Need advice re workflow, tag management in ASP and iMatch

[coolrat]

Hello Francis

Thank you for your explanation!
AFX's suggestion seems pretty good- if the edits are included in the NEF, and this metadata inside the NEF can be updated when I make changes, and iMatch can read and display the changes in the NEF, it sounds perfect!

Again, I'm not sure I understand your explanation. As I understand, Aftershot pro saves the edits and versions as xxx.NEF.xmp buddy/sidecar files. If I select all photos, go to the EDIT menu, and select XMP, "write standard XMP files", then ASP will create standard xxx.xmp buddy/sidecar files. What feature might the new iMatch 5 have?
If you have the time, please ask this question to Mario on the iMatch forum. You understand the issues far clearer than I do and are in a better position to ask this question, and understand the reply.
You can add my name to the question as well as I would very much like to understand this. I've been doing a lot of "catch-up" reading lately to understand the various issues and make a better decision when I finally get to really organizing my 6 years of research photos.

[afx]

Concerning ASP: your edits (and versions etc) are saved by ASP in a xxx.NEF.xmp buddy file. The xmp is a bad idea because these are not "classical" xmp files,

Well, classic Adobe XMPs are a brain dead idea because the break basic file system semantics....

When reading the imatch5_betateaser_2012.pdf document I had the impression that IM5 will extend the concept of buddy files (read the part on the File Relation configuration feature). Il it allows to declare the xxx.NEF.xmp as bona fide buddy files

Works already today.
V5 will be extended to not only treat it as a buddy file but also read metadata from it as far as I understood the plans.

cheers
afx

[afx]

AFX's suggestion seems pretty good- if the edits are included in the NEF, and this metadata inside the NEF can be updated when I make changes, and iMatch can read and display the changes in the NEF, it sounds perfect!

And what happens when Nikon stops to support your old camera (this has happened with Canon already)?
A lot of the third party raw converters work only on unmodified raw files but not on modified ones. You might end up in a dead end there.
Modifying raw files is a dangerous game.

Again, I'm not sure I understand your explanation. As I understand, Aftershot pro saves the edits and versions as xxx.NEF.xmp buddy/sidecar files. If I select all photos, go to the EDIT menu, and select XMP, "write standard XMP files", then ASP will create standard xxx.xmp buddy/sidecar files. What feature might the new iMatch 5 have?

It might not need that extra step but read the meta infos directly from the AS sidecars.

cheers
afx

[ferdinand-paris]

Slightly perturbing to me is the fact that the off-line catalogue of the RAW images does not show any of the edits/adjustments. Only the finished "JPEGS in 2012_03_March_22_Village NNN Festival ASP 1800x1200 JPEGS" will reveal this.

Seems a little strange to me to be asking detailed questions about iMatch on the ASP forum rather than the iMatch forum.

There are two ways that a program like iMatch can show a RAW file with its edits done by ASP or some other RAW converter. 1 - if the converter has updated the thumbnail. Few RAW converters will do this, mercifully. I don't want this done to my RAW files. Capture does this for NEFs IIRC. I think Adobe converters will do it for DNG. 2 - if iMatch is able to read the converter's saved settings and process the image exactly the same way as the converter. Apart from infringing copyright, it simply isn't practical for iMatch to do this for every RAW converter.

If you really want this functionality, then you may be better off working with a combined onverter / DAM, but you'll get a less powerful DAM.

F_P

[Franz Dur]

Hello Coolrat,

I tried to answer this part of your post:

Slightly perturbing to me is the fact that the off-line catalogue of the RAW images does not show any of the edits/adjustments. Only the finished "JPEGS in 2012_03_March_22_Village NNN Festival ASP 1800x1200 JPEGS" will reveal this.
Having an off-line catalogue that contains duplicate images of the original RAW image, and the finished JPEGS seems a bit counter-intuitive: In a perfect world, I'd like to be able to have the off-line catalogue display the actual edited RAWs and simply not bother displaying the finished JPEGS.

The “actual edited RAW” is only virtual (RAW is not a bitmap image format), it becomes a real image only when converted to jpg/tiff (which are image formats). The jpg is the image extracted from the raw into a user defined color space + any edits you made. So the couple RAW + jpg makes sense. Converters like ASP, LR, C1 save the edits in buddy files. If Imatch handles RAW + buddy files as a whole, the cache + the original converter (ASP, LR or C1) will “replay” your image in the state where you last left it. I will ask the question on the Imatch forum whether IM5 will handle any form of file (like xxxx.NEF.xmp) as a buddy file. But Imatch per se will not display the rendered RAW, each converter has its own rendrering engine, they ar epatented, Imatch has no access to them (in previous times Imatch could use a Nikon SDK, but this is not awailable, replced by the codec).

If you use Nikon’s own converters Cnx or ViewXN, your edits will be stored not in a buddy file but in the RAW itself. Next time you open a NEF in Cnx or ViewXN you find your image in the state you last left it. Furthermore, Nikon provides a codec which can also render your image according to your edits. This is not a converter because you cannot modify anything, but the rendering part is equivalent. Imatch can use this codec to display your RAW according to your edits. AFX sees a danger here because eventually Nikon may drop the support of this feature. I don’t see this happen, thousands of Nikon users edit zillions of NEF in this way, would be suicidal for Nikon to ditch this possibility.

Francis

[afx]

Well, Canon already stopped supporting old cams in current converters.
How long is it financially viable to support old files?

cheers
afx

[Franz Dur]

Hello afx,

I was not aware of this (I am on Nikon and Pana presently). Is it DPP or the Canon codec that no longer convert old Canon Raw? What about the Microsoft codec or the one by FastPictureViewer?

I hope Nikon will not engage in such silly behavior. My old minolta (MRW) files are still converted by all converters I have on my PCs, from Rawshooter to PWP. By the way, PWP uses DCraw, swiss army knife to open all sort of raw files (don't know about the recent Fuji).

Francis

[afx]

I was not aware of this (I am on Nikon and Pana presently). Is it DPP or the Canon codec that no longer convert old Canon Raw?

If I remember correctly, it is DPP. As I don't shoot canon myself, I only noticed this when someone else discussed it.

What about the Microsoft codec or the one by FastPictureViewer?

Not related.

By the way, PWP uses DCraw, swiss army knife to open all sort of raw files (don't know about the recent Fuji).

DCRaw has one of the better interpretations of Xtrans as far as I read in various places.

But, using an image editor like PWP with a dcraw front-end is rather painful in my eyes and not suited for volume shooters

cheers
afx

[robertvkindig]

1. I am a longtime Bibble user who made the switch to ASP when it got bought out by Corel. At first things looked hopeful, but after a while I became dissatisfied with it. I spent some time looking around & trialing various converters and finally settled on DxO. The interface is reminiscent of a more modern, cleaned-up Bibble 4 (more what I wanted to see in Bibble 5/ASP); I have indeed found that DxO's automation in the body/lens modules performs a lot of the manual tweaking I used to do in ASP with the various built in controls, and plugins (such a Ferdinand's wonderful one). I have a very good baseline to start from and many images I am happy with where DxO automatically puts the image.

2. Personally I'd just get IMatch. But like with the converters, I also trialed as many candidates as I could. So, I'd say give MediaPro a try, but expect to return here. Don't worry about the eye candy aspects, from the teasers V5 will look spectacular & fit in with current imaging software UIs.
asp is more secure than php, that's why my main Project management thesis topics are fully based on asp.net. actually i complete my these project within one month.