Digital BW, The Print

Thanks.  I've been seriously trialling Imatch and will try out
idmanager too.

Imatch is a great program.  The main deficiencies with it (from my
perspective) seem to be:

1. you cannot rate images (but this is apparently just about to be
added).  Idmager can.

2. it does not have versions (so it has no facility for grouping
different versions of images).  (Have I missed something here...?)
Again, Idmanager can do this.

3. archiving.  Imatch has no facility for doing this directly
(although there is an image relocation program).  Idmager has a
limited facility for archiving - but it's on a folder by folder, image
by image or category by category basis.  I would have thought that
both programs should have a facility for an incremental archive (i.e
adding images that have been changed since the last archive - perhaps
on a selectable basis). Of course, that will lead to some doubling up
(if you edit an image between archives) but it would seem the best
solution.

Equally, there should be a facility for moving an image to disc. 
Imatch can do this - but it's not automated. i.e you burn the disc
first, then tell Imatch the image has relocated. (I'm not sure if
idmager can do this.) 

Ideally you should be able to tag an image for burning then Imanage
would do the rest.

4.  you cannot resize thumbnails stored in the database.  I think
Idmanager can do this but could be wrong.  I'd like to start with
large, high quality thumbnails - then if that became a problem, downsize.

5.  Categorising images etc could be more streamlined.  One of the
real strengths of Adobe Bridge is the ability to show a slide show,
rotate and rate images all at once.  It would be nice if Imatch and
imanager could do this and quickly assign categories at the same time.

Does anyone have any views on this?  (for a start, I am I right about
the above?  The instruction manuals are long!)

This comparison might be a little unfair to Imatch - because there are
no doubt features of Imatch that Idmager doesn't have and which I'm
taking for granted.  I should also say that, at this early stage, I'm
finding the user interface of Idmager a bit baffling...

And does anyone know any programs that do the above?  How do Iview
media pro and thumbsplus compare?

Regards
Gareth
  

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Tom Husband
<thusband@s...> wrote:
>
> I just bought idImager after trying it out for a while.
> http://www.idimager.nl/English/Products/idImager/index.htm
> While I like Imatch I think idImager is not quite so overwhelming in 
> it's power yet has all the capability of Imatch.  The author is very 
> responsive to questions or problems and as it's fairly new there are 
> frequent updates.
> 
> Tom
> 
> Peter Marshall wrote:
> > IMatch 3 for PC is worth a look. Excellent and great value IMO.
> > http://www.photools.com/
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Peter Marshall
> > petermarshall@c...   
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > My London Diary	              http://mylondondiary.co.uk/
> > London's Industrial Heritage: http://petermarshallphotos.co.uk/
> > The Buildings of London etc:  http://londonphotographs.co.uk/
> > and elsewhere......
> >
>