Daminion Reviews

We created our own custom tag tree and the ability to search by these categories have made our salespeople head and shoulders over the competition . Our designing department can show a potential client exactly what is available in seconds! And because the tags stay with the file, we can transfer files to other computers. We often are in areas without internet so the stand alone program is PERFECT for us!

Sometimes, I want to delete a picture after getting a better picture of the same subject. Daminion will 95 percent of the time delete the picture. But about 5 percent of these pictures will not delete. We cannot get them out of the catalog or out of the folder.

Save your catalogs safely away from any new work. There are buttons you can push that will set your back MONTHS! So as you progress, save that catalog and its picture folders where a mistake doesn't destroy your work. For instance, I always have the same catalog and folder on two seperate computers, so if I "blow" up the one I am working on, I can retrieve a good copy from the other computer.

Very portable sales tool showing designs, colors, shapes, everything! Small laptop and you are ready! Also working with clients on via email, I can quickly find an example on Daminion that I can send a image of.

The thing that I like best about Daminion is it's ability to batch write tags and other vital information directly into a file i.e. meta-data etc.

The only thing that I dislike about Daminion is that you have to create a catalog in order to process any of your images. I would love to just be able to do it on the fly since I am writing the information into the file itself. I don't have a need for a separate catalog to store the information as a backup.

Give the product a try if you're interesting in writing meta-data directly to your photographs in bulk.

The business problem that I solved using Daminion is that able to get my work done faster so I'm able to get product to my clients sooner giving me the ability to move on to the next project as quickly as possible.

Daminion only restrict the numbers of item in your catalog, but at 15,000 that will be enough for most people. Upgrading your license will increase the maximum, or you can create another Catalog database instead. Aside from that their Filtering and Tagging system is much better than what other software have to offer.

The weakness of Daminion is it slowly becoming what some people hate, the move into the "cloud". Ever since the creation of Daminion Server, the plan is in place to make the offline standalone version obsolete in the near future. Eventually stop updating the Standalone version all together (hopefully that is not the case).

If you need Photo Editing then Daminion might be very weak in that aspect, Lightroom probably the one to go. However, Daminion management is triumph. If you need to go Reverse searches or image searches, digiKAM have this beauty feature that maybe few more years time before Daminion have it, but thanks to Daminion tagging and filtering system you can find what you looking for.

Daminion providing a possible to filter, tag and manage a large collection of file, mainly it purpose is Photo (DAM), but unlike a commercial software such as Adobe Lightroom, file type is not restricted. You can pretty much have Daminion import any filetypes.

Daminion very flexible:

[1] allows to import all sorts of files: text files (like PDF), pictures, sound bits, movies... and retrieve them selecting whatever search option is convenient: import date, file type, keywords (tags)...

[2] a number of preset tags are useful, but Daminion allows user-defined tags too, which is helpful, in my case, to search e.g. for key topics, historical events, and animal species.

[3] support is very good: very responsive and helpful suggestions. I really appreciate the good communication. You're communicating with a human, not a system.

[4] it's small: the catalogue is just an 'umbrella', a file that remains fairly small (Mb's) and I can still access the files through a File Explorer. Daminion does not modify the original files.

The're only one small thing I do not like: Daminion automatically imports tags that may be assigned to e.g. a PDF, like search keywords or author names. These tags 'pollute' the key structure that I have setup in Daminion, so I need to manually search for them to delete them.

For the rest, I have a few small things on my wish-list: [a] password-protected catalogs and [b] the possibility to search for keywords that have 'zero' documents assigned (e.g. that are not used and can be deleted. This would allow me to clean up the keyword structure as sometimes keywords are accidentally or incorrectly entered and not used.

Trying it is for free (up to many records), so there's nothing really that prevents you from using the product.

I work as a polar guide. Previously I kept all my files in a folder structure. But the overlaying structure that Daminion offers, allows me to access all these files in many different ways. Say: a scientific paper on "winter dispersion of Wandering Albatrosses of South Georgia" can now be retrieved by searching for author, bird species, non-breeding, migration, and through a lot of other search options.

My polar guide works somewhat overlaps with my other freelance job as a photographer. I do not use Daminion for photo editing and cataloging, I've been using Lightroom before I started using Daminion. In theory both products somewhat overlap, but in practice I find they both do what they're best at, and for my work there's no real overlap.

I need a software capable of:

1. writing metadata to images as to sidecars xml files

2. operating with a locally database under Windows

3. managing at least 20000 images, from a PC

4. creating a set of hierarchical keywords

5. tagging with these hierarchical keywords

6. applying pre-defined copyright text to images

7. applying star-ratings to images compatible with NEF files

8. allowing images to be found by searching on using multiple tags

9. I need a user-friendly DAM

The thing that i most dislike is the way "~Thumbs folder" is organized. All the thumbnail are grouped under folsders and subfolders. It is very slow to backup with all those subfolders. I think that a SQL databese for these thumbnails would be faster to back up.

I tested many other softwares (ACDSee Pro, Daminion, DigiKam, Photo Supreme, iMatch and Phase One Media) over a period of almost one year. I compared each software with my needs which are listed in the previous section. Daminion responded to all of them. Then I tested Daminion thoroughly. After using it for two months, I decided to replace Microsoft Expression Media. I think Daminion is an excellent choice for those who need a DAM this is robust. Also Daminion offer a very good support

I use it to manage all the screeenshots I need to document problems I resolved on my customers PC's.

has a quick tool for the search of digital assets of different companies besides this is very useful because the software works quickly and pertime that the platform gets everything we are looking for

In spite of being a quick and easily accessible tool, it is difficult to learn to use, it should be or have an initiation phase since at the beginning it is very difficult for someone new to start using this program.

They should improve as I said before their program so that new people can use it at the beginning in an easy way and they can access all their tools and thus they will be able to expand their sales to all types of public and not to a specific type of public, if You can do this I'm sure your sales will increase.

allows easy access to digital assets of entrepreneurs or companies thanks to its software, this helps potential customers find the product they are looking for

1,Daminion allows us customize tags completely. 2. We can search by using and , or and a combination of exclusion and inclusion, love that! 3. Work pretty well with large databases. Finally the metadatt stays with the files, so we can work on the catalog on one computer and transfer the files to another computer. We are out in the "wild west', ie Nebraska and oftern our clients do not have internet and we must carry a laptop with the stand alone catalog. Therefore it is essential that the files and the catalog transfer easily

The difference in language has caused some issues for sure. We are talking one thing and we believe that often they are hearing something else through their translation program. The program does lose files every once in while. That is for no reason you will have a "broken chain' note which means it can't find the file. For that reason we do backups ALL the time, Losing data is a very real possibility with Dominion. And there are few commands that should not be on the program. Commands like Optimize just literally destroys the catalog. Again another reason to do backups!!!

Daminion should consider helping us stand alone folks a bit more. We are willing to pay for our stand alone program, but we don't need the network program which seems to take most of their time. RIght now the stand alone is free and we feel a bit like red headed step children. Maybe have 3 choices. Free standalone, a lower cost standalone and then the monster network for the companies on the net.

