Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

[Jibz]

Downloaded the beta, definitely going to give it a try .

[Darwin]

Looking at Daminion Beta myself. Funny how I dropped back here to read this thread and found that it had been reactivated around the time I decided I needed to organize my image files again! PhotoCollector 2.x just crashes on my Win7 64-bit machine.

[K.Murat]

The latest Daminion 0.497 update

[Jibz]

Attempting to install from a normal account on Win7 does not bring up the UAC prompt to get right to write to the program files folder, instead the installer fails when it cannot write to the folder.

You might want to either use UAC to get the proper rights, or check if the program is being run from an administrator account.

Btw, is Daminion non-destructive, as in, can I safely let it catalog my image folder without it writing EXIF data to all images or something sinister like that?

Edit: adding random first impression thoughts:

• Interface is very slow while importing -- image properties takes 3-4 seconds to update on a quad-core
• Select All does nothing if nothing is selected, you have to first select an image and then press select all for it to work
• It would be nice with a visual indication of whether auto-sync is on or off, it seems you have to press Sync and see if the first option is to turn it on or off to know?
• When Sort By is set to None, the tooltip still says Sorted by Filename
• Left clicking the circle next to an item in the Catalog Tags pane selects it (green dot), I half expected clicking it again to deselect it, but you have to ctrl-click it
• If I have folders D:\Pictures\2001 and D:\Pictures\2002 and I select one of them in the Catalog Tags pane, it shows up as "D:" in the bar above the images that shows the current filter. Even worse, if I select both it shows up as "D: OR D:". I think it might be better to show the last folder on the path, i.e. "2001 OR 2002", or at least add a tooltip to the items on the bar
  
• If like above, I select both folders and get "D: OR D:", and then click the little red X next to one of them on the bar, it correctly removes that one from the bar, but the image window says "No items match your search criteria"
• Import from camera would be nice, but I gather from the forums it is in the works
• When using full screen view or the filmstrip, it would be nice if Daminion did some pre-loading of the next image in a background thread like for instance ACDSee does, so you don't get the "rendering" message every time you move

Very nice work I must say, so far I like it .

One thing I especially appreciate is that it focuses on image management and does not clutter the interface with a bunch of "easy image editing tools" that I would use another dedicated program for anyway, I hope you can resist the temptation to "add the kitchen sink" .

[Darwin]

Daminion took a LONG time to import my pictures folder (about 34 GB in just over 8 hours) but it's been smooth since.

The catalog generated is small (only 55MB vs 5GB for exifPro) but is taking a very long time to load after updating to the latest beta - just finished after perhaps 2 or 3 minutes.

Will report back after I've played with it. Like what I see so far, though.

[rgdot]

Build 494 crashed when changing views to DetailsWithPreviewTop, though it's something I can't reproduce. This was after creating, importing small catalog.

[fenixproductions]

I had tried Daminion few days ago and didn't like three things:

• No configuration at all.
• For my 200MB cliparts folder it created 90MB hidden directory full of thumbnails.
• No warning before any changes or edits buffering. I had wanted to test it on my photos folder and I am lucky I did not. It would mess up my existing tags completely.

[4wd]

Daminion took a LONG time to import my pictures folder (about 34 GB in just over 8 hours) but it's been smooth since.

-Darwin (March 05, 2012, 01:31 PM)

That seems excessive, here it took about an hour to do 115GB, (555 directories, 43515 photos).

• No configuration at all.

-fenixproductions (March 05, 2012, 05:24 PM)

It's beta software, it says the Preferences are coming.

• For my 200MB cliparts folder it created 90MB hidden directory full of thumbnails.

The catalogue is 58.6MB but the ~Thumb directory is 2.29GB.

Some way to minimise the program while it's cataloguing would be nice.

[Darwin]

That seems excessive, here it took about an hour to do 115GB, (555 directories, 43515 photos).

-4wd (March 05, 2012, 05:39 PM)

Perhaps! But I'm "rocking" a 4 year old Core 2 Duo Notebook with 4GB of DDR2 RAM... Not the fastest rig in the world! Also, correct about the thumbnail directory - mines' at 1.86 GB; I hadn't noticed it on initial inspection.

[Jibz]

Taking a peek at one of the data files in the thumbnail folder, it looks as if they contain the image in jpeg format at sizes 100, 200, and 400, encoded with a quality setting around 90. This probably explains why you are seeing such massive thumbnail folders for clipart.

Some settings to control what sizes are stored and at what quality might be nice.

Btw, anyone else ended up with the thumbnail view starting to flicker some images randomly, or even showing empty rectangles for some, after a while of scrolling and scaling?

[Jibz]

No warning before any changes or edits buffering. I had wanted to test it on my photos folder and I am lucky I did not. It would mess up my existing tags completely.

