Media Pro Alternatives? Or on Mavericks?
With the lack of any significant update for media pro, and the difficulty with CaptureOne's catalog system (no support for psd files, difficult to manage or even understand workflows, etc), has anyone found a viable alternative in the mac space?
I have been holding off upgrading to Mavericks because I am afraid that Media Pro will stop working. It is my go to database for my image catalog. While I don't have as many images as some, at 50k, it is a little intimidating to think that I might be starting over.
Capture one's catalog system is not a consideration. While I love some parts of it, it won't recognize photoshop documents, which is where 90% of my work ends up. And, while attempting to consolidate one client's body of work in sessions over the past couple of years into one catalog, I neatly managed to wipe out all of the adjustments that were on each sessions images. I had to do a little digging to figure out how to get that straightened out.
Photo Supreme by idimager looks good on paper. In fact it looks pretty close to Media Pro. But, I really liked the idea of the interconnection between media pro and capture one (never fully tested it, but liked it on paper...).
Some more information about my workflows:
I shoot tethered all the time on DSLRs.
Some sets are people based, which means a larger volume of raw files to quickly browse and edit.
Some sets are product based, which has a lower volume but the final master is a psd which then needs to be output to multiple file sizes and formats for client delivery.
Metadata gets added to each file (captureone still sucks at this!).
And, the heros of the shoot always go through photoshop, often for major manipulations.
I need to find the psds and often need to be able to search the raw shoot to add new elements, while keeping similar adjustments, which means that I need to go back into Captureone to process them out.
So:
Has anyone had success with media pro on Mavericks? And, is this postponing the seemingly inevitable demise of MP?
Has anyone developed a workflow for Photo Supreme and Capture One?
Or, should I be looking at getting out of the phaseone software altogether and researching Lightroom?
Thanks!
I have been holding off upgrading to Mavericks because I am afraid that Media Pro will stop working. It is my go to database for my image catalog. While I don't have as many images as some, at 50k, it is a little intimidating to think that I might be starting over.
Capture one's catalog system is not a consideration. While I love some parts of it, it won't recognize photoshop documents, which is where 90% of my work ends up. And, while attempting to consolidate one client's body of work in sessions over the past couple of years into one catalog, I neatly managed to wipe out all of the adjustments that were on each sessions images. I had to do a little digging to figure out how to get that straightened out.
Photo Supreme by idimager looks good on paper. In fact it looks pretty close to Media Pro. But, I really liked the idea of the interconnection between media pro and capture one (never fully tested it, but liked it on paper...).
Some more information about my workflows:
I shoot tethered all the time on DSLRs.
Some sets are people based, which means a larger volume of raw files to quickly browse and edit.
Some sets are product based, which has a lower volume but the final master is a psd which then needs to be output to multiple file sizes and formats for client delivery.
Metadata gets added to each file (captureone still sucks at this!).
And, the heros of the shoot always go through photoshop, often for major manipulations.
I need to find the psds and often need to be able to search the raw shoot to add new elements, while keeping similar adjustments, which means that I need to go back into Captureone to process them out.
So:
Has anyone had success with media pro on Mavericks? And, is this postponing the seemingly inevitable demise of MP?
Has anyone developed a workflow for Photo Supreme and Capture One?
Or, should I be looking at getting out of the phaseone software altogether and researching Lightroom?
Thanks!
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I too have pretty much given up on MP as my primary database on my Windows system.
I am fine tuning a workflow using Lightroom 5 as my front end. It is a decent database, easy to cull, sort, and rate photos; and I can easily keyword all my files there. I set LR to automatically save all the metadata in external sidecars.
After the initial work in LR, I am currently importing the photos into a new catalog in CO; all the ratings and keywords come along. I then process away. There is not a major cost of time.
After I'm done, I update my MP catalog. I can use MP to find older photos, and to the reopen them in CO via a session.
This is probably not the most efficient way, but I find it reasonable, and stable.
LR 5 should run on your Mac.
Good luck.0 -
Hi Jim,
So, you are shooting tethered or importing into LR, to cull the best ofs and add metadata, then importing again into CO for processing, and long term archiving and retrieval, with MP along side?
It sounds like LM is only there for the metadata, really, since CO can do the cull, sort and rate.
Its the long term archive that I think I am stumbling over.0 -
[quote="matt mckee" wrote:
Hi Jim,
So, you are shooting tethered or importing into LR, to cull the best ofs and add metadata, then importing again into CO for processing, and long term archiving and retrieval, with MP along side?
It sounds like LM is only there for the metadata, really, since CO can do the cull, sort and rate.
Its the long term archive that I think I am stumbling over.
Sorry, I am not shooting tethered, though LR would allow that as well.
I use LR now for the initial work (culling, etc) as I have found it faster and easier than CO.
