DAMINION 1.0 RC1 RELEASED
| April 09th, 2013 | by Murat |
Daminion 1.0 RC1 – minor update is now available to download. It’s now possible to stamp images with Geo coordinates and locate them visually on a map.
In addition, we’ve improved XMP metadata handling and support for video formats, added quality EPS/AI thumbnail rendering, and fixed a number of bugs.
Geo-Tagging Images
- To stamp images with geo coordinates just select items and drag them to the Map.
- You can drop items onto an existing marker
- All markers are always visible, no matter how many files have been selected
- Search for a location
- Markers for the selected items are displayed in orange.
- The locations of existing markers can be changed using the mouse
- You can use your favorite map provider such as Google, Yahoo, Bing or Yandex
- Click on a marker to preview thumbnails of the items behind it
- Items that are located close to one another are grouped together for ease of visualization
- It’s possible to view all items assigned to a certain marker in the Thumbnail Browser
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DAMINION TUTORIALS
| March 13th, 2013 | by Murat |
Several new tutorials are currently available:
- Getting Started with Daminion Server
- How to configure Daminion Server service properly
- Selecting the right file storage scheme for Daminion Server
Tutorials coming soon:
- Migrating from Daminion Standalone to Daminion Server
- How to add multi-user functionality to Lightroom
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DAMINION 0.9.9B. ASSETS CAN BE ANNOTATED FASTER
| February 14th, 2013 | by Murat |
Daminion 0.9.9 – minor update now available to download.
With the new version of Daminion you can classify your image archive library even faster, thanks to improved file/folder management, tag
presets, and many other improvements.
Improved File/Folder management
- It’s now possible to remove folders from the catalog
- Added support for drag-and-drop reordering of folder structure in the tags tree. You can now create subfolders by simply dragging and dropping one folder into another.
- Re-location of media items. If you’ve renamed or moved a file outside Daminion you can re-link the file’s new location back to Daminion. To access this option go to the “Item > Actions > Relink Item…” menu.
Assets can be annotated faster
- Added option to Copy/Paste Tags. You can now copy and paste annotations from one item to another
- Tag presets can now be assigned “on-the-fly” to importing files, i.e. during import.
- The newly added “Tag Presets” allow you to define tag presets and assign them to files.
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DAMINION 0.9.8B. IMPROVED FILE/FOLDER MANAGEMENT
| January 10th, 2013 | by Murat |
Daminion 0.9.8 – minor update now available to download.
We’ve received many requests from our users to incorporate file/folder management into Daminion. So now, with the new version of the program, you can:
- Move (Drag) files to a folder
- Add sub-folders
- Rename folders
With the 0.9.8 version of Daminion you can also update (re-link) a folder’s location. For example, if you move a folder to any location outside Daminion, it’s now possible to update the folder’s location in Daminion without re-importing the whole folder. To do this, simply right click on a folder in the Tags tree and select the “Re-link folder…” option.
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HIERARCHICAL KEYWORDS IN LIGHTROOM | BE CAREFUL!
| November 21st, 2012 | by Murat |
So what’s the problem with hierarchical keywords in Adobe Lightroom?
Adobe was behind the XMP specification that makes our life easier by allowing different software programs to communicate in the same language and exchange information on the metadata level. For example image annotations entered in Lightroom are visible in Daminion and vice versa.
But the Lightroom development team has invented a new dialect (read: new XMP scheme) to store the common annotation field, named Keywords.
In XMP specification Keywords are stored in a place called “dc:subject”. The “dc:” prefix denotes that this field is a part of the Dublin Core section of the XMP metadata.
Although XMP specification doesn’t permit the storage of hierarchical keywords inside the “dc:subject”, there is a magic “|” delimiter symbol* that can be used to split different hierarchy levels of keywords and store them inside a single text line. This symbol has been unofficially adopted by many software programs including Microsoft Windows Live Gallery, Lightroom, Expression Media, Daminion, etc…
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WE ARE HIRING: PR/MARKETING PROFESSIONAL
| November 15th, 2012 | by Murat |
As users of Daminion, you and your team understand the product, its virtues, ease of use and cost-effectiveness. We are in search of a PR/Marketing professional to assist Daminion in its growth. While we wish to expand the business we are turning to our loyal users and clients first, those who have a passion for our product and services.