-fenixproductions (March 05, 2012, 05:24 PM)

This is the thing that always worries me the most when I try a new tool for working with images, hence why I asked if it was non-destructive, because that is a major demand for me ever since the first time I installed Picasa to see what all the fuss was about and it proceeded to write its own name as editor in my entire photo collection .

I think you are right, it is a problem that sync to files is on by default with no clear indication that this is the case.

[K.Murat]

Jibz, thanks for the comprehensive feedback!  

I've added part of your suggestion/feedback to our bug-tracking system. Another part are already exist there.

A few comments below:

Btw, is Daminion non-destructive, as in, can I safely let it catalog my image folder without it writing EXIF data to all images or something sinister like that?

-Jibz (March 05, 2012, 08:59 AM)

You can do it via Sync button (on the toolbar) > "Turn Off Auto-Syncing Metadata".

Interface is very slow while importing -- image properties takes 3-4 seconds to update on a quad-core

The speed of importing depends from what image formats you are importing. 100 JPEG (8-12 MP) files on my CoreDuo E6750 2.66 Ghz were imported for ~1 min.
Some background processes might affect to the performance. Import speed of video files is slower.  

Or did you mean the metadata synchronization by updating? Update or Metadata syncing a slow process because we need to write information back into the files. And for RAW files this is especially slow because we use ExifTool via command line. But this is a background process so you can turn it on when you need to leave your PC.

Import from camera would be nice, but I gather from the forums it is in the works

Yes. This feature under development.

[K.Murat]

The catalog generated is small (only 55MB vs 5GB for exifPro) but is taking a very long time to load after updating to the latest beta - just finished after perhaps 2 or 3 minutes.

-Darwin (March 05, 2012, 01:31 PM)

After upgrading Daminion might to upgrade your catalog (database) sometimes to a new version. And this might require a few minutes.

[K.Murat]

Build 494 crashed when changing views to DetailsWithPreviewTop, though it's something I can't reproduce. This was after creating, importing small catalog.

-rgdot (March 05, 2012, 02:22 PM)

Could please send any further error messages/bug-reports to support at daminion.net.

[K.Murat]

I had tried Daminion few days ago and didn't like three things:

• No configuration at all.

-fenixproductions (March 05, 2012, 05:24 PM)

This is something that can implement in the future, but at the moment we would like to polish the default UI, like any web-service.

• For my 200MB cliparts folder it created 90MB hidden directory full of thumbnails.

We keep this approach for the following reasons:
1. Catalog (SQLite database) size is smaller;
2. You can select to backup your catalog with or without thumbnails. Because thumbnails are something that could be regenerated later, from actual files;
3. The performance of loading thumbnails from files is better than loading from the database.

No warning before any changes or edits buffering. I had wanted to test it on my photos folder and I am lucky I did not. It would mess up my existing tags completely.

May be "Auto-Sync Tags with Metadata" feature should be turned off by default?

[K.Murat]

The catalogue is 58.6MB but the ~Thumb directory is 2.29GB.
Some way to minimise the program while it's cataloguing would be nice.

-4wd (March 05, 2012, 05:39 PM)

Taking a peek at one of the data files in the thumbnail folder, it looks as if they contain the image in jpeg format at sizes 100, 200, and 400, encoded with a quality setting around 90. This probably explains why you are seeing such massive thumbnail folders for clipart.
Some settings to control what sizes are stored and at what quality might be nice.

May be we can optimize it later. At the moment we focused on the performance. A few extra GBs might not a big deal on these days for a large media archive library, isn't it?

Each preview file in the ~Thumbs folder contains a few JPEG files with a maximum 400x400px preview image, and occupies ~50kb. So for 10k imported files the average ~Thumbs folder size will be ~500Mb.

Btw, anyone else ended up with the thumbnail view starting to flicker some images randomly, or even showing empty rectangles for some, after a while of scrolling and scaling?

Empty rectangles means that Daminion is not yet loaded the thumbnails for these images yet (from cache). Switching off the "Metadata Syncing" might help to improve the performance..

[Jibz]

The speed of importing depends from what image formats you are importing. 100 JPEG (8-12 MP) files on my CoreDuo E6750 2.66 Ghz were imported for ~1 min.
Some background processes might affect to the performance. Import speed of video files is slower.  

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 01:39 AM)

It is not that big of an issue, since I assume in most cases the import will be done only once. I was just surprised that I couldn't really use the program while it was adding a folder of images to the catalog.

No warning before any changes or edits buffering. I had wanted to test it on my photos folder and I am lucky I did not. It would mess up my existing tags completely.

May be "Auto-Sync Tags with Metadata" feature should be turned off by default?

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 01:54 AM)

Personally, I think it should, or at least the user should be made aware of it when they first run the program. Also, as I mentioned above, I think there should be a clear indication of sync being on.