I then open CO and import for processing.
I have decided to use LR for my long term archiving. I also use LR to process my "snap shots", for things like Facebook, Craigs List, etc.
MP runs on the side, and I use it to input older shots into CO. I am still fine tuning this workflow.0 -
Hmm... seems to me that you are just about ready to drop CO! I know that LR has been improving on their processing the last few versions. If you are using LR for selections, meta and long term archiving already, then you are 3/4s of the way out of the CO box.
Which makes me think I may be headed that way as well. Sigh. I hate having to start over again...0 -
As far as success on Mavericks is concerned: I haven't noticed any (new) problem at all (apart from non-os-specific and long known limitations in metadata exchange with other programs). In general, I see very few problems at all, and mostly ever see crashes when using a catalog with photos from various sources, from cheap digital cameras with defect metadata.
I shoot mostly JPEG (hobby only), and use MP to organize my photo collection. The photos that I modify (at most 10% for one occasion) are copied to Aperture, and the final versions back into my MP catalog. That's basically all my workflow (and the point where I could use some kind of integration improvement). So I might not hit all potential problems.
So for me I don't see any specific reason for a new version for Maverick (though I'd sure like to see further general improvement).0 -
In reply to Matt McKee:
I have upgraded to Mavericks and haven't noticed any problem with MP because of that.
I also chose both MP and CO for the integration and i'm actually using it. The metadata integration isn't so strong that i use it both ways, only updating metadata in MP, but processing does show nicely in MP. I like that,i like to know what kind of rendering i did when i'm working in my catalog.
Like you, i have around 50K+ photos (RAW) in it, plus some renderings (couple of thousands TIFF, JPEG and PXM) and a couple dozens of videos (DSLR and phone). Also some office documents in there.
I am also looking at PhotoSupreme, have actually purchased the license to get to V2 and am testing it right now.
It's a very decent DAM and supports quite a few file formats. Haven't tried the office docs by the way, have just started to import my picture archive. That worked rather well, thumbnail generation is fairly quick, but obviously looses integration with CO. It does support RAW+JPEG versioning rather well, so that may be a way out. Still have to work on that more though.
I'm sincerely hoping Phase One will pick up on MP and not leave it hanging, but we'll see. In the meanwhile i'm looking at alternatives.
Good luck with your search.0 -
Thanks HCS,
That's two for Mavericks. I'll give it a try.
It's the last machine in the shop to get the update.
M0 -
[quote="matt mckee" wrote:
Thanks HCS,
... I'll give it a try.
It's the last machine in the shop to get the update ...
You should be fine, just make sure of your backups. When this is a production machine, upgrades aren't to be taken lightly. You know about that, i know. Not sure if you're using time machine, otherwise this might be good time to put this to work.
Wishing you success!0 -
Whoo-boy! Don't I know it. Time machine, crashplan to two locations, and carbon copy cloner to a third. Not that I am paranoid... 0 -
[quote="matt mckee" wrote:
Whoo-boy! Don't I know it. Time machine, crashplan to two locations, and carbon copy cloner to a third. Not that I am paranoid...
You're not 😊 😊 , i'm doing the same and i'm not a pro (at least not photography related, i am an IT nerd though). I'm not using TM though, i don't like how it behaves. So, that makes my backup plan as follows:
Mac Pro to NAS
Mac Pro to Crashplan
Mac Pro to Liveschijf (Dutch version of LiveDrive, but data center in Amsterdam)
Laptops to NAS
Laptops to Liveschijf
NAS to Crashplan
Two cloud backup services, datacenters on different continents. You never know when the 'big one' will hit 😕0 -
I use Media Pro ONLY to catalogue and find my images. (and some other file types.). It is BY FAR the best cataloger for MAC even with the diminishment Phase One did to its interface graphics. Are there any other suggestions for a cataloging program only, not one that modifies the files. ONLY something for me to keep track of my thousands and thousands of images going back 45 years. Its a shame Phase One does not realize it has a GOLD MINE here and just make it for cataloging and sorting. Only cataloging needed, not processing. 0 -
Totally agree.
It seems that P1 bought this software to extract only the good bits.
Modernize and develop new functions requires financial resources.
To this they need many new users buy the software.
I know old users who find no reason to buy MP, EM2 enough for them.
P1 is advertising for its other products but not for MP.
At this point one may wonder if they should not sell MP to motivated developers.
Managing photos and videos has become problematic since everyone is able to strafe anything goes.
Software like iPhoto quickly become unsuitable with a few hundred pictures.
It is also an ideal tool for archiving official documents (passport, driver's license, bills, etc.).0 -
Hello, I am new to this forum but own and use both MP and COP7 (besides other imaging software). I am not a professional photographer, live on a boat (that comes with a whole other set of software independent problems 😉 ) cruising the eastern Caribbean right now and using photography to document my trips and adventures (Nikon D300; D700; and various brands of P&S cameras) . I am using a MBP 15" retina fully loaded - Mavericks installed for my pp workflow.