We design and manufacture cemetery memorials. We don't do just standard items. The client is treated to a huge array of shapes, designs and colors. This program carries all our photos and we can pull up the pictures to satisfy every possible question. This program on a little laptop has taken the place of 100 hardbound sales catalogs .

I have found over some years that it serves all my needs for tagging and keywording, as my photo/video collection has grown it still holds true. For me the stand alone version is important, as I do not always have internet or mobile access. Have tried the keyword/tagging in a variety of photo software, ie Lightroom, ZonerPhoto, Elements etc, they are OK but lack the strength of Daminion.

Nothing really, it works for me, that said of course it will not work for all, but I am happy.

Like most things you have to try it first, if it meets 75% of your needs then go for it. I find it intuitive to use and nice and simple to use.

In my case it has stopped me loosing valuable photos/videos, and finding them so much easier.

Other photo organizing programs make you sit through some serious lag time when you tag one or more photos. Daminion doesn't. The stars pretty much pop right up! Creating tags is easy, and they can be copied from catalog to catalog. There's some autofilling with tags that also speeds things up. Take heart, have hope: with Daminion, you will probably be able to tame your photo folders!

I don't like that I can't assign star ratings simply by tapping a number key, without holding down the Ctrl key: It's too far to stretch my fingers!!

Note that I'm writing this review, truthfully, in response to a prompt saying this will lift the 15,000 pictures/catalog limitation.

I'm in the business of pleasing my friends. (Does that make me a politician?) I take too many photos, and Daminion helps me distill out a few highlights to send or show. Or post to fb. :-)

Easiness of importing photos and assigning tags, great tag controlling features and reverse GPS locating features. Tremendous online and e-mail ! support! ! ! Never've seen something like that. When aksing something you get an answer by e-mail immediately - and it is always helpful and a solution to the point you asked.

Sorry, Daminion is great as it is.

Not really neccessary - but if anything, some basic picture improvement features would be nice. Maybe some minor improvements of user interface design (for example exporting pictures and assigning tags ist hidden in "transform"-pulldown in the export-dialogue - would have 'never' found that without help)

Best support ever and and very friendly too (!) - improvements are considered for coming update if your question leads to the point that the software maybe needs some minor improvements in a specific detail. Very very intuitive to use, nice interface. Wonderful GPS tool for pictures and all documents which daminon is able to import. Full featured test-version (limitation to 15.000! documents), nice blog-site.

Gathering and tagging photos and connected digital documents (pdf...) Daminion is very intuitive and easy to use. The interface of the software is great and meets features we were looking for. We have just tested the software for several weeks and will buy it.

excellent platform for creative users who are looking for a database for their photographs or looking for something new, it has very good elements and tools that make this something incredible and simple

It is somewhat complex and difficult to understand the operation of your platform the first time you use it, but still remains a good ally for users who start in this area either for work or just for fun

If you are looking for a platform with a large database, this is your best option, very easy to use, simple and easily accessible for all users.

Its large database was very helpful to complement my projects with other programs and thus offer my clients quality and very good jobs that meet the expectations and achieve the objectives

excellent product that works in my point of view as the only real tool for cataloging digital media, I find it very easy to use, very fast and flexible

does not have the ability to edit photos, however it is a great piece of software, you can locate several photos quickly and effectively

that dare to use it, it is very simple and complete to do the work, I really like the philosophy and simplicity of Daminion without unnecessary particularities, I think that one day it will be a standard

is a management tool for digital image assets, without a doubt a good program that facilitates the work of us graphic designers, will give much to talk about in the future because it is an excellent software

- As a graphic designer, I own and use a lot of digital assets (> 100000). I store everything in an external hard disk. The best feature that is very helpful for me is that the thumbnails are available even if the external hard disk is offline. It helps if I need to check/refer something quickly while traveling without the HD.

- Nested category is top notch. I don't have to rely on folders anymore.

- No monthly subscriptions

- Filter / Search / tag function is awesome.

- Speed of import - First time I set it up, I had to import a lot of images, it worked flawlessly. It didn't hang my computer like some other DAMs that I tried before.

- Did I say there is no monthly subscription :-)

Versioning - I tried this function prior to v5 for my Photoshop files, however it didn't work well.

Performance - Sometimes a bit slow to load. This could be because of the size of the catalogs.

I highly recommend this product. There is no harm in trying it out - There is a free version available with 15000 image limit which is a lot. Best thing is there is no monthly subscription fee.

As a graphic designer, I own and use a lot of digital assets (> 100000). Daminion helps me keep my repository very neat and clean. It helps me find the images / psd files very quickly thanks to excellent filter and tagging function.

Speed. Importing 100 images (22 megapixel RAW) with previews takes 30 seconds (timed with stopwatch function on phone). I’ve got approximately 100,000 files in a single catalog. Searching to find a specific file is really quick.

I maintain a hierarchical set of keywords. If I bring in an image already keyworded with a word outside of my keyword set, Daminion keeps that keyword in the image and puts it into my keyword list – but both places have that keyword highlighted in purple making it really obvious that there is a mistake I need to correct. The keyword can either be deleted or accepted and moved to a new spot in the hierarchy.

Keywords can be grouped to keep everything in a clean, neat order. The group names are just for convenience and not part of the hierarchy that is exported with your images.

It understands synonyms, several of the software packages I tried out when switching from Lightroom didn’t.

Star ratings include half stars; for a total of 11 rating possibilities from 0 to 5. While I’m not currently using this option, it might be useful for you. Color tags can be renamed, so you don’t need to remember that purple, for example, means you already posted that image to a web gallery or sent it to a stock agency.

It can actually find duplicates by comparing pixels instead of just by file name. While I am careful with photos from my camera, I often find myself with multiple copies of phone photos. This really makes for a faster cleanup. It is just close, however, so that very similar images can show as duplicates. But Daminion doesn’t actually delete them, just finds them and puts them adjacent to each other. I can change the information displayed to show file name and folder location and can easily and quickly see which photographs should be deleted.

Another reviewer complained that when displaying file folder names above the thumbnails only the actual folder was shown, not the entire path. However, it is much easier for me to have only the actual folder, not the path. I use a folder hierarchy that makes sense without the entire path and I appreciate Daminion’s cleaner look.

Items can be linked, so a raw image that has been exported as a small jpg for the web can be linked to the original file, making it easy to keep track of different variations of the same image.

Radio buttons next to folders, keywords, collections, etc. all let you easily filter items with a couple of clicks rather than typing out search words. Control-click on more than 1 radio button will show items in, for example, 2 or more keywords. A click on a keyword will show all images with that keyword AND in the hierarchy below it. Shift-click, Alt-click and Alt-Shift-click will all show varying combinations of including or eliminating items containing various keywords. This is really useful for quickly seeing which items need additional keywords or need to be moved to a different folder.

