One of my hobbies is photography, and my main tool for managing my digital photos is IDimager. I’ve been using it since January 2007. It’s now up to version 5, and I’ve been very happy with it. I occasionally visit the IDimager support forums, just to see if there are any announcements, or tips and tricks being posted. Yesterday I read a message from the developer that said:
IDimager V5 is discontinued as of today. Photo Supreme is a different product when compared to IDimager V5. They don’t offer an identical feature set so I recommend all IDimager V5 users to first try Supreme to see if it fits their need before they decide to make the switch.
My immediate reaction was WTF? Whilst I had been aware of the Photo Supreme product, last time I looked, a few months ago, it was for the Mac, and there was no whisper of a Windows version being made available. Fast forward a couple of months, and now it has killed off IDimager. Needless to say, I’m not very happy about this, and neither are a lot of other IDimager customers. IDimager is a serious Digital Asset Management (DAM) tool, and Photo Supreme, at first glance, has far less functionality; so for many people, Photo Supreme is nowhere near an acceptable replacement. A typical reaction:
Well that’s a real shame because you have killed off one of the best DAM systems a working professional could ask for and replaced it with a toy. I wish you luck with Photo Supreme, but regrettably it’s not a professional standard product IMO.
Because I tend to work mostly with JPG images, I’ll probably be able to carry on using IDimager for some time to come. However, for professional photographers who work with RAW format images, then IDimager will soon not be able to handle images produced by new camera models. These people have been thrown into a pit. I can only echo what someone else posted:
I have always had a lot of respect for Hert [the chief developer] and his responsiveness to bugs and feature requests. It made IDI stand out in a market dominated by big software giants who bought, crippled then abandoned software. Sadly yesterday’s announcement felt all too familiar and not what I have come to expect.
Since I have never used all of IDimager’s power (similar to most people only ever using a fraction of the capabilities of Microsoft Word), I’m taking a look at Photo Supreme to see it is a possible replacement for my usage patterns. But I’m doing so with a rather sour taste in my mouth at the moment.
Addendum 18th September 2014: I thought it was worthwhile adding that since writing this post, I switched (a while ago now) across to Photo Supreme, and have not regretted doing so. PSU has continued to evolve (version 3 is about to be released), and it has matured into a very good DAM.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
This is what always worries me about coming to rely on a product that isn’t one of the “major players” in a field, even if that product is superior to the majors. Of course, I use Capture NX 2 which is practically abandonware at this point.
Yes, the chance that the rug will be snatched out from under our feet is always greater, of course. But for the period where it acts as a flying carpet, then we are prepared to forgive the seemingly inevitable future disappointment.
Aargh! I was browsing your blog for information on WHS 2011 problems and read this. I’m currently rebuilding my WHSv1 server as a WHS 2011 server. I’ve been using IDImager for two years now and absolutely rely on it with 24K photos (mostly RAW).
My only problems with it were slowness over the network and occasionally it would just disappear. I was looking forward to a faster server and WHS 2011 to make things better.
Unfortunately, I need a networked (SQL) multiuser solution for myself and my wife. I’ll have to stay with IDImager until I can find a replacement (not easy, I’ve been researching for 3 years).
Yes, it’s been disappointing news. Photo Supreme is only single-user at the moment, although some people have been suggesting to the developer that there would be a market for a multi-user version.
As for me, I think I can quite happily live with Photo Supreme, but I recognize that for many it is not as comprehensive a solution as IDimager.
Hi Geoff, please remove this comment after reading.
Something on your blog freezes my web-browser (tested with Chrome and Firefox). CPU info shows permanent “30% loading”. I suspect, but not sure, that this is due to a “live snow” script. Please check it.
Murat, I think it could be something else local to your system. It works fine here on IE10 and Chrome. The Snow script is done by WordPress across a large number of blogs – not just mine.
Hi Geoff, I have used Idimager for the last two years. It is a very powerful and versatile DAM application. I reflect the fear of many that Photo Supreme may be bought by one of the major software developers and killed off. If, and I hope this is the case, Photo Supreme has a future, I would really like to see it developed into a multiuser system.
Dermot, Hert (the prime developer of PSU) has said that, while a multiuser version of PSU is not currently planned, he would consider it if there was sufficient demand. I suggest that you make your voice heard in the forum of PSU: http://forum.idimager.com/viewforum.php?f=57
Have you made the switch to Photo Supreme? Any insights?
Bill, yes I’m using Photo Supreme. It meets my needs very well. I never used all the power that IDimager had, so PSU does the job for me.
It’s still developing. New features are gradually being added, and bugs being fixed. I just hope that Hert (the developer) manages to keep things under control. That was the downfall of IDimager, IMO, he tried to please everyone and put so much functionality into it that the application grew out of control.