I think I would prefer to keep all the metadata changes I make in the database and not sync them to the files. I like to keep my original image files untouched.

May be we can optimize it later. At the moment we focused on the performance. A few extra GBs might not a big deal on these days for a large media archive library, isn't it?

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 02:03 AM)

I think you are probably right that performance is more important .. maybe it just surprised people because the folder is hidden?

Btw, anyone else ended up with the thumbnail view starting to flicker some images randomly, or even showing empty rectangles for some, after a while of scrolling and scaling?

Empty rectangles means that Daminion is not yet loaded the thumbnails for this images yet (from cache). Switching off the "Metadata Syncing" might help to improve the performance..

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 02:03 AM)

I have sync turned off, and I believe it is a glitch of some sort. I just tricked it into doing it again and recorded this short example:



Basically, I am looking at a window where the first three images are constantly flickering between an empty white rectangle and the actual landscape image (this flickering is not that obvious in the screen recording), the rest of the images are empty. When I move the mouse around, the empty squares randomly light up with the image as in the video.

Btw, thank you for taking the time to respond to us here .

[Jibz]

A few more things I've noticed:

• When adding tags like People or Keywords in the Properties pane, pressing return adds the tag and lets you write another -- could you please make pressing Esc close the edit box? (as in workflow: Ctrl-D -> edit tags -> Esc)
• When adding tags from the Properties pane, there is a button to undo all changes at the bottom. If you make changes using keyboard shortcuts (like change label or rating), there doesn't seem to be a way to undo them. Is this by design? I can understand the keyboard shortcuts need to write the tags right away to work fast, but a Ctrl-Z undo could be handy if you make a mistake
• Some better tag management and assignment tools would be nice -- from the grayed out options in the menus I assume it will become possible to assign tags from the Catalog Tags pane at some point?
• Given the comments about how adding new images makes the program slow to use, maybe add an option to pause the process? As far as I can tell you can only cancel it from the progress indicator
• If adding files to the catalog didn't slow down the program, I might have liked a feature to automatically monitor a folder and add any new images to the catalog
• If you have sync turned off, and make a change to the tags of a file, the sync button at the bottom shows 1 file needs to be synced. If you then read or write the metadata to file (which I assume should both bring the file back into sync), it still says 1 file needs to be synced
• With sync turned off, if you select an image, choose Read Tags from File Metadata from the Sync button, and then edit the rating and label on the thumbnail, the icons do not update to show the changes even though the Properties pane does. I had to change view to get them to update again
• Maybe an option to remember the last used selections in the Catalog Tags pane and open with the same next time?

[K.Murat]

I have sync turned off, and I believe it is a glitch of some sort. I just tricked it into doing it again and recorded this short example:
[screenshot]
Basically, I am looking at a window where the first three images are constantly flickering between an empty white rectangle and the actual landscape image (this flickering is not that obvious in the screen recording), the rest of the images are empty. When I move the mouse around, the empty squares randomly light up with the image as in the video.

-Jibz (March 06, 2012, 03:05 AM)

Hmm... Does the problem 100% reproduced on your side? Could you please provide me with steps to reproduce the issue?

[Jibz]

Hmm... Does the problem 100% reproduced on your side? Could you please provide me with steps to reproduce the issue?

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 07:46 AM)

I just tried, and 5 times in a row I was able to get it to do it.

I am afraid I haven't found a consistent set of steps to do it, but repeating the following usually works:

• pull the scale bar button down to scale to max image size
• double-click the scale bar button to fit to window
• scroll to new images
• pull the scale bar button up to scale to min image size
• double-click the scale bar button to fit to window
• scroll to new images

After repeating those steps 3-4 times it usually goes wrong while scaling down to min size.

[K.Murat]

When adding tags like People or Keywords in the Properties pane, pressing return adds the tag and lets you write another -- could you  
please make pressing Esc close the edit box? (as in workflow: Ctrl-D -> edit tags -> Esc)

-Jibz (March 06, 2012, 05:08 AM)

Why you need to close the EditBox? If you need to clear the EditBox you can press Ctrl + Z.

When adding tags from the Properties pane, there is a button to undo all changes at the bottom. If you make changes using keyboard shortcuts (like change label or rating), there doesn't seem to be a way to undo them. Is this by design? I can understand the keyboard shortcuts need to write the tags right away to work fast, but a Ctrl-Z undo could be handy if you make a mistake

Yes, you are right - this could be handy feature. And this is something that could be implemented. I can't to say when until we'll release 3-4 core features (Rescan Folders, Camera Importer, User Roles,...). We have our internal vote system for product features based on the user feedback. So each suggestion adds a vote to a certain feature.

Some better tag management and assignment tools would be nice -- from the grayed out options in the menus I assume it will become possible to assign tags from the Catalog Tags pane at some point?