A search box in the top bar allows for rapid search on any metadata; you can type in “and” or “or.” There is also an Advanced Search box which permits more complex searches which can be saved.

Daminion has help pages on their website and a few videos on YouTube. Although some of the YouTube videos are for an earlier version, they are still exceedingly helpful. They also have Live Chat available with someone available for chat in a couple of different time blocks so that it will be available during the day regardless of your location. If you leave a message, you can expect a quick reply.

Daminion can import a large number of file types in addition to images. A feature I’m not using is the ability to add unsupported file formats to the catalog. They can’t be previewed, but there is the ability to create your own thumbnail graphic to be shown with that file type. This could be useful if you are using Daminion to track a variety of resources for a project.

IPTC fields for Contact Information Details (address, email, phone, URL, etc.) aren’t available in Daminion. While this isn’t really necessary in my catalog for my own use, I need that embedded into files that I export and send to someone else or put online.

Information is displayed both above and below the thumbnails; there are lots of options for which information is shown. Since it is helpful to have different information shown depending on what I’m doing, it would be nice if it could be saved so I could switch back and forth with a single click. But as is, it is still easy to switch.

Try it. There is a free version with a 15,000 image limit with the ability to purchase a license for a standalone version with no file limit.

I started with a 7-day trial of the server version for a single user. The server version is faster (taking their word for it, I didn’t try the standalone). Once I got over the unusual idea of running a server version (I’m a free-lance photographer working on a single computer), it was simple to use. It doesn’t feel any different than other software on my computer.

No monthly subscription fees. I wish I had switched to Daminion sooner.

Faster everything. I can spend less time working on my catalog. Although I had been assigning keywords with Lightroom using the exact same hierarchy, my speed assigning them is noticeably faster using Daminion on the same computer (so no differences in CPU speed, RAM, etc.). It’s also helped me find a few duplicated images that I had missed on a manual search – cleaning up hard drive space and just making things more organized.

- Daminion offers many ways to organize your data (tags, rating, location, ...)

- It has a great User Interface and is easy to use.

- The search function is very good.

- It works fast even with lots of photos and a large database.

- Good support and a forum

- The 15.000 pictures limit in the "free" version is way too low.

- It seems that Daminion is now more focusing on the Server/Web version.

I have tested many other DAM software products over the years and Daminion was the one I liked most.

I use Daminion to organize my photo and video collection. Daminion helps me a lot to find photo/video files.

Daminion offers just a crazy number of functions and at the same time its interface is very convenient and intuitive. You can add keywords (with a hierarchy), categories, events, evaluations; classify photos by color labels, flags, etc. You can group photos, bind one to another and, of course, perform any "mass operations". Daminion has an incredibly flexible filtration and search system: you can not only include several keywords (or categories, or color categories, just anything!) in the output, but also exclude them, plus you can save search queries and apply them as required. Moreover, you can add parameters from EXIF to filters and filter by them, which is very handy!

Daminion supports all possible kinds of tags (and works with them very carefully!) and file formats.

Daminion offers very clear and customizable interface alongside just a vast functionality. It is very important for me that almost every action can be performed using hotkeys, it speeds things up greatly.

I just can't imagine, what can be cooler than Daminion!

Daminion is almost perfect, but for me it lacks a couple of features:

- Search by faces. I'm planning to use Daminion to further organize collections of my private photos and such function would be extremely useful in this case.

- In my opinion, Daminion searches for duplicate photos not good enough; in my collection there are many identical photos of different quality, it would be great if Daminion could identify them and propose to save in the collection only those that have higher resolution. Now Daminion finds duplicates not perfectly.

- Some functions in Daminion are not obvious. For instance, it took me a long time to understand how I can physically delete a photo from a medium or collection. Now I know that I can press "Delete from collection", and in the appeared dialog check "Delete from disc". I was looking for a function of physical deletion of photos from a disc for a long time and even used such method: moved a photo to a certain folder, and than deleted files from that folder using Windows.

- I'd like to have an entirely full-screen preview feature, when only a picture is displayed and nothing else (no name, no scale, no any panel)

- I've got some comments to the interface: in the thumbnail view, I think, the space could be used a bit more efficiently: more saving fonts and line arrangement, thinner thumbnail borders, arrangement of thumbnail icons could be more thought-out, there is too much unused space, I think.

- Daminion provides a great function to group photos, but in my view it could be even more convenient if one could easily arrange groups of photos in the sorting, for instance, groups in the beginning, and not sorted photos after them.

I use Daminion only for my personal advantage. I've got a rather big collection of regional historical photos of my native city from 1860s to 1990s. It is rather difficult to navigate in 5000 photos without being capable to add descriptions to them. Daminion solves this issue for me. In Daminion I mark every important aspect of these or that photo: street, peculiar building, various elements of the city environment, events reflected in the photo, approximate shooting date, author, source of the photo - I put all this information in tags and it allows me to filter photos in an incredibly flexible and easy manner. For example, I can observe evolution (and sometimes degradation) of benches in a city park, or trace how the face of this or that building was changing over time, or see how city fests were held on this or that square in different epochs. A very flexible and easy-to-use photo tagging and filtration system has converted my collection in a true photo encyclopedia of my city!

Daminon allows me to find the photos I'm looking for quickly and with relative ease. As I import, it allows me to specify metadata that is true of all the photos & after importing adding the extra information for each picture is straightforward with their properties interface. I like the workflow & truly appreciate being able to click a few boxes to narrow down photos to the ones I'm trying to find.

I also like that that it can (but doesn't have to) automatically synchronize catalog metadata into the file's metadata. I appreciate knowing that most of m

There is no cross-catalog searching. I use a version of Daminon which limits the number of photos in a catalog (a limit which could be removed by upgrading). So, I have to organize my catalogs with care.

The stand-alone version works well and seems stable. I don't know how well it works for it's primary use case: small teams. I've not needed to use it in a server environment.

I have not yet used this for business purposes. It is possible that this will become the repository for photos for church events. If that happens, the ability to search by event, date, person, and any other keyword will be invaluable for gathering photos needed for scrolling slideshows @ church celebration and funerals. It would, at that time, also be a great resource for extra photos in the church directory and promotional flyers.

Daminion is easy to use and offers plenty of customization options, far beyond most other commercial DAM solutions. Excellent performance, even with large databases, and powerful search features. Unbelievably powerful for a free tool -- professionally designed an stable, fast, with a range of features. Highly recommended, and thanks to the free option, there's no reason not to try it.

The interface is robust once you get used to it, and then it's easy to tag and manage media however you like. Thanks to the custom-tag features, you're free to create a metadata scheme that suits your needs.

It's also fast -- even with several hundred files, the search and overall performance are speedy and responsive.

Interface takes getting used to, for those familiar with Adobe products; needs more comprehensive documentation.

There's a very powerful free version. If you're not sure, give it a try! At worst you won't like it, and at best you'll find something you use constantly.

