ExifTool also used in Daminion

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

I don't know if your "also used by" list (is there any?) contains this:
http://www.daminion.net/
-and here I found, ExifTool is discussed:
http://daminion.net/user-forum/index.php?/topic/318-several-questions-about-daminion/

It looks nice and it uses ExifTool for writting into files(!), so I just downloaded their free (beta at this point) version, to see if this is what I have waited for all the time.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bogdan,

Yes, I knew about this, thanks.  It isn't mentioned on the exiftool home page because I thought you had to pay for this.  Normally I link only free software from the home page.

- Phil

[K.Murat]

Hi Phil and Bogdan,

The single-user Daminion version is free.

- Murat

[BogdanH]

Hi Murat,

Thank you for clarify this -it's always nice to see software being free (for non-profit or similar use).

Bogdan

[BogdanH]

I just gave my first try on free version of Daminion (v0.9.0b525). A bit because of my curiosity, but mainly because I am still after affordable solution for "cataloging" my relative small amount of photos. Anyway, after trying Daminion, I can say I've tried all DAM software available. 

Daminion's layout and "work approach" reminds me a lot on "old" iView MediaPro: clean and simple. And light grey panels surfaces are simply a joy to work with. What I also like is, relative small footprint: after installing, it occupies only about 52Mb.
But I wouldn't be writing all this, if there wouldn't be ExifTool. Yes, Daminion can/does write metadata directly into raw files and because ExifTool is used for that, I feel safe! Now, not everyone might feel comfortable with that, so it would be good to have an option to disable writing into particular kind of image files.
All in all, my first impression is positive.

I didn't use Daminion much, so it would be fair to talk about (possible) bugs or performance -after all, it's "beta". Talking about beta: I'm afraid, Daminion's developement is somehow slow.. at least from what I could see in "Announcements" forum section there. IMO, Daminion should go out of beta stage as soon as possible, to get broader audience and feedback -beta sounds like "avoid, not ready to be used"...

I have a problem. I'm probably reading too much about metadata. At the same time, ExifTool gives me a freeedom of choice on what (standardized) metadata tags I wish to edit. And that's probably why I can't decide about DAM: none of them gives me that freedom.

Just sharing some thoughts 
Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bogdan,

I took a quick peek at the Daminion web site.  Version 0.9 was released 5 days ago, and fixes 33 bugs from the previous version!

I tried to look for a version history to see how old the project is and to get a feel for how often updates are made, but I couldn't find it.  This is something that I often have trouble finding for other software, and I don't know why.  To me, this is very important.  I have tried very hard to make this easy to find on on the ExifTool web site.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

Yes, that's the version I've tried. Update history is in Daminion's forum:
http://daminion.net/user-forum/index.php?/forum/4-announcements/

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Ah, thanks.  That's more than one update per month over the last year, and Daminion went from 0.8b to 0.9b in that time.  Extrapolating forward, version 1.0 is only a year away...

- Phil