Lightroom and iMatch

[bob_r3]

<p>I own lightroom 2.5 and currently have a 30 day evaluation copy of iMatch, but have not had enough time yet to really look at it.</p>

<p>I'm planning on bringing all my existing images into Lightroom, once I get around to scanning old film negatives. At the moment I'm using it 90% just for its library/cataloging features.</p>

<p>I looked at iMatch because of some good reviews I read. Are there any features that it has that make it worth owning in addition to Lightroom - such as better search capabalities.</p>

 

[sattler123]

<p>I am going the other way right now:-) I have owned iMatch for the past 2 years to cataog all my images - it works quite well. The strength of iMatch are the key word searches, but frankly, Lightroom does it equally well in the meantime. iMatch has an almost impossible user interface - I could never take advantage of all the features because I always got so fed up with the stupid user interface. The biggest issue for me however is to work in two totally separate systems - lightroom and or CS4 and iMatch don't talk to each other, only through the metadata and the rating. I want one application - eg. lightroom to be my primary gateway to all of my files. Searching for Metadata in iMatch is not as easy as it should be - you need create your own search "script".<br>

iMatch also does not offer any "version" control of your files and that is a big draw back. They have been promising this feature forever and have still not implemented any solution for it. The other concern I have is the longterm viability of the company - I know Adobe will be around for along time, but what about Photools (the company that makes iMatch)?</p>

 

[bob_r3]

<p>To clarify, I'm staying with lightroom as my primary cataloging and indexing software, I just wondered whether also having iMatch had any benefits. I don't want to spend time learning how to use iMatch if it has no extra goodies. I would do all the keyword tagging in LR.</p>

<p>I admit that so far, the interface does not seem to be intuitive.</p>

<p> </p>

[sattler123]

I am just starting out with Lightroom (I am deep in Scott Kelby's book) and I don't know yet how well Lightroom deals with off-line folders, like those on DVDs etc. iMatch does a great job keeping track of all your folders and files - no matter where they are located (online or offline). I am sure there are other aspects of iMatch that are more sophisticated than Lightroom, but I haven't advanced far enough with LIghtroom to make any judgement calls.

[bob_r3]

<p>I have used LR for a year, but not seriously. I got Kelbys book and another one a couple of weeks aog, and am working through them. When I first looked inot LR, I was given the impression that offline stuff can be handled fine, but some stuff I've read in the last week, indicates its not so straightforward.</p>

<p>I used to use some other program maybe ThumbsPlus and it handed offline CDs ok. However, I realized I don't have than many CDs with photos, and I have piles of online disk space so I just copied the CDs onto my hard drive.</p>

<p>One feature that makes iMatch outstanding is that it handles old Kodak PhotoCDs and converts them to TIFF that I can then handle them in LR. LR does not allow this obsolete format and I was going to convert them by hand in PhotoShop</p>