Default Organizing Files: Database or archiving software?

[The_Dsigner]

Best DAM solution for Bitmap + Vector w/ Small Company

Does anyone know of some sort of system available for organizing and archiving large amounts of graphic files (psd, ai's indd, jpeg, tiff ect..) either in a database or some sort of file system with software search. I'm working at a small company with another designer and our graphics drive where we store all our projects has increased tremendously in the past few years to point where its becoming a pain trying to find specific image or project file among the vast amount of files we have stored on our shared network drive regardless if they are properly titled. For example we have a particular logo in various size, resolutions, and filet types. It would be great if there was a database system that could have a single page for that one logo with all of the files associated with it listed there and available to use.

Is there anything out there like that?

 

[Tom Mann]

Sorry for the delay in responding -- I just saw your question.

The modern, generic name of what you are looking for is a "Digital Asset Management system", a.k.a., a DAM system. It is an huge field of discussion. Many different software products are available ranging from free all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars per year site licenses. In addition, thousands of forum postings have been written on the subject. By far, the quickest way to get an overview of the field is to pick up a copy of this book and study its logic and recommendations thoroughly:
http://www.amazon.com/The-DAM-Book-Management-Photographers/dp/0596523572 .

If you rely on forum threads discussing the various software products, you are likely to run into parochial points of view from people who have some system that "works for them" (eg, say, as a photographer who don't need to file and retrieve AI, INDD and other non-photographic graphics formats), but who don't have a broad base of experience upon which to make recommendations. For example, you will likely see many recommendations for products ranging from Adobe Lightroom, to Google's free image retrieval software, "Picasa". As a photographer, I love it and use both of these, but unless I am mistaken, while they work great for JPGs, TIFFs, PSDs, etc., I pretty sure that neither of them will handle Illustrator and InDesign files.

It sounds like you are going to need an enterprise-level (ie, costly) system that can handle all the different file types that you listed, but you should be very careful in picking one. For example, for many years, I struggled to make a system called "Portfolio" from Extinsis (http://www.extensis.com/ ) only to find that as of a few years ago, although the product was being sold, they weren't doing any continued product development and weren't supporting modern file types (eg, 16 bit, multi-layer TIFFs), so it would lock up whenever it encountered such a file. My understanding is that they have once again become active, but I have no experience with it.

Please let us know if you find anything useful.

Best regards,

Tom M

PS - Here's a thread that lists some of the DAM systems suitable for photographers, as of a few years ago:
http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00ZKQG

PS#2 - BTW, you absolutely DO NOT want any system that relies on the folder structure that you happen to currently use. This is just too limiting. Instead, you want a system that will find files across multiple drives, across a network, etc. and build a DB based on all the obvious characteristics such as file name, image date, last modification date, keywords (including structured keyword lists), etc.

 

[The_Dsigner]

Thanks Tom,

I was wondering what the correct term was = DAM. Yeah I've been googling it all afternoon and I am nowhere near finding a solution to what i'm looking for. Everything I stumble upon is all cloud based and meant for a large enterprise operation while I'm just a small outfit looking for something that can handle a wide variety of bitmap and vector based formats to be run locally not over the web. The Extensis portfolio program looks promising but the standalone version was discontinued back in 2013 and they replaced with.......a cloud based version . I'll continue looking but I can't believe Adobe hasn't come out with a solid all-in-one DAM solution. Adobe Lightroom is only good for bitmap images and doesn't handle vector or transparent PNG's very well, and Bridge is too slow. Every time I change directories it could spend up to 10 mins looking through files.

 

[Tom Mann]

Sorry for the short response, but I'm about to leave on a trip and just wanted to point out that Bridge is not considered a DAM by any stretch of the imagination.

It's useful, I love it (for some applications), but it really is nothing more than a fancy image browser. For example, in Bridge, there is no facility to build up a database of your images, and then use Bridge to search outside of the single directory you are currently viewing, as you must do in Bridge.

Gotta run,

Tom M