The poor things languished in the darker recesses of my computer-never getting any love. While this works well for many, I found that there were many files which I had omitted to import into Lightroom over the years, then forgot about them. If you don’t specifically import them into the application, then Lightroom doesn’t know they exist. With many DAMs-including Lightroom-you must import your files into the application. The DAM I chose had to work well with sidecar files.Īdditionally, I decided that I wasn’t keen on the idea of importing my images into the application. This, then, became a requirement on my shopping list. Crucially, virtually every DAM has the ability to read from-and write to-these sidecar files. They have the same file name as the file they’re referencing, and are suffixed with the extension. These files can hold any information you would like about the image file. Sidecar files are small text files which accompany the images files they’re referencing. However, there is another system, called Sidecar Files.
This is where the database that applications like Lightroom use come into play. With RAW files from your camera, it is often not possible (or even advisable) to store this inside the file itself. With JPG files, much is stored inside the file itself. Meta data can be stored in various places, depending on the file type you’re dealing with. Wouldn’t it be a shame to feel the need to ditch a DAM which is working well for you because you want the capabilities of that nice new image manipulation application? Meta DataĪll that information you create about an image, such as the keywords and ratings, are called meta data. Advances in image processing applications mean that you’re likely to change that more often. Once you have a working DAM, you can stick with it for a very long time. I came to the conclusion that it would be wise to try to keep these two things separate.
#Xnviewmp write ratings to metadata software
For image processing there is wealth of software available, both as purchased options, or open-source.
For cataloguing, we employ an application called a Digital Asset Manager or DAM. There are two main facets of a photographer’s requirements: Cataloguing and image processing.
#Xnviewmp write ratings to metadata install
I’m talking about those application which you used to purchase once, install on your system, and use until you either decided to upgrade them yourself, or operating system changes made them unusable. However, there has been a move in recent years to move regular desktop-based applications into the SAAS world. Traditionally, this has been the realm of SAAS, or subscription-based services. When data must be collected into a central repository-and that data needs to be accessed from anywhere-then the obvious solution is a cloud-based system. There is, of course, room – and even a necessity – for software as a service (SAAS).