iView MediaPro 3.1.1

iView MediaPro is the professional photographers 21st Century digital light box. It can handle most, if not all, of your editing, annotating, presentation, publishing and cataloging needs.

It includes powerful slide show presentations, custom annotation fields, support for digital camera raw formats and compatibility with over 130 file formats, including images, audio, video, fonts, illustrations, DTP, HTML and digital camera RAW files (such as DNG, Nikon NEF, Canon CR2, and Kodak DCR)

New Vocabulary Editor
The iView Vocabulary Editor feature was introduced in version 3 of iView, however it's taken me a while to figure out how to really use this feature. It's not based on a hiearchy of broader to narrower terms like I'm used to, so required a bit more work. iView's format requires that all related terms be written out into a single line and separated by commas. Before releasing version 3, I came up with a version that works with iView's Vocabulary editors and that is now available for anyone wanting to use the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog with iView.

A Brief List of Features
I became familiar with iView Media Pro first as a Mac only application. I quickly found it invaluable as a "digital light box" for editing the results of a shoot. Since 2004 it's been available in both Mac and Windows version, and in 2005 both versions were made compatible with XMP metadata, including IPTC Core. Now it's the first program my digital files see after being downloaded to my computer as it allows me to:

Compliant with XMP / IPTC Metadata Standards
Any files that already have EXIF or IPTC/XMP metadata embedded in the file will be automatically transferred to the iView Media Pro database for easy access. Any annotations you create in iView Media Pro can be "pushed out" (synchronized in iView lingo) with the original TIFF, PSD or Jpeg file as well as some RAW formats, including the new Adobe DNG (digital negative) format.

Find Feature Requires Some "User Adjustment"
About the only complaint I have with iView Media and iView Media Pro is the "advanced find" feature. The simple "find" located in the upper right hand of iView Media Pro and the Free Catalog reader, works great for simple one word searches if you don't care where that data resides. If you are using the advanced find (using Control + F [win] or Command + F [mac]) and are looking to find one of your many digital images by it's exact file name, then you are in business... as that's the default.

If you wish to only find images from Paris, France, then you'll have to use the "advanced find" and configure your query in the Find dialog. If you pass catalogs on to your clients and they intend to do some advanced searching, be prepared to spend a few minutes showing them how to adjust the default find features so that they will have success in finding your files. In a nut shell, you'll want to instruct them to change the find dialog to search for terms that are "contained" in the the "caption" field OR the "keywords" field, (or country or country code, etc.) and to have the results set to "show all" (which is iView lingo to "show only those files that match the search criteria"). "Select All" does select the files, but only by putting a thin ruled box around each image that meets the criteria, and leaving all of the rest of the images visible.

Free Fully Functioning Demo
There is a free trial download of a fully functional version of iView Mediapro. It's only good for limited time (21 days at present), so be sure to download and give it a test drive when you have some time to evaluate.

iView Media Pro is compatible with Mac OS 9.1, OSX, as well as Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP.

*DISCLAIMER: The decision to download any of the programs mentioned on this site is up to you; we can not be responsible for the use, functionality, appearance, or management of the actual applications so your mileage may vary, please backup your system and only work on copies of files until you are assured of proper performance. Contact the appropriate authorities with any questions.

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