Sort/manage constantly changing and growing media library, including images, video, and animations. I wanted granular control over metadata and organization, which Daminion allows. Its speed and tabbed browsing make it easy to use, and it integrates well with image editors.

Daminon enables me to discover the photographs I'm searching, and I can do it rapidly and without any difficulty. It enables me to indicate metadata that is valid for all the photographs and is including the additional data for each. I like the work process and the capacity to click a couple of boxes to limit photographs to the ones I want to discover.

I don’t like the file export function and when I want to do a search for an image I saw that there is no list available for my results so I need to arrange my lists in mind.

Do think about changing to Daminion for computerized picture administration. Has all the important highlights when contrasted with business programs.

I used Daminion for my own utilization and business use, as a picture list utility. When I utilize the suitable classes to label my pictures with, I am ready to pinpoint any picture very quick. The component of looking through the pictures with characteristics, for example, determination, photograph adapt, introduction is a great feature.

Being a commercial photographer I have an enormous database of images that have to be cataloged and easily tracked down when they are needed. I started using Extensis Portfolio for this purpose in the '90's. I always bought the upgraded versions and felt it got the job done... that is until I tried Daminion. Loading images into Daminion is much quicker, the previews can be displayed in different type layouts and the size of the enlarged previews, absolutely blows away anything Extensis Portfolio was capable of. I also compared Daminion to other DAM offerings and found migrating to it was easier and offers many advantages (ie. no monthly/annual fees, support has been super responsive with all questions and quite frankly, easier to start using).

It seems most of their video tutorials are based off of the server version, while my needs found a better balance with opting for the stand-alone version. Many features in the software can be figured out with a little playing around and patience, but some video tutorials would be beneficial.

I compared this to a total of 4-other products on the market and found the software, support and ease of adaptation better than anything else out there.

Through the use of keywords, I can quickly locate images from any time period simply by searching using a customer name, job number, date or subject matter. This allows me to track down and verify it's what I need by viewing a large detailed preview and then seeing where the image has been archived.

As an enthusiast wildlife and nature photographer, i prefer taking pictures than computing and sorting them.

I was a long time user of Microsoft Expression Media 2, but the product was discontinued and became the somewhat pricy Media Pro. Recently i spent a long time testing many digital asset management software and to be honest I went on using Expression Media 2, until i discovered Daminion: a straight to the point and fully customisable user interface for a fast and full featured digit asset management solution, exactly what i had been desperately looking for. So far it has to deal with about 150k pictures and still works like a charm.

It only runs on Windows, so it has to be run through virtualization on Linux and Mac OS. Importing pictures may be a little bit faster, but Daminion is obviously computer resources respectful: CPU is well spread among all available cores and threads, RAM consumption is pretty well controlled and disks (pictures hosting / catalog hosting) are not put down on their knees.

Test, compare and enjoy: Daminion offers at least as much as any other for great performance and reasonnable price.

On this test machine:

- i7-4770 8 threads CPU

- 32GB RAM

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

- Crucial M550 256GB SSD for catalogs

- Toshiba 3TB SATA3 7200 tr/min for pictures hosting

- Windows 10 x64 insiders build 14986 (december 2016)

importing pictures (so far the most resources consumming processing) consumes up to:

- 12% CPU

- 70MB RAM

- no noticeable disk activity

Managing hundred thousands pictures can really be a pain and be learned the hard way. Daminon really helps me focus on my activity and get the most out of my time.

Daminion gives me a fine nuanced possibiity to build a digital Archive for my DSLM-Images. Tag-trees can be arranged and created just to my needs. GPS-tagging ist made easy by the integrated Google-Map. With the fine Details of filtering and the usage of flags it's only up to me to get the correct structure even with thousands of files.

Up to this Moment, I don't have any concerns. Very few times the Software crashes (but that could be a Problem with my aged PC).

Try it out and give Daminion an Chance - it grows with the daily use. At the Moment I use it in combination with the Lightroom DAM and I experience that both fit my Needs perfectly. Even with the restriction on 15k files (photographs in my case) it is easy to use, has a bunch of Features which I don't use totally, but it helps a lot to remain a System of order and overview. The ability to customize either the Panels and the workflow makes it a breeze to use. I spotted a Little slowdown when heading to the Limit of 15k files (in the free licence), but with an midrange PC System it is not frustrating at all. But there is a room for future improvement certainly. And if there is a question that rises up, the customer Support is amazing.

Filing, sorting and tagging my private and business-DSLM-Files.

Daminion is a very good way to find and file all the pictures I have made and collected.

I am not all to certain that changes are registered at a moment.

A vast collection of pictures very good archived and rather easy to find and search on many terms.

I started a research on the disaster on the Damsquare in Amsterdam/ Holland in 2012. Historical a blind spot in The Netherlands. The foundation is even in 2018 still researching photographic material from several archives and individual conributors.

As a small one man photo business with nearly 50 years worth of photographs Daminion is the best cataloguing programme I have ever used. And I've tried them all from iView Media Pro, ACDSee, Lightroom, PhoTools, Phase One and Media Pro. Not one is able to match the simplicity and speed of Daminion Pro.

It would be nice if there was a method of autocompleting words in captions similar to the system used in PhotoMechanic.

The volume of pictures that it will handle and its ease of use. Also its ability to handle non-picture files such as PDFs and other document files.

Managing a colossal image collection that goes back to the early seventies.

The best feature I feel is the nested category management. I have used many free photo catalog management programs, but nothing to beat the convenience of Daminion. Earlier I was using directories to store various categories. Cumbersome at best and problematic because of redundant image copies. I use Gimp for my image post processing and am able to export my raw images to Gimp from Daminion. Very convenient workflow.

Another great feature is the thumbnail view, which does not need my external drive with my image files, connected. Great way to show someone the preview of the images.

The file export mechanism can be little better. It takes a while for a new user to understand the way it works. It took me few trials to export the images in different jpg resolutions as well as tiff files.

Additionally, the process to search the images with boolean logic (and, or, not ) though powerful is not very intuitive. It will help the users if the documentation is improved.

Do consider switching to Daminion for digital image management. Has all the necessary features as compared to commercial programs costing $$$!

I use it for my personal use as a image catalog utility. Once I use the appropriate categories to tag my images with, I am able to pinpoint any image quite fast. The feature of searching the images with attributes such as resolution, photo gear, orientation is also very useful.

Что нравиться в программе daminion так это её уникальная способность создавать и работать с иерархическими тегами (быстро, удобно...). А так же неоспоримым плюсом программы является то, что она может записывать теги внутрь EXIF, а не только в свою базу. Ещё один плюс программы который очень помогает в работе с базой при переходе с одного компьютера на другой - относительные пути к изображениям в каталоге. На мой взгляд очень удобно реализована логика И, ИЛИ, НЕТ. Очень нравиться, то что разработчики не пошли по пути некоторых фирм производителей просмоторщиков / каталогизаторов изображений и сделали строгий интерфейс программы.

