Daminion Reviews & Product Details

The ability to add multiple tags in Daminion and select images from a combination of criteria. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is no Mac version available at the moment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

- 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 :-) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Cataloging, sorting, photo search, geo-tags Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes a complex, non-intuitive interface Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I've been using Daminion for several years and highly recommend it. I mostly selected it because it stores the metadata within the picture in standard formats. Makes it easy to rebuild a catalogue or move to other systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Is a little bit clunky for getting pictures out and using them elsewhere. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to use and easy to install, Daminion is the low-cost digital media asset management software (DAM).

The program's export feature supports optimization on demand; users can export media files with specific conversion rules. In one click your files can be optimized for uploading to Flickr or Facebook. Convert files on demand without redundant file duplicates or different image sizes and formats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think it need a support for Mac platform but is so good in general. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's helpful to manage our collection easier with a fair pricing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nothing to dislike particulary considering the price. Probably I would like a much modern Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A very cool photo grouping system. Convenient work with catalogs. The ability to search for duplicates based on various criteria. Tags, ratings, editing - everything you need for a home photo library. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not the most attractive interface. Usability also "limps." Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For me, the best thing about Daminion is how easy it is to setup catalogues for images I have about 5 or 6 catalogues and found that Daminion handles them very well indeed and the speed in which the images load as well I use Sony, Canon and Nikon cameras so work with those images formats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is not a thing I don't like about Daminion it is a very useful piece of software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.