to spend my money on essentials. This would be a luxury. One which I cannot afford.

Lyn + Photos + a few other apps works for me.
 
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I really don’t understand the resistance to paying a fair price for software that makes my life easier. I have all of my photos in LR CC Classic, and can sync them as needed to my iPad and iPhone. I can also go the other way; if I’m traveling and want to edit on my iPad in LR, the photos and edits will sync back to my Mac. It’s about $120/year. It’s easy. It works pretty reliably. On the Mac, I can use LR Smart Collections and Collections to automatically sync with my Instagram, Flickr and Smugmug accounts.
My issue is if you stop paying, you no longer have a fully functioning application.
 
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I really don’t understand the resistance to paying a fair price for software that makes my life easier. I have all of my photos in LR CC Classic, and can sync them as needed to my iPad and iPhone. I can also go the other way; if I’m traveling and want to edit on my iPad in LR, the photos and edits will sync back to my Mac. It’s about $120/year. It’s easy. It works pretty reliably. On the Mac, I can use LR Smart Collections and Collections to automatically sync with my Instagram, Flickr and Smugmug accounts.
I'm not aware that we discussed prices at any point in this exchange. But anyhow, you opened up a can of worms here. I acknowledge that my personal stance is certainly a bit extreme in most people's eyes since I am into Free Software and could go on for any length about the problem of closed systems from a user perspective, but it'd get way too political if I did that, so I won't. But let's still consider the matter a bit more deeply.

Actually, I'd be happy to pay for a service that respects my rights and needs as a user and a human being. But modern software licensing is geared towards the opposite - you as a user are mined for resources, information and content, and that's what I am firmly against.

Convenience - as described in your post - and complacency are the root causes of that problem. The sad thing is that we simply can't escape it anymore if we want to take part in modern life. For example, hard as I work to avoid it (I have turned off evey service I can or know of, respectively), Google tries to trespass on my time and activity every single day, mostly by attempting to coerce me into "sharing" information (i.e. provide them with content - including images, quite regularily - they can't obtain themselves - using my resources, and of course, completely free of charge for them), like e.g. images from places I'm at. This happens more or less the whole time. Ignoring it doesn't make it less of a nuisance as these notifcations clog up my smartphone screen (and the one one the smartwatch, too) ...

Okay, I'll not rant on because hardly anyone is interested in that side of the whole affair - people seem to believe it couldn't be any other way.

However, LR is a prime example for forcing people into an ecosystem by providing what can be seen as a mature, functional service - but considering that I'm providing huge amounts of data without being able to withhold whatever I choose, it's actually quite questionable why I should pay at all. Furthermore, if Adobe could make me feel safe about the fact that they won't share any of the information and content I provide or mine it for information, I might even consider their service - but the truth is, they *do* share, mine and abuse their access to my data - you get nag screens if you don't behave like they want you to, and they make leaving extremely cumbersome simply because *you* are the asset they're trying to exploit. Pay for that? No, thanks.

A DAM is about you working with *your* data, *your* content, the products of *your* creativity. As soon as you share any of that, you *decide* that you want that content online - and as we all know, once it's there, all bets are off. But Adobe wants everything you work with on *their* servers, free of charge, thank you very much. That this is - at the very least - peculiar and smells fishy should be obvious. Reclaiming your property should - at the very least - be simple, straightforward and trouble-free, but it's not. That's what I call a scam, or - at the very least - tantamount to one. That it's largely successful doesn't make it any better in my book.

In order not to stir up more of a fruitless discussion, I'll leave this thread alone from now on; moderators, feel free to remove to post should I have offended anyone or broken any forum rules.

M.
 
For the purposes of access to your images... have any of you guys looked into using a home SAN with remote access? For regions with limited home internet connection speeds it likely wouldn't be a viable solution or, at the least, an enjoyable solution, but if you've got a fast enough pipeline it'd allow somebody to be in complete control.
 
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