Media Pro users will have to adapt to catalog views that have an ephemeral, task-centric, or "on-the-fly" quality, rather than the omnipresent view window of a Media Pro catalog in which a catalog's core collection is revisited regularly, e.g., to generate new print versions, add/replace stock images, update metadata, export XML, etc. But even if the spawned tabs were renamed "Browse" instead of "Search," that wouldn't meet the Media Pro user's expectation for browsing. This results in the bizarre behavior (from the perspective of a Media Pro or other DAM user) in which new "Search" Contact Sheet tabs are spawned with each click of the image folder in the Organizer/Browse tool. The problem (in my opinion) is that PM+ (as currently designed) inappropriately, or awkwardly, repurposes the original PM Contact Sheet concept for basic catalog browsing. Both display the images in a particular folder, but Contact Sheets behave differently and you can have multiple Contact Sheets, indicated by tabs across the top.īut. (This is a design flaw in my opinion, but perhaps it can be addressed in a future release.)Ī Contact Sheet in PM and PM+ is analogous (but not equivalent) to Thumbnail view in Media Pro. Another disadvantage (as reported in another post) is that, once you have added an image to a catalog, the UI does not visually indicate to which catalog the image belongs. If you rarely had the need to search across catalogs in Media Pro, the task of having to verify/check/uncheck catalog boxes in PM+ might be tedious. One disadvantage is that you have to remember to tell PM+ which catalog you want to work in by checking/unchecking Catalog check boxes, otherwise your family photos and professional photos will be mixed together (using our example above) if both catalogs are checked. The catalog creation process requires several extra steps compared to Media Pro but theoretically the main advantage is that you don't have to open multiple catalogs to search across them (Media Pro allows cross-searching multiple catalogs, but they all have to be open). Using the example above, in the PM+ UI you would have Catalogs: Professional Photos and Family Photos. Catalogs are saved as a set of database folders and files on your computer but you don't actually touch those database folders/files. You create and manage (one or more) catalogs within that space. In PM+, the app window is a unified workspace. In Media Pro, the app window = a single catalog = a separate file on your computer (e.g., you might have two catalogs/files: Professional Photos.mpcatalog and Family Photos.mpcatalog). I expect that I'll have more to say about usability of these features and functions in the future. I haven't fully tested the PM+ features (Navigator, Organizer) or search functionality, so my comments here are not my complete "review" of PM+. Note: These comments address only the three concepts specifically mentioned by user timesnaps in the quote above. Below are my thoughts with some "translation" for Media Pro users and further analysis of PM+ (based on my initial testing of PM and PM+). While it does appear that the commenter didn't dig deep enough into the Read Me file to learn about these concepts (especially Collections, which has a straightforward analog in Media Pro), it's also possible that the concepts (especially Catalog and Contact Sheet) are difficult to comprehend in PM+ because of the way they are implemented (i.e., confusing either for someone used to a conventional DAM or from a pure usability standpoint). I realize it might not be appropriate for a beta release, but consider this as a gentle suggestion when PM+ is formally released (and as you continue development). Perhaps Camera Bits could be a little more proactive in "courting" Media Pro refugees (much as other DAM developers did when they learned Media Pro was discontinued it was part of their marketing and development strategies, even taking the extra step to add features/functionality/scripts specifically to help Media Pro users make the transition). (Media Pro was the gold standard for standalone single user DAMs.) I realize Camera Bits didn't design PM+ as an iView Media Pro replacement, but rather as an enhanced product for existing PM users, but it likely will become one of the few DAM/catalog options that could meet most of the needs of Media Pro refugees better than other DAMs on the market (and PM+'s solid, proper database infrastructure already gives it a big advantage over Capture One). Unfortunately for Camera Bits the timing of the PM+ release after Media Pro's demise has set up a lot of (no doubt unreasonable) expectations from (iView) Media Pro refugees looking for a comparable product.
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