I just completed to catalog 2 external Seagate HD (1TB each) with 116k images on one and 132.4k images on the other with Media pro 1.4.1.. The catalog size on the first ended up to be 16.1 GB. The whole process went without any hiccup or crash.
So far, MP has been running very stable.
One thing I would like to have been able to do is after the scanning is completed but BEFORE the actual cataloging process begins to selectively exclude files, folders, and/or subfolders... e.g. on one drive I had an aperture3 library file and other rubbish folders with unwanted catalog entries forcing me to now go back and remove a lot of such files (granted, its much easier to do that, than to have to import individual file segments of a 1TB drive one by one...)- just saying... 😁
All in all I must say that for cataloging large amounts of image files on a Mac operating system with so many options afterward there is no feasible alternative at this time (yes, money spent is a factor for me...)0 -
Update May 2014: There has been an UPDATE for MEDIA PRO! (April 2014) Now it works even better on Mac OS X 10.92.
Update March 29 2014. Soooo... Apple Care replaced the logic board on my MacBook Pro three times. It was a model with known graphics card issues. After the logic board fried a fourth time they then replaced it with a brand new MacBook. It turns out that the issues I was having with Media Pro were mostly due to my faulty MacBook graphics card. Media Pro works great with Mavericks now.
So I then bought Capture One Pro 7. CO7 is great for organizing photos if they are already organized perfectly. CO7 has none of the advanced cataloging features of Media Pro, AND it will not make full use of an imported Media Pro catalog because it will not display in the CO7 catalog, most of the fields that are available in a Media Pro catalog.
Here is the old post, amended a little:
I have been toying with the notion of buying Capture One 7 so I have been taking the live webinars. At the end of one yesterday, I was amused and annoyed to hear the teacher say that now that CO7 has catalog features, no one needs Media Pro.
Well, for one thing CO7 does not have the ability to customize the metadata to MULTIPLE LINES of metadata that appear under the thumbnail, and Media Pro does. Under my thumbnails in Media Pro I have name, keyword, capture date, camera, file type, dimensions, bit depth, and I can have many more display all at the same time, and all in thumbnail view. In Media Pro these can be changed easily. In Capture One Pro 7, they cannot be changed or added to. Loads of other features are missing in the catalog features of CO7, too.
In my opinion, Media Pro is yet another excellent piece of software that is having decisions made about it by marketing, owners, or other company officials who have never used the software.
My guess is that Phase One corporate Gnomes have decided to compete with Lightroom. Therefore they think they need an all in one "solution".
April 5 2014. You should buy this software, Media Pro. It truly puts any other software claiming to have cataloging features to shame.0 -
Well, the good news, for me, is that I have successfully upgraded to mavericks with no noticible impact, positive or negative, on media pro's performance. Yep, it is still running, still waiting on a facelift, still waiting for a speed boost, still waiting for some tlc. Sigh.
Still waiting for phaseone to realize that C1 should not become an LR clone.0 -
[quote="matt mckee" wrote:
.....
Still waiting for phaseone to realize that C1 should not become an LR clone.
Other than me being on Windows, I could have written the last two posts. I've said the same in other posts.
By becoming a LR clone, they are lowering their standards. I currently use LR as well as CO and MP. MP (when it works) is a better DAM than LR is or probably will be, and CO is a better raw converter. CO's catalog capabilities are primitive today. But MP still needs some work. CO could use some work as well, more like enhancements.
My belief - PO miscalculated what it needed to do to produce MP, assigned junior software engineers to the project, then decided that an all in one solution was the cheaper and faster way to go.
They should have learned from Microsoft. Look at the number of users (and capabilities) of MS Works vs MS Office.
Jim0 -
October 19 2015 - Update for Media Pro on El Capitan, and Capture One Pro 8.
Media Pro works great on El Capitan. After upgrading to El Capitan, I uninstalled Media Pro and re installed Media Pro, and all is well.
I just bought Capture One Pro 8 for use on El Capitan. I have found that attempting to enable "Hardware Acceleration (Use OpenCL for)", for either Display or Processing crashes Capture One Pro 8 and requires a uninstall and reinstall to fix. For me there have been no such, or other problems, with Media Pro on El Capitan.
Or for the adventurous, trashing the Capture One Pro 8 preferences (com.phaseone.captureone8.plist) and the Capture One Pro 8 saved application state (com.phaseone.captureone8.savedState) may work, doing that worked for me.
In my humble opinion, Media Pro handles photo cataloging, key wording, and other catalog functions better than any other software I have used on PC or Mac.0
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