Do you have a background in PR and/or marketing? If yes, please submit your a personal CV to support/at/daminion/dot/net
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DAMINION 0.9.7B RELEASED
| November 09th, 2012 | by Murat |
Minor Daminion update available to download.
Daminion 0.9.7b allows you to import Microsoft Office documents, including Office 2007 formats (files with extensions: .doc, .xls, .ppt, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx). Daminion Server customers can now update Daminion Clients automatically from the server computer in silent mode. Batch tag assignment and file removal operations can now be applied to all items in the query and are no longer limited by page size only.
There are over 20 bug fixes and minor, but useful, improvements.
We also plan to add a smart way to publish your images (including RAW files) on tablets and mobile devices (iPAD, iPhone, Android based devices) as well as on your corporate web-site via collections. As a first step towards this feature we have made collections hierarchical in this version.
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DAMINION 0.9.6B RELEASED
| October 18th, 2012 | by Murat |
Minor Daminion update now available to download.
The new version allows you to create custom tags and also contains many other improvements like improved image viewing (including support for viewing extra-large JPEG images – up to 1000 MP), and a brand new color management option. Foreign customers can now work with Daminion in their native language – the program is available in German, French, Polish and Russian. We’ve also made several other improvements and bugs fixes.
Please note: Daminion Server users should update both Server and all Clients.
User Defined Tags (Custom Tags)
Custom Tag management is available from the main menu via: Catalog > Custom Tags
Although Daminion has a list of more than 30 predefined tags (enough to describe image collections in most cases), your company may wish to have its own classification terms (tags); materials, price, weight for example.
Custom Tags are mapped into XMP just like most of the other tags.
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CAN YOU TRUST YOUR PRIVATE PHOTOS TO DROPBOX?
| October 11th, 2012 | by Murat |
For automatically syncing files across your different computers and gadgets, Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud services on the net. But just how safe is it to store your private files on Dropbox?
Chronicle of Dropbox failures.
April 7 – In his blog (bit.ly/dropbox_fail), researcher Derek Newton had a few things to say about Dropbox authorization. Mr Newton tells us that Dropbox stores all the authentication information in the config.db file, one of several SQLite database files located at %APPDATA%\Dropbox . Among many other fields, the most one we are interested in is host_id, which, after being defined by the client after the first authorization, does not change. The catch is that the config.db file is not tied to the system in any way. So, by accessing the user’s Config.db file and copying it into another system, a potential attacker can easily gain access to data on the user’s Dropbox account. And the user is not notified! Moreover, the host_id remains valid even if the user ID and password are changed. The only way to remedy the situation is to go to the Dropbox web interface and remove the host_id from the list of linked devices.
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DAMINION 0.9.5B RELEASED
| July 31st, 2012 | by Murat |
A new Daminion version is now available to download.
In this version: more than 30 improvements. With improved cataloging capabilities you can classify your media library even faster. Improved Catalog Tags tree, added backup/restore feature for server catalog, improved rescan of folders, added Recently Assigned Tags panel, some optimizations and bug-fixes.
The latest Daminion update was issued several months ago so this post and the feature list will be a bit longer than before.
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A CASE STUDY WITH GATE HOUSE COMMERCIALS AND JUICE FILM
| April 18th, 2012 | by Murat |
Gate House Commercials and Juice Film share their experiences of using Daminion Server.
Gatehouse Commercials and Juice Films are focused, highly professional boutique for commercial facilitation. These are service production of television commercials in South Africa for European and American Production Houses.