Что не нравиться в программе та это не быстрый импорт изображений и медленная запись тегов в exif файла. Хотя с этим можно мериться (делается разово и можно делать в фоновом режиме). Вот что реально пока не устраивает (надеюсь исправиться в ближайших версиях) так это отсутствие возможности подсветки на изображении области с тегом человека (как в picasa), а ещё лучше если бы сразу внутри daminion было бы распознание лиц. Так же хотелось бы чтоб программа быстрее отображала картинки (хотя это не критично - есть возможность использовать для просмотра другие программы). Хотелось бы чтобы была возможность сохранять отдельным файлом и загружать историю запросов и сделать её так же иерархической. Хотелось бы расширить возможность работы с цветовыми метками (возможность менять цвет новых цветовых меток). Было бы не плохо если была возможность внутри программы искать похожие (именно похожие, а не одинаковые) файлы (изображения, документы).

На данный момент это лучший каталогизатор.

Программе практически нет конкурентов (в её простоте, удобстве и быстроте работы).

The ease of use of adding files and migrating from one place to the next. It doesn't mess with your file structure, but can still write meta into your originals.

Tagging with categories and people which is a must if you are in charge of an archive consisting of art works and historical photos. This also means that with one click I can find works by an artist, photos taken of him or at the openings of his exhibitions and also works by other artists depicting him. And if there are too many items, I can switch out categories or do a very specific search.

Exporting files with ease and in an appropriate format. Also contact sheet and CSV export.

The speed of the full screen view of large files (over 100mb tif-s) could be improved.

Other than that: Over the years that I have been using the product at our museum all the requests for additional functionality or bug reports have been answered and implemented with amazing speed!

The ease of use of Daminion compared to many of similar and older products is considerable. It manages to avoid much of the convoluted logic present in the top of the line products while offering considerably more options than the lower priced or free options.

I am representing an art institution that has been using Daminion to organize its collection of art works and photographic archives. Since this all happens in the same program, the collections themselves and the people they represent can be viewed from new angles and new connections can be made.

1. clarity of functions, easy to get the hang of it, because every function is implemented in a clear straight forward way. The instructions are clear, so you know what you are doing from the start.

2. You can have as many catalogues as you want, you can move or copy images between open catalogues, which is one of the many nice features I enjoy.

3. I also keep a catalog for my books and musical items, Ireally I use it for everything.

3. I also like it that you can get the free version with a generous 15000 images per catalog.

4. Please try Daminion for yourself to discover the many brilliant features which makes it equally suitable for an amateur photographer and for professionals who look for a set of professional media managing tool.

Nothing really. Since I am asked: maybe a different (dark) interface style to switch to would be nice.

With the generous allowance of 15000 images/items per catalog you could give it a try and really test all the features! --You won't look back!

Daminion gives me a chance to get a structure into my various media collections, and it does that in a most efficient way (without being a complicated piece of software, but a nice one). Am very pleased with it, have already recommended it to friends and family.

One of the highlights for me of using Daminion has been the tagging and indexed searching, I have thoroughly enjoyed marking my imported photos with multiple categorical tags while naming them using custom naming patterns - after which I have the ability to toggle or filter the tags or multiple tags as well as search on any part of the name or the file's metadata. Another highlight has been the support - I have followed the development of Daminion since its 1.0 version and have provided feedback with glitches, enhancement requests, or just plain asked how to do something: They have always replied and tried their best to provide a solution to my request whether fixing something right away and offering a newly compiled version to test or remoting to my workstation in order to experience the reported error. Truly a top notch approach to advancing their product and retaining customers (I do hope that never changes)

It may not be as easy for a user to figure out how to do something complex within Daminion like rename and move a set of files while retaining a partial part of the existing file name convention or uniqueness in the names - things like that. Also, I actually use this for personal use and my family is 7 of us but there is no Home license for more than 2 users nor does it have the ability to access restrict by user roles (ie. provide my children unique access while keeping them from being able to delete important photos). It is a more advanced area I'd like to move into but the opportunity is not provided (and I certainly cannot afford the team version for my family)

Give it a try, I did and I have liked it.

For personal use, I used to just have photos in cascading folders named in a way I could somewhat go search for something if I remember when it took place and what the name I gave the collection - It could take some time to find anything at all. Now I can always find what I want when I want it within Daminion.

I was trying to find tool to organaize my documents for so long and tried so many of them. Daminion is really the best! Because it have:

- Very powerfull software.

- Very friendly interface,

- Abbility to add a lot of types of documents.

- Abbility to edit metadata an creat my own tags.

- it have free version what is still good for personal user (even if it have 15 000 files limit).

- I love idea of server version. But unfortunatelly my company do not use this software right now. I hope this will change soon.

Price.

All documents and tutorials that i could find are only in english.

we have a lot of documents (video, doc files, pdf files) on my PC and i found that daminion is very good to organize all of them.

It provides a complete photo management application including video. All tags are available and visible when browsing images. It also provides a very flexible editing of tags. The configuration of the application is very comprehensive. I started using this software because of its ability to version images, but so far I've not used this much

I have to manually have it find new photos. I would like to tell it to watch folders for new photos. It would be nice if it could import Picasa's simple versioning capability.

If you need a image management solution to organize your media assets, this is a good choice.

I'm using it for personal image management and not for any business

As a former software developer I appreciate the sound database design of Daminion 4.5.

For instance: it not only shows you the keyworded images, but also -without an queriing- shows the images that are not keyworded yet.

It accepts all media formats that I throw at it and it helps me to organize and find back my images.

Daminion 4.5 has a clear, straight-formward interface that more or less explains itself.

I use Capture One and DXO as my raw converters. It would be great if adjustments in these packages would be reflected in Daminion (to some degree that is; it is impossible to regenerate the whole workflowand all of the adjustments made in these packages, but crops etc should be achievable).

In 4.5 I used the beta versions. At the time they had some stability issues, that were eliminated in the final release.

Daminion is a full featured DAM that can organize your images.

Up to 15000 images the stand-alone version is free.

The recent release of version 4.5 shows the active development of this software.

I have a database of 26k images. The problem ius finding back your images in such a massive amount. I photograph as a volunteer at the zoo in Amersfoort, Netherlands. Sometimes communication staff from the zoo are looking for certain images, and they mail me to find them. I can pull these image with little effort thanks to the structured keywording and other annotations that I use in daminion.

I like the version control, i.e. the possibility to check out an image, modify it with other software, check in the new version while the original(s) can still be accessed, if needed. Quite smooth to open an image with an external program with a single keystroke (V = open, E = check out & edit).

Importing new images takes quite a long time compared to the product, I used previously.

Searching for and sub setting of pictures based on multiple criteria could be improved (again comparing to another product, I used before).

While the catalog files (.dmc) are quite small, the ~thumbs folder needs a huge storage capacity and contains a big number of sub folders and files.

Only the lowest level folder appears in Details View Mode: My images are stored in an hierarchical folder structure d:\My Photos\yyyy\mm\dd . Seeing only “06” in the folder column is not really helpful.