Do you mean dragging tags to the selected images?

Given the comments about how adding new images makes the program slow to use, maybe add an option to pause the process? As far as I can tell you can only cancel it from the progress indicator

We had the Pause option sometimes ago, but then it was removed to simplify the UI. As a workaround I can suggest you to cancel the import process, and then do some actions, then import the last folder again. All the previously imported files will be missed and import will be continued from the moment when you stopped it.

<quote>If adding files to the catalog didn't slow down the program, I might have liked a feature to automatically monitor a folder and add any new images to the catalog</quote>

We'll implement it partially: currently we are working on "Rescan Folders" feature that is the same as "Watched Folder" but launched manually (from the Context menu of Folders). After that it could be added an option to make it automatic.

Imported process is not completely optimized; this is in our future plans.


<quote>If you have sync turned off, and make a change to the tags of a file, the sync button at the bottom shows 1 file needs to be synced. If you then read or write the metadata to file (which I assume should both bring the file back into sync), it still says 1 file needs to be synced</quote>

This is a minor bug - added to the bug-tracking list. Starting the sync process will fix the issue.


<quote>With sync turned off, if you select an image, choose Read Tags from File Metadata from the Sync button, and then edit the rating and label on the thumbnail, the icons do not update to show the changes even though the Properties pane does. I had to change view to get them to update again</quote>

Nice bug Thank you.

[K.Murat]

After repeating those steps 3-4 times it usually goes wrong while scaling down to min size.

-Jibz (March 06, 2012, 08:20 AM)

I've reproduced the issue - thank you! As a workaround - you need to slightly change the current thumbnail size.

[Jibz]

When adding tags like People or Keywords in the Properties pane, pressing return adds the tag and lets you write another -- could you please make pressing Esc close the edit box? (as in workflow: Ctrl-D -> edit tags -> Esc)

-Jibz (March 06, 2012, 05:08 AM)

Why you need to close the EditBox? If you need to clear the EditBox you can press Ctrl + Z.

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 08:30 AM)

What I mean is, Ctrl-D starts editing the description in the properties pane -- I would like a keyboard shortcut to stop editing when I am done and put focus back in the thumbnail window.

I just realized that Ctrl-S to save actually does this .

Some better tag management and assignment tools would be nice -- from the grayed out options in the menus I assume it will become possible to assign tags from the Catalog Tags pane at some point?

Do you mean dragging tags to the selected images?

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 08:30 AM)

I mean assign people, places, events, keywords, etc. by clicking on them in the Catalog Tags pane. In the View menu, there is an option called "Catalog Tags: Assign Mode", which is disabled -- I assumed that is going to somehow implement this later.

We had the Pause option sometimes ago, but then it was removed to simplify the UI. As a workaround I can suggest you to cancel the import process, and then do some actions, then import the last folder again. All the previously imported files will be missed and import will be continued from the moment when you stopped it.

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 08:30 AM)

Ok, will do that.

If adding files to the catalog didn't slow down the program, I might have liked a feature to automatically monitor a folder and add any new images to the catalog

We'll implement it partially: currently we are working on "Rescan Folders" feature that is the same as "Watched Folder" but launched manually (from the Context menu of Folders). After that it could be added an option to make it automatic.

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 08:30 AM)

Sounds good .

[fenixproductions]

@K.Murat
I understand why these thumbnails are needed but what I truly doubt is:

2. You can select to backup your catalog with or without thumbnails. Because thumbnails are something that could be regenerated later, from actual files;

-K.Murat (March 06, 2012, 01:54 AM)

Is it really always necessary? Couldn't Daminion check if this is needed on assumption of file size?

My exact case was:
I have 2881 SVG files which are mainly icons. Since there is no image organizer for vector files, I had decided to make mirrored directory with PNG versions of them. Simple batch script for rsvg-convert.exe did the work and I have few thousands thumbnails - 512 pixels wide. From my point of view it is now not worth it to have Daminion to offer thumbnails of my thumbnails. I don't know the code behind this software but for me: time saved on regenerating thumb for little bigger picture is lost on searching its entry in SQlite database + reading it from hidden dir. Please correct me on this

For bigger images it is OK but not for such case. It would be better to have an Option for setting minimum image size needed for thumbnails.

BTW AFAIR some JPG files may contain embedded thumbnails already (in EXIF?). Does Daminion recreate thumb from bigger image to its own dir or use embedded one? How does it look like performance wise?

[zevel]

Gentlemen,

I appreciate the active participation of tool developers in this thread but not to the point of completely hijacking it.
This thread was about comparing the features, performance and capabilities of different image organizers, let's not turn it into a beta-testing thread for a single one.

You can always create another thread and link to it from this one.
Maybe the admins can even transfer some of the existing posts to the new thread.

Thank you for understanding.