Thanks, Geoff. I was a bit surprised (but only a bit) when I learned that IDimager had gotten the boot. It was feature rich but didn’t have the backing to make it usable by the common person unwilling to deal with the horrible learning curve.
Bill, give the trial version of PSU a whirl – then you can get a feel of it. I like the fact that the community forum is active, with users helping each other out. I’ve also registered in the bug-tracking system (Mantis) that Hert uses, and there you can get a sense of how the software is maturing. I’m pretty satisfied.
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George: Thank you so much for posting this. I first heard about IDImager from your blog so I guess it is only fitting that I hear about its demise here too. (God forbid I hear about it from ID Imager…!)
One of the features that you write a lot about in your blog (because I have bookmarked all of those posts !) is that IDImager hierarchical tags are compatible with WLPG. Is the same true for Photo Supreme?
I do plan to give it a test drive (especially since you seem to be happy with it :)) but I’d appreciate a heads-up from you.
Thanks again for keeping us all posted,
–e.
George? Who’s George? 🙂
Anyway, yes, Photo Supreme can write out hierarchical tags that are compatible with WLPG.
Cheers, Geoff
I can export keywords from Adobe Bridge to Photo Supreme but not from PSU to Bridge. Why not?
Thank you for helping! John
John, I don’t use Adobe Bridge, so I don’t know the answer to your question. Your best bet would be to ask the question over in the Photo Supreme forum:
http://forum.idimager.com/viewforum.php?f=57
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Geoff, I’m also a former Idimager Pro user who has gone to PS (for now). At first I thought PS would be a good fit as Idimager Pro was more than I needed. I have mixed feeling about PS, his development process and also about the way Hert runs his business. It always seems like you’re using a beta release with way too many updates over too short a time period. Wonder if they are doing proper testing before releases. Too many freezes and crashes IMO. After the way customers were treated when Idimager was cancelled, I’m not sure that company’s software is one I want to entrust with the management of my data. Their forum has also been moderated with a fairly heavy hand, and I don’t seem to be able to PM other users on their forum anymore.
Just curious if you’ve ever looked at Daminion as an alternative to PS? I’ve played with it a bit, and still very early in it’s development, but seems to have promise. Doesn’t try to do any significant functions beyond being a database. The last release said it could import Picasa face metadata, but haven’t tried it after remembering some Picasa issues you’ve brought up in the past (maybe stomping on maker notes?). Also like that if you want to edit an image via an editor, you “check-out” the image and latter “check-in” the changes with an ability to log what you’ve done. Wish that could be combined with some sort of versioning like Idimager/PS, but may I just don’t understand the full extent of Daminion’s capabilities yet. Would love to see your take on this software.
Larry, I understand what you mean about “mixed feelings” – I think I share some of them. It seems to me that software development cycles can be a double-edged sword. Too many releases, and you run the risk of upsetting people; not enough and you do the same.
I’ve always been impressed by Hert’s responsiveness to pushing the development of his product. Perhaps it’s down to the fact that I don’t really stress PSU, but I’ve not been bitten by the rate of releases. There was a time during IDI when I thought that we were in danger of getting into a “two steps forward, one step back” situation. I’ve not really thought that about PSU.
Hert is very focused on what he wants. That’s a good thing for him and where he wants to take PSU, but if you find that you want something different, or have a different opinion, then you can definitely feel that you are not being listened to. Living as I do in the Netherlands, I recognise this as typical Dutch behaviour. 🙂
I’m aware of Daminion, but I haven’t looked at it (PSU is meeting my needs for now). I believe that Daminion’s developer was responsible for Picajet, which I did use for a time some years back, before dropping it in favour of IDI.
For the time being, I’ll continue with PSU. If ever it comes to the parting of the ways, then I know that I can always take my metadata with me. That is one of the strengths of PSU, and one of the reasons why I’m prepared to stick with it, and Hert. I may not always agree with him, but for now, his product is meeting my needs.
Larry, I’ve just been browsing the Daminion web site, and reading some of the documentation. The mention of “importing Picasa face metadata” doesn’t look very hopeful as far as I’m concerned. It talks about the face metadata of versions of Picasa prior to 3.9 being supported. As far as I’m concerned, that’s shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted. Picasa is moving (in version 3.9 and beyond) to support the proposed standard for face metadata from the Metadata Working Group. And that’s not what Daminion is currently doing, but sticking to the old Picasa-proprietary format. That’s not of interest to me.
I note that Daminion does claim to be supporting the IPTC Extension “Person in Image” metadata element. That’s a start, but it also is different from the MWG proposed standard. The latter is built around dealing with face regions in your image – so that you can see who’s who at a glance in an image. The previous IPTC Extension approach is just a simple list of person names, with no attempt to tie these in to the actual people depicted in the image itself.
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