Only the location appears in the Place field Details View Mode: Similar to the folder field, only the lowest level of the place hierarchy shows up.

While the lens can be tag used search for images, some of my lenses show as "----" or "unknown". Unfortunately, that tag cannot be changed.

Start with the free version. There is a restriction of 15,000 items per catalog, but you can create more than one catalog.

My "business" is amateur photography by a retired IT specialist. While others spend hours to improve a single picture using digital graphic software, I prefer to make many photos and want to be able retrieve those easily in the future.

The extensive features and the ability to customise how the program is configured to suit your needs. The program is well thought out and logical. There is excellent support and a very active forum. The tags and metadata is portable, i.e. can be viewed in other programs. The search functions very powerful. Excellent value for the money. What I also like is that this product is young and is continuing to be developed with new features appearing regularly. Specific features I like is the ability to copy tags from one image and paste them to another group of images. The ability to drag photos onto the map to log the GPS co-ordinates.

I would rather the font size used for the menus and selections etc. was smaller.

Better tutorials and help documentation

Read the documentation thoroughly and understand the features.

Read the posts on the forum.

Take into account that the Daminion team are very committed

Plan your implementation well before starting.

It is used for private use.

Sehr gute Indexierungsmöglichkeiten nach entsprechender Einarbeitung.

Ausführliche Grundeingaben sind später sehr hilfreich.

Daminion hat eine sehr mächtige Suchfunktion, für die allerdings das Verständnis der Boolschen Algebra sinnvoll ist.

Insgesamt ein mächtiges Werkzeug, wenn man bereit ist, sich in die Gegebenheiten der Software einzuarbeiten.

Das Kartenfenster ist nicht optimal gelöst. Lokalisierung der Bilder teilweise schwierig. Automatische und manuelle Platzierungen vertragen sich nicht. Einfacher Wechsel zwischen Kartenfenster und Bildsammlung nur mit Maus möglich. Großes Fenster verdeckt die Bildsammlung.

Ich kann nur jedem empfehlen, sich Daminion anzuschauen und auszuprobieren.

Allerdings ist der volle Umfang erst nach einiger Einarbeitung ersichtlich.

Einfache Indexierungen führen aber auch schon am Anfang zu guten Erfolgen.

Für den privaten Gebrauch kostenlos, daher ein sehr gutes Preis-Leistungsverhältnis

Dozent in EDV-Ausbildung

Multiple ways of tagging and filtering make it easy to keep the overall view to all my photos. Adobe Lightroom compatibility is essential for me.

The referencing with Geo-coordinates and the integrated map-view help to place the tool as my allround-solution.

Easy import and export of all important file formats and raw file format support plus integration with external picture editing solutions are state of the art.

After all I decided to use Daminion as my main managing tool for photo database.

Compatibility between Adobe Lightroom tags and Daminion tags in the xmp-files could be a little bit better. Especially color marking of photos should be synchronised for different languages (e.g. green = grün, etc.).

First try out all the fesatures. It is very easy with the free edition.

I'm holding a midsize photo database and wanted to manage the tagging in a comfortable way. Daminion seems to be the tool for that task.

I was searching for a good and efficient, feature rich software to organize me 23.000 Fotos. In an CT Article I found an comparation of different Foto Archive SW and Daminion shoulds perfect to me. So I have tested it the last 2 month an was very impressed from the feature rich implementation, but still keep it simple to start quickly.

I started with an trial of an Stand Alone Version 4.1 (release some number below 1278) and faced some problems with the stability when upload images while eg. batch change tags or rotation. This was significate improved with the upgrade to 4.1 (release 1278). The Error handling seems improved and crashes where much seldom.

oveall I have to say that the performance of Daminion 4.1 is quit good, images are rotated fast, tags quickly assigned.

I love very much the richful filter options (automatic and with tags) and absolut love the drag-drop geotagging of my images.

when I reached the 10.000 in the import, as expected the free versions restrict me with asking every 10 new images to continues.

So I bought a new license for 25K, which cause some issue after already 13K images.

When contacting the support via chat, the help was amacing. The developer Murat explained me all and even more tricks and helped be immediately to get my system running without issue.

I am very happy with Daminion and don´t want to miss it again.

Thanks the deveopment to provide such good and economic product.

stability problems at the beginning, sometimes it crash at higher load also at 4.1 (1278)

For me, the rescan feature is not working, its pending for long time in the same number to update.

but thid is maybe an misinterpretation.

its a must !

please test it, it will offer you all you mostly need

I was able to get an efficient overlook over my foto collection (2004 - 2016) with more then 23K images

The version I tested and I focused on was the Server/Client, as I want a distributed media catalog. The client (once everything configured) is really powerful and polished product. I must admit that the applicaiton itself is a pleasure to use.

Unfortunately, the server version is a nightmare. Suposedly you are allowed to upload and download photos and share the catalog alog several computers, but it didn't work at the end. The server requires:

a) To use a shared folder that should be accessible directly by the clients, where the media is stored.

b) A postgresql database that is installed for you.

There are no clear instructions into how to circumvent these limitations. I would like the application to upload/download the media seamlesslyu without requiring direct access to the media from the computer you are accesing the network catalog.

Finally, I wanted to store the PostgreSQL into my own server, instead of the preinstalled version (as I have a home cluster of computers/servers) and it was almost impossible to make it to work. I finally did but the effort didn't paid off: the software is badly optmimised and it is really slow to work with it in this setup.

Check what are your requirements before testing it.

If you want an easy to use client, it is a good point. If you want it distributed but using the default Windows centric setup, go ahead.

If you want to mix you current systems (shared media folders, databases, other servers) with the current Client/Sever version, then it is really hard and you'll go through a really rough experience.

Media catalog, shared with support to go offline and work "on-the-go" seamlessly. Unfortunately, Daminion didn't provide this.

I must admit that Daminion is one of a kind: most other applications allow you to work locally or through web. This breaks things, as web versions of most other software are a pain to use.

I love having the ability to rate and then filter my photos. Once you come up with a system that works for you, it make finding photos and tracking your workflow very easy. For instance, when I cull my photos after a photo shoot, I rate the photos that I want to give a closer look with 3 starts. Once I decide a photo should be edited, I give it 4 stars. I can easily and quickly show only the photos that earned 4 stars. Once the editing is complete, I give it 5 stars. This makes it extremely easy to find my final edits Culling is simple because you can view photos as a thumbnail, but can enlarge any photo to full screen just by double-clicking on it. All exif data is displayed whether in thumbnail view or full screen view.

Rescanning my folders can take a few minutes, but that's to be expected. Overall, Daminion works exactly like I need it to work.

This software saves me a great deal of time when it comes to culling photos prior to editing. I use it to organize all of my photos and launch my editor directly from Daminion. Daminion serves as my primary software for managing my workflow. While culling my photos, I rate those that I want to edit and, when I'm ready, I can launch my editor directly from Daminion.