Dean Kruger, head of research at Gatehouse Commercials, said:
“We describe our locations by various fields: geographic location (GPS & Country-Province-Municipality-Suburb), contact people & a taxonomy that describes the content of each image.
The size of our database started growing exponentially as our company grew and this has forced us to investigate permanent digital asset management systems (DAM) in house.
We have evaluated and compared a couple of DAM systems in the market and found Daminion Server to meet all our needs.”
Read full text of the Gate House Commercials and Juice Film case study.
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HOW TO IMPORT MEDIAPRO AND LIGHTROOM CATALOGS INTO DAMINION
| April 17th, 2012 | by Murat |
This is pretty straightforward. MediaPro (formerly Expression Media or iView) and Lightroom can embed annotations in the image metadata (IPTC/XMP) and Daminion can import this metadata from the images.
To migrate from Lightroom:
- Open a Lightroom catalog
- Select all the images
- Navigate to the “Metadata > Save Metadata to Files” option on the main menu. If Lightroom’s Auto-Sync feature is turned on, you can ignore this step
- Import the folders that contain your images into Daminion. During import Daminion will extract all the annotations that Lightroom has saved in the file metadata.
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DAMINION 0.9B RELEASED
| April 04th, 2012 | by Murat |
A new minor Daminion build is now available to download. Below you’ll find a list of changes to Daminion since the 0.8.9.477 version.
To get the latest version of the program visit our Download page.
Improvements
- Added: Camera Importer
- You can now import photos into Daminion from your digital cameras and removable devices. A list of the removable devices appears in the drop down menu of the Add Files button immediately after you insert a flash-card into your card-reader or connect a removable drive.
- You can preview the images to be transferred. Images and Videos can be grouped by Creation Date, Folder or Media Type. Hovering the mouse over a thumbnail displays a large tool tip with a medium-sized image preview allowing you to see the image in greater detail.
- Media files can be renamed during the transfer using a handy renaming function. Files can be imported to your computer and then either imported into Daminion’s local catalog or uploaded to your server computer and imported to a shared catalog (via Daminion Server).
- This is the very first version of the Camera Importer. As such, it will be undergoing continual improvement. For example, we’ll be adding a backup option and the ability to assign tags to imported images
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RIGHT PLACE
| March 30th, 2012 | by Murat |
I hope you’ll enjoy this short movie. Just to alter your mood 
This is a short but great film by Japanese director Kosai Sekine.
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100-YEAR-OLD OPTICS HOLD THEIR OWN WHEN WORKING WITH TODAY’S CANON 5D MARK II
| March 22nd, 2012 | by Murat |
Investigating old photographic equipment is always fascinating, and it becomes even more so when you attempt to use it in conjunction with the equipment of today.
Jason Bognacki wondered what might happen if he took photos with his old Piccolette Contessa-Nettel (circa 1926)camera, but using a modern Canon 5D Mark II camera as the sensor.
He attached the old camera, as a lens, to his new Canon. Although the unlikely union looks somewhat strange – comical even – the resulting photos are pretty impressive.
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INTERVIEW WITH ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHER BRAD FEINKNOPF
| March 12th, 2012 | by Murat |
Brad is a National Architectural Photographer who has photographed over 100 AIA Award Winning Architectural Projects and has been published internationally.
He has spent the last 20+ years producing exceptional architectural photography. Understanding architecture comes naturally to Brad as both his father and grandfather were successful architects.
In 1988, Brad Feinknopf returned from New York City (where he had been working) to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio to establish a photographic studio that would excel in providing its clientele with the utmost in quality and service in architectural, interior and corporate photography.
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CAN I ACCESS DAMINION SERVER REMOTELY VIA THE INTERNET?
| March 01st, 2012 | by Murat |
Daminion Server is designed to be used on local networks (corporate or home). But what if you aren’t onsite, is it possible to get remote access to your media archive with Damion Server?
Yes it is, and I’ll explain how below.
A small utility, called Comodo Unite (formerly known as EasyVPN), helps you access remote computers quickly and securely via the Internