Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Scott McLoughlin
<scott@a...> 
wrote:
> My digital image "database" is getting pretty huge, so I'm looking
> for a good software package that will keep indexed, tagged catalogs
> of thumbnail images on a local hard disk and then allow for offline
> storage (e.g., USB drives or CD's, etc.) of the actual large scanned
> images or raw files.
> 
> iView Media Pro looks good from the specs, but I'm looking for
> any user feedback.

I use it, and am pretty happy.

However, my use is pretty basic:
- I don't use tags.  Too lazy to every tag pictures, so the tags sit
there unused
- I have about 15G of pictures (about 8200) back to 1999, from
various digital cameras 
and scanners.  Current camera is a D70.

That said, what I do do:
- I keep my images on my home powermac, and sync a subset (my 2005
directory, right 
now) to my laptop using an external sync program.
- It's "Reset Folder Path ..." feature, is a lifesaver:  when I'm
running on a different 
machine, I just reset the top level path to my files, and all the
sets are updated 
appropriately.  It's hasn't lost a picture yet.
- Since it keeps the thumbnails internally (which means my catalog
file is 75M right now), I 
can still see all the images, even if I don't have them on my laptop.
- It's hierarchical catalog sets are good.
- I originally used it because it has editable HTML templates for
dumping out catalogs.  
See the pictures at www.gracemacintyre.com for the catalogs I
generated of my daughter.  
Since we had a second child this year, I'm switching to a blog
format, but that was useful 
when I used it.
- The date-based scanning is nice.  I tend to skim pictures using the
folder view and the 
date view, and only use catalog sets for "good" pictures

I considered something more expensive, but never really tried the
pricey programs.  ivmp 
is nice and zippy with my collection.  It's a bit sluggish displaying
NEF files (as all 
programs are), but it's WAY faster than the Nikon programs, so that's
saying something.