I like how intuitive the software is. Your catalogues can be as simple or complex as you need them to be. Over the last year since I started using the software, I've found the program to be an irreplaceable part of my arsenal of media management solutions. Their updates over the past year have been wonderful as well seeing as they've improved upon almost all of the features I had issues with before I could ever think to complain about them.

EDIT: The below issue below has been resolved with the recent introduction of version 5.0. Thanks, Daminion Team!

They have a tag preset feature that I've started to try to use a lot more lately. However, it has a glaring flaw in the fact that your presets will always be in the order that you made them, and the order cannot be adjusted after the fact. Compared to the rest of the program, which has largely satisfied all of my wants and needs in an efficient manner, this feature has been somewhat of a sore spot in my Daminion experience. Aside from that, I don't have anything else that I particularly dislike.

I should mention that despite this, their team has always seemed attentive when people have pointed out issues in the past. I once made a feature suggestion and got a personal response from someone a day later. So despite what they may lack, you at least know they hear you and they work to make things better.

Reach out to their support team and the forums if you have issues. They seem to have a very active customer service team from my one experience making a feature suggestion in the past.

I sort out a fair bit of sketches, reference photos, and concept art for my works. This has been a fantastic way of streamlining the search for the material I've amassed over the years. No longer am I trying to locate the arbitrary folder I put something in. No longer am I having to write out long file names to ensure I can find things in the search function. I just search via the tags I set up and viola, all relevant images are there instantly.

Batching of modifications and quick navigation. So far so good - still learning and exploring functionality

Lack of geo/spatial addition / modification of images through a map interface (and Ideally in a batch mode) - this is critical as many historic images don't have gps location and often photos are taken in areas where a GPS fix cannot be attained.

Definitely an easy way to manage, classify and group images and its respective metadata around project management and maintenance activity

At this stage it is simply managing an extensive archive of photographic records from various infrastructure construction programs

The product team really listen to their customers. I started using Daminion since its early stages back in 2011. From the beginning, the product team has always been opened to suggestions and feature requests. I think that is one of the best features of the Daminion bussiness approach.

On the other side, the software is just amazing. High quality development makes it affordable to use with large collections without needing big hardware requirements. I've tested it with large media collections (more than 1 million items) on a normal PC and it responds smoothly.

Other thing I like a lot is that it uses a robust DBMS (PostgreSQL). That makes feasible to integrate with other systems/tools without too much trouble if you know a little bit of codig. NOTE: Daminion doesn't recommend directly modifiying the database, but in my case I've found it pretty useful (and I try to be careful to not break anything).

It's not really a dislike but a "would be nice" feature. Daminion didn't have an interface usable on mobile phones or tablets. But it seems the new Web Client on Daminion 4.5 will cover that need. I personaly think a native application for mobile operating systems would offer better usability and feature possibilities but I haven't got my hands on the new version so the request is probably already fulfilled.

If using Daminion Server, you could greatly improve server's performance by tunning some PostgreSQL settings.

Back in 2011 I was using other DAM tools for managing metadata for media items. As the collection grew, I started having performance issues to the point the other tools were unsresponsive. One option was to acquire new (bigger) hardware. Instead, I found Daminion was in active development and it as it was a promising and affordable solution. I'm really glad I chose it.

Auf Daminion bin ich gestoßen, als ich eine Datenbank für Bilder suchte. Andere Produkte boten Funktionen zur Bildbearbeitung, die ich ausdrücklich nicht in einer Datenbank haben möchte.

Zur Bildverwaltung ist Daminion ein starkes Werkzeug.

Zu jedem Bild werden die EXIF-Dateien ausgelesen, darüber hinaus lassen sich vielseitige Informationen eingeben, die auch zur Suche genutzt werden können Dazu gehören Kathegorien, Projektangaben, Stichwörter, Ortsangaben, Copyrighthinweise etc. ....

Einziges Manko, das ich finde:

Wenn man versehentlich die Arbeitsoberfläche verändert, kann es für den Anfänger mit dem Programm kompliziert werden, diese wieder auf die gewohnte Optik zurück zu stellen.

Mit Daminion verwalte ich meinen gesamten Fotobestand, das sind weit über einige 10.000 Bilder ...

Durch die vielfältige Möglichkeit der Zuweisung von Tags, Kategorien, Orten u.v.m. Ist das Wiederfinden von bestimmten Bildern nun ein Leichtes-kein anderes Programm konnte mir das bisher so bieten.

Der Preis für die Vollversion ist für einen Privatanwender leider ziemlich teuer.

leichte Bedienung, intuitiv mit grosstmöglichen Nutzen

Da ich privat viel fotografiere kann ich nun endlich richtige Ordnung in meinen Bildern halten und schnell bestimmte Bilder,dank Filterung, wiederfinden.

The ease of use of adding files and migrating from one place to the next. It doesn't mess with your file structure, but can still write meta into your originals.

Tagging with categories and people which is a must if you are in charge of an archive consisting of art works and historical photos.

There is very little to dislike. Importing new images takes quite a long time and the speed of the full screen view of large files (over 100mb tif-s) could be improved. I have started to use and external viewer instead.

Writing tags to a mixture of files ranging from 3MB to 150MB takes about 3 seconds on average. It takes a long time when you need to write metadata to thousands of files at the same time.

Give it a try, I did and I have liked it. If you are a hobby photographer or a hobby researcher and are looking for an affordable tool to organise your media, Daminion is what you need. With the free version you can try it with up to 15.000 pictures to get a feeling of it.

I use it for documenting scanned documents and photos for genealogical research. Its perfect to add all info about the documents and/or photos as metadata.

Daminion gives me a chance to get a structure into my various media collections, and it does that in a most efficient way (without being a complicated piece of software, but a nice one).

I need to organise a growing number of photos for teaching ecology and other topics in university courses. For that, i need a system with flexible assignment and subsetting according to categories and or tags. Daminion, and its predecessor, gives me that

At times a bit heavy to work with. Also, i dont like to be reminded every time i open the programme that i am on the free license - i know that !

I am not in a business but at a university. Keeping use of photos for teaching easy

Even though I'm an amateur photographer, I like quality equipment (Canon 1D Mk III & IV with L-lenses), so it's not surprising that I wanted the best digital asset management (DAM) software that I could find. Daminion Server has met my expectations in that regard, and more. I currently have 331,000+ images catalogued.

Before settling on Daminion Server, I downloaded all of the trial DAM software that I could find. At that point in time, Daminion was in its early stages. Back then, Version 1.0 was still in the future. Even so, my use of those early releases gave me confidence that Daminion was going to be a great product. In fact, even then, it was already better than any of the other DAM software that I had tried. I installed it at the alpha stage, went through public beta, and have never looked back. It only seems to get better with every release.

