Spiral Findings

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Evaluating Photo Management Software

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We have a few budding, amateur photographers in my family and I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to manage my photos. So far, I’ve been using a Mac, and since the Photos application is included with my Mac, I’ve mostly been using that. As my photo collection has grown, I’ve had to move to an external hard drive for storage, and Photos seems to be lagging for while accessing the hard drive and my growing collection.

I started evaluating new options for photo management applications. I don’t do a lot of post-processing, though I might someday, so that wasn’t a huge focus during my evaluation. Here are some things I was thinking about while evaluating different providers:

  • Cost: Monthly Subscription, Annual Fee, One-Time Charge
  • Storage: Cloud or Local Storage
  • User Interface: Is it easy to use?
  • Import: Do I have to import the photos to a new library/filesystem or can I access them where they are?
  • Speed: Can the application handle the photos & videos as the library grows?

Why did I start looking for a replacement for Photos? When I tried to import my photos from my external hard drive into Photos, it would just hang indefinitely. During one attempt, it crashed and I was luckily able to salvage the drive with all my photos. After researching a bit and finding out that other people who had a similar issue of hanging or crashing, it didn’t seem like there was a fix that would allow me to continuing to use Photos without it being really slow or crashing. That’s why I started looking for an alternate solution.

When I started looking, I found this article from Top Ten Reviews which covered the Best Photo Management Software of 2019.

From this list, there were only several applications which are supported on Mac including CyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 10 & Aftershot Pro. I also wanted to consider Adobe Lightroom and Skylum’s Luminar 3 which had been recommended to me. For each option, I downloaded the Mac application, imported some of the sample images on the mac, and explored the user interface a bit.

These were my four options:

  • Adobe Lightroom CC
  • Corel Aftershot Pro 3
  • CyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 10
  • Skylum’s Luminar 3

Adobe Lightroom CC requires a monthly subscription, and with that you get a certain amount of storage. In the plan, I was looking at, it costs $9.99/monthly for 1TB of storage. It also requires you to import your photos. I will say that the interface seemed pretty user friendly: I was able to easily import photos and access the photo library on the left panel, and similarly, all the editing options were nicely laid out on the right panel. Viewing images, flagging or rejecting images, or ranking images also seemed very intuitive. Lightroom only offered a 7 day trial, so my ability to edit images was unavailable after the trial expired. When I asked for an extension, they offered me the option to buy as they had no ability to extend the trial.

  • Lightroom – Staggered Photo View
  • Lightroom – Tiled Photo View
  • Lightroom – Single Photo View
  • Lightroom – Library View

Corel Aftershot Pro 3 offers an option to purchase for $79.99, and at the time of writing this post, they were offering a 40% discount making the price $47.99. This application also requires you to import your photos. The first time I imported the photos, I couldn’t figure out which directory they imported into and I believe the import didn’t take. The second time, I was able to locate the photos in the Aftershot Catalog. The user interface for Aftershot is probably pretty functional for non-beginner photographers, but I found it ugly and cumbersome. The left panel has to be opened to see the catalog and the right panel has to be opened to see the editing options, but it wasn’t as simple to understand or use as Adobe Lightroom CC. The rotate clockwise or counterclockwise icons reminded me a lot of an undo or redo option from other applications and I clicked this a few times trying to undo something I had done! 🙂 I will say, I love how they give you a 30 day trial, versus other providers that only offered a 7 day trial.

  • Aftershot – Catalog, Edit View
  • Aftershot – Filmstrip Photo View
  • Aftershot – Single Photo View
  • Aftershot – Tiled Photo View

Cyberlink Photo Director Ultra 10 offers an option to purchase for $99.99 or upgrade your existing product, and at the time of writing this post, they were offering a 20% discount making the price $79.99. Photo Director requires you to import your photos. The user interface didn’t seem as clunky as Aftershot, but definitely wasn’t as simple as Adobe Lightroom CC or even Photos. They did offer a 30 day trial as well.

  • Cyberlink – Catalog View, New Features
  • Cyberlink – Edit View
  • Cyberlink – Layer View
  • Cyberlink – Tiled Photo View
  • Cyberlink – Filmstrip Photo View
  • Cyberlink – Single Photo View

Skylum’s Luminar 3 offers an option to purchase for $70, and at the time of writing this post, they were offering a $10 off discount making the price $60. Luminar doesn’t require you to import your photos. Out of the 4 different products I evaluated, this is the only one that accesses your photos where they lie. The user interface seemed quite good though it was a bit confusing how to edit photos and not as simple as Adobe Lightroom CC or Photos. It wasn’t clear if, during editing an image, that the application was preserving the original source or not.

  • Luminar – Tiled Photo View
  • Luminar – Single Photo View
  • Luminar – Edt Pane View

In Summary, Corel Aftershot 3 and Cyber Photo Director Ultra 10 are off my list based on the complexity of their experience. I’m not saying they aren’t good applications, but they just weren’t for me. On the other hand, I enjoyed the ease of use of Adobe Lightroom CC, and I appreciated not having to import photos with Luminar 3. Ultimately though, with Lightroom’s requirement to import and use the cloud and Luminar’s complexity of editing, neither of them really seemed like they fit the bill. It made me wish Photos just worked better for my large files and folders. I think I’m just going to give it one more try with Photos and then I’ll probably end up with Luminar.

Have you used any photo management or editing software? If so, which did you use and why?

