Best d*mn DAM app for Mac OS - to replace Media Pro SE for personal use
September 5, 2018 3:39 PM Subscribe
PhaseOne just emailed me to inform me that they are ceasing development of Media Pro SE, the Mac OS Digital Asset Management software that I've used to catalogue and find my photos and videos since 2004 when it was iView Media Pro. It's a 32-bit application, which soon won't run on the latest Mac OS. I need a replacement.
The company is touting its project Capture One as a replacement, but that offers many more features than I want, and they don't appear to be offering a discount to Media Pro SE licensees. Plus the decision to kill the product has left a bad taste in my mouth about continuing to do business with the company.
Photographers of MeFi, what Mac OS software do you use to organize your photos, and what makes it great? I'm not interested in any product that hoovers up photo files themselves into a giant database, à la Photos; with tens of thousands of photos in their own folders, what I want is a DAM app that uses a catalogue database.
The company is touting its project Capture One as a replacement, but that offers many more features than I want, and they don't appear to be offering a discount to Media Pro SE licensees. Plus the decision to kill the product has left a bad taste in my mouth about continuing to do business with the company.
Photographers of MeFi, what Mac OS software do you use to organize your photos, and what makes it great? I'm not interested in any product that hoovers up photo files themselves into a giant database, à la Photos; with tens of thousands of photos in their own folders, what I want is a DAM app that uses a catalogue database.
I guess one of the biggest issues could be transferring metadata about your photos and catalogue over to whatever you choose...
One of the best things for me with Media Pro (I am also looking to see if there is something else out there) is it writes all the meta data to the Exif of the image. Which makes working with Flickr (for example) incredibly easy because all tags, descriptions and the like are all within the image itself, no external work. So that's not an issue at all, but finding something to organise and manage them that is as good as that for ease of use if a big thing for me.
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on September 6, 2018
One of the best things for me with Media Pro (I am also looking to see if there is something else out there) is it writes all the meta data to the Exif of the image. Which makes working with Flickr (for example) incredibly easy because all tags, descriptions and the like are all within the image itself, no external work. So that's not an issue at all, but finding something to organise and manage them that is as good as that for ease of use if a big thing for me.
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on September 6, 2018
One of the best things for me with Media Pro (I am also looking to see if there is something else out there) is it writes all the meta data to the Exif of the image.
That's great. I was also thinking of things broader than EXIF data, such as category hierarchies and image editing history, but maybe they're not issues with Media Pro. Anyway, good luck with the search!
posted by fabius at 1:14 PM on September 6, 2018
That's great. I was also thinking of things broader than EXIF data, such as category hierarchies and image editing history, but maybe they're not issues with Media Pro. Anyway, good luck with the search!
posted by fabius at 1:14 PM on September 6, 2018
Best answer: It is an oldie but a goodie that works for me is NeoFinder. I have used it for a wide variety of things but images and photos management have been one. The UI is not as slick as others but I figure to cut slack for a developer of 20+ years and whose app seems to WORK. The price was also pretty reasonable. It works on both windows, osx, and ios . There is a free download and customer service seems responsive. It does not, however, do any editing like PhaseOne of RAW files. It is only about asset management.
posted by jadepearl at 5:46 PM on September 6, 2018
posted by jadepearl at 5:46 PM on September 6, 2018
Response by poster: It looks like NeoFinder is the one. This Reddit thread turned up Pixave, but it doesn't seem to have all the features I want. I see that NeoFinder's developer is in fact now promoting it as a Media Pro successor and offering a discounted sidegrade price. Thanks, jadepearl!
posted by brianogilvie at 7:47 AM on September 8, 2018
posted by brianogilvie at 7:47 AM on September 8, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
However, I'm a couple of versions behind and I'm not keen on Adobe's new rental pricing - given I use it so rarely, it'd feel wrong paying every month for something I'm not using, even if the overall cost worked out the same.
When thinking about what to switch to I found this unusually long comment thread on The Online Photographer, from November last year, interesting. Lots of thoughtful comments there. Capture One does seem most popular there, but some alternatives are suggested too.
I guess one of the biggest issues could be transferring metadata about your photos and catalogue over to whatever you choose...
posted by fabius at 5:10 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]