So why do I like it so much... For starters, it doesn't try to be all things to all people. Daminion software is focused on cataloging and indexing digital files, especially (but not exclusively) photos. In fact, thirty-four different file types are currently supported, such as .docx, .pdf, .fvl, .mov, etc.. Many of the other DAM products embed non-DAM functionality at the expense of their core indexing and cataloguing capabilities. Daminion takes the approach of providing links to external programs for all such non-DAM processes. This provides a clean product, with a friendly UI, that performs its core cataloging, searching and indexing functions extremely well.

Daminion Server is available for both workgroups and individuals. Workgroups functionality includes such features as the ability to 'check-out' files while they are being worked on. I use the individual version, however, so that's what I'll comment on. Daminion Standalone is also available but I prefer using the server.

Handling large numbers of files is not a problem. Daminion Server has no trouble with the 330K+ image files in my current catalogue. Searches are fast, thumbnail display is responsive and entering meta data is exceptionally easy. Multiple catalogues can be created. As an individual, I run Daminion Server on the same PC as my Daminion client. I recommend the Server version over the standalone version because the server is a more robust product for large catalogs. It runs faster and can handle more files, more efficiently than the standalone version. On the other hand, individuals with a small number of files to catalogue will probably find that Daminion Standalone works just fine.

Importing new files into a catalogue is a simple procedure. Files can either be cataloged at their existing location or new files can be created in a new location. I use the add files feature that converts RAW files to DNG format and then stores the DNG version in a folder named according to the creation date of the original RAW file. The conversion process also automatically embeds selected metadata into the DNG file; for example, my copyright notice. This process is all automated and highly customizable. Incidentally, Daminion can handle both embedded and sidecar metadata. I prefer to embed all mine.

There is also a feature to "Re-Sync" folders that may have had changes made to the files outside of Daminion. Re-Syncing can also update any metadata that has been changed by image editing.

Metadata and tags are the key to Daminion Server's amazingly fast search capabilities. Almost any conceivable parameter can be used to find files. These extend from searching file attributes created at exposure time (e.g. ISO), to searching file attributes added during processing (e.g. names of people in a photo.) The search engine also allows for multiple match types (e.g. contains, equals, is empty, etc.)

The UI can be customized to suit the needs of the user. I have my UI set to show a Properties Panel on the right. This shows all the metadata information for each file as it is highlighted in the light-table panel to the left of the Properties panel. Thumbnails are shown in the light-table, with selectable views: thumbnails, compact view, details and film strip. The next panel to the left in my UI configuration is the Catalog Tags panel. I have sixteen main tags (e.g. Media format, Keywords, Event, Categories, etc.). There can be an unlimited number of sub-categories under each of these main categories. Displaying a selection of files with matching tags can be done with mouse clicks on the tag 'radio button(s)' or using the search menu. And on the extreme left of my UI is the Folders panel. It shows the layout of the OS folders that have been catalogued. The folder tree is fully collapsible as in Windows Explorer.

Finally, I have to comment on the excellent support that I have always found through the Daminion User Forum. When the product was still in Beta, there were fairly frequent issues, as can be expected of any beta product. What I found amazing was how quickly these issues were resolved by Daminion staff. Unlike many commercial websites, Daminion's User Forum seems to be monitored closely by the company's support staff. Suggestions to solve problems have always been quick in coming. Fortunately, now that the product is up to version 4.1, I have not had any issues that have required me to test the support forum recently. My guess is that, if needed, it probably remains as good as before.

It may sound like it, but I'm not an employee of Daminion. I've posted this review because I believe Daminion is a great product. If you're looking to buy a software tool that can catalogue digital files and let you easily find them later using, tags, keywords, and indexes, then (in my opinion) Daminion is worth serious consideration. I know I'm a seriously committed customer.

My biggest challenge in using Daminion is making sure that I enter file-specific info into the metadata every time I add files to the catalogue. After all, if I want to find all files containing an image of my grandfather "Will Brown", Daminion won't find a file if I didn't add his name to the "People" tag when I added the file to the catalogue. But that's a human issue for me; not an issue for Daminion.

Only one minor issue I'll mention that is perhaps worth changing. When configuring the location of the Panels in the UI, Daminion uses a rather unique method of getting the Panels to snap into place. it's unlike any other UI configuration method I have ever seen. It's a minor point and quickly learned, but perhaps worth mentioning.

Think seriously about getting the Server rather than the Standalone version.

Daminion is all about the ability to find and retrieve digital files without endless hours of searching.

I can not say enough about how well Daminion works for our small team. Some of my favorite aspects of Daminion's functionality include:

- ability to tag photos with a large number of custom tags, including hierarchy

- ability to easily copy/paste tags between photos

- ability to export photos in various resolutions for various purposes (print, email, etc)

- multiple users at any one time with server-based system

- intuitive interface for easy adoption by office personnel

- fast, knowledgeable customer service that is second to none

- stable, virtually 100% up-time

Honestly, there is very little to dislike. When using the Daminion Server edition as we are, there can be some complexities in getting it to work correctly on a specific network, but Daminion has been very helpful in ironing out any issues, so that is not really a "dislike".

Very simply, being able to find the right picture of the right product at the right time. We are now able to show prospective clients photos of product similar to what they are considering, which is incredibly helpful in the sales process.

I use Daminion frequently in the course of my work.

I have found Daminion to be responsive to any questions I may have about their product. When I send in a request, or bug report, I receive a response, and feel like Daminion really values customer care.

The price of Daminion is very competitive.

Daminion is constantly striving to improve its product. This means more functionality being added on a regular basis.

Mac users will soon be able to access Daminion through the web interface of Version 4.5. This will make all of our Mac users very happy.

There is no Mac version of Daminion. This may be a show stopper for many potential users. Face it... many graphic designers use Macs, and find a non-native Mac version unacceptable, even though it will run in "Parallels". This being said, the upcoming Version 4.5 with its web interface will give access to Daminion to them.

Daminion is very flexible, and as a result can be extremely powerful. Like with any digital assets management program, you have to carefully map out how you want to use the product in order to reach that sweet spot where the metadata you put in is sufficient to satisfy the needs of searching for what you need.

Daminion helps in many ways to expedite this through its excellent batch import facility.

Currently, Daminion is being used as a photo library. It has helped in assisting our graphic artists. The gain in search speed has been our largest benefit.

Ability to run our own server rather than costly cloud.

No MAC or Web interface. But now available in BETA :)

If you want to have your own server rather than a cloud based solution, this is the best product I have found. The support is good, I get replies by email usually the same day (depending on your time zone, they are in Russia). Usually it is about features, or a technical question. The product itself is stable, does not seem to crash at all.

Huge time saver, no more scanning through hundreds of photos to find the one you want. Ability to control and standardize keywords/tags helps everyone. It does take some effort to tag the photos properly if your users did not encode the metadata of the photos beforehand. We have a volunteer (we are non-profit) who is taking on the role to tag photos that still need it. We have also bought the Controlled Vocabulary keyword list that makes this all much easier, standardized and more productive.

The server is shared with our other office and freelance users over the internet via a VPN router, although you don't have to use a VPN you can just set a static ISP if you wish.