Perfectionism Monster – Blogging & Work

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I have had several new ideas for blog posts recently, especially given recent travel adventures, but for reasons I can’t explain, I couldn’t conjure up the words to share here on my blog, as you can see by the fact I haven’t really posted since January of this year.  🙁

I had a similar experience when I was trying to research a new topic for my day job.  I am trying to learn about agile product development which is a fairly new concept for me.  I’ve tried my hand at it a few times, but it’s very different from my formal training in software development (it wasn’t as popular/taught in schools back then) and professional experience in hardware products (these project haven’t typically use agile, but they are starting to).

What I was dealing with was the fear of starting or the perfectionism monster rearing its head when I was trying to write user stories.  This lead to procrastination & inability to start because of fear of writing an “imperfect user story.”

Sidebar – I think this is probably a common condition actually, and more so as you get older.  I mean really, if we were like this as children, we would never have learned to walk for fear of falling down.  But now, if you think about it, some of the decisions we have to make can stop us right in our tracks – for example, moving to a new city might be scarier now than when you first set out to attend college in a new city.

As I continue to learn about agile, I am starting to understand the value is in continuous improvement, not just in the product, but also in how the team works together.  The value isn’t in writing a “perfect user story” or knowing exactly what the customer wants right at the beginning.  In fact, writing a perfect user story is an illusion and it could take months for a team to gel to write good stories to work off of because each team might have a different structure for how they would like to work.  As long as the team has a plan for how to work together, that seems to be the most important point rather than perfecting each user story, and then iterating from there.

How does perfectionism show up in your life and projects?  How do you tackle those projects in spite of the nagging voice of perfection?  

P.S. I’m just starting to learn about agile, so I know there is more to the process than this.

P.P.S. I like to envision perfectionism as a little monster.  Here’s a visual for your enjoyment. 🙂

Intentions For A New Year

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I’m not interested in resolutions.  I find that I fail at these before I even get to January 2nd and there is too much pressure assigned to keeping a resolution that it doesn’t provide the right kind of energy when I’m trying to start fresh at the beginning of the year.

I have found a few resources and tools that bring a bit of closure to the end of the year and help me set intentions for the new year.  Intentions, rather than resolutions, feel gentler somehow.  This isn’t my idea, and I’m sure I read it somewhere, but I’ve definitely adopted it!

I thought I’d share some of the resources I use in case you are interested in starting your year, or month, or week off with a bit of mindfulness.  I don’t think you have to do these at the beginning of the year, and if you’re at a major shift in your life and this type of reflection would be helpful, go for it!

What resources do you use to finish up a year and to begin a new year?  Do you have any traditions you use at this time of year?  Are resolutions/intentions things that you set for yourself yearly, monthly, weekly?  Do you have a word for the year?  If so, you don’t have to share it here, especially if it’s personal, but I’m curious if others go through the year choosing a word to help them move through the year.

Happy New Year!

2017 Planners

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I’ve been evaluating my current planners after a chat with a friend, and trying to figure out what I’m going to do for next year.

I have four options in the mix that I can choose from:

  1. Passion Planner
  2. Day Designer Planner
  3. Kate Spade Planner/Filofax Ring Binder
  4. Desire Map Planner

But which of these planners do I want to use for the end of the year and next year?

I started by breaking down what type of planner I like.  These are the things I’ve learned over the evaluating different planners in 2016:

  • Weekly planners rather than daily planners – daily planners is too much overhead given the craziness of the week
  • 2 page view of the month before the weekly views – to view the month at a glance, one page isn’t enough space
  • 2 page view of the week – to have enough space to map out my week because one page doesn’t seem like enough space
  • Time for the weekday broken down into 30 minute blocks – most of my meetings during the week are usually scheduled in 30 minute increments.
  • Pre-printed with the date to minimize the amount of time I need to set up my week.  If it’s too much work, I won’t use it.
  • A place for my Most Important Task for the day, and weekly To Dos, ideally with a section for personal and work, because they are both important
  • A place for tracking habits
  • A clear separation of the work day from the evening, so I can remind myself to unplug and make time to take care of myself as well – make dinner, exercise, rest, recover, read, etc.
  • Portable – anything larger than 5.5″ x 8.5″ is too big for me to carry around

I think I’m going to start with the Passion Planner and the Desire Map Planner and go from there.  And of course, like everything else, I had intended to post this before the end of the year, and it’s January already!

What tools will you be using in the new year?  Are you predisposed to analog or digital planning options?  Which tools have you had success with in the past?

Day Designer Planners Update

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It’s time for a small update on my Day Designer Planners.

I’ve officially retired the small planner.  I didn’t like the content available in it.  Even though it was compact and easy to carry around, I like the bigger planner better because it had the weekly to do list on the left hand page.  The passion planner I have is the same size as the small planner and offers a layout that fits my preferences better.

I’m still not 100% sure I like the large planner either.  I really miss having my blocks of time during the day broken out in 1/2 hour increments like the Passion Planner does.  I do however like how there is an intentional “tonight” section which helps me separate my work day from my personal time in the evening.  It’s like a little reminder to stop and make time for myself to have dinner, read, do something with friends, etc.

At the moment, I’m thinking I’ll keep planning in both the larger planner and my passion planner, but the larger planner will stay at home.  It’s pretty, and it’s fun, and it helps me make sure I’ve got a running to do list for the week to pick from when I’m selecting my most important task to do each day.