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Spies

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 21, 2006
108
0
United Kingdom
At the moment the business I work for uses Windows machines with some cataloging software called ProStock, this allows us to enter captions and notes for the images as well as usage restrictions. ProStock will then metadata the images and the website reads this information back (except usage) in order to populate the mysql database.

Does either Aperture or Lightbox support custom IPTC fields such as Usage Restrictions as we require some way of entering the type of usage as the photo's are right's managed and in some cases we sell exclusively. So we need to know which images sold to who to avoid selling them twice, or if the need arose to use our own judgement if the clients are different enough.

Additionally we wouldnt want this information stored in the metadata on the jpeg as other clients could then find out who else we sell to, the field needs to be kept seperate or when exporting the image the option to omit usage data needs to be present.

If clarification is required please just ask for more information.

Hope someone can help.

Spies
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,584
1,700
Redondo Beach, California
Does either Aperture or Lightbox support ...

Both Aperture and Lightroom have a 30 day eveluation period. You can download them and use them for 30 days. I wuld suggest you evaluate them one at a time. I am in this process now. I think the answe toyour question is Aperture: Mostly yes, Lightroom: Mostly no.

If you are willing to do some work with Automator and or a custom output plugin then Aperture anc do what you need 100%. I've looked at the API for the export plugin and it is very generalized, you'd be able to modify the file in any way asthe go out.
 

Spies

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 21, 2006
108
0
United Kingdom
Unfortunately I don't yet own a Mac so I am unable to test drive Aperture, I have since however been able to test drive Lightbox on a PC but the usage area seems to be non-existant and custom metadata fields are not supported.

Could you clarify as to why automator would be required please?
 
you can find and give a test drive to lightroom even if you are under windows
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

You don't NEED automator... it's just a very nice way for nonGeek to get similar result as script... although automator come with any MacOsX and can get really handy when you have to do some repetives operations and it's integrated to All apple applics
I guess ChrisA is mentioning it, if you had plenty of similar metadata to put onto your pix. but it won't be useful if all your files need specific infos.

nota: even iphoto is capable of changing some metadata but i wouldn't bet on your "Usage restriction"... where as Lightroom and apeture can probably do more than you bargain for...

bozigle
 

Spies

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 21, 2006
108
0
United Kingdom
Thanks, I have already tried Lightroom for the PC and it almost meets my needs except for not having any way to restrict images from certain types of usage.

What I was asking about Automater was what would it be used for in this scenario? I was under the impression that both Aperture and Lightroom can append metadata when the images are imported into their own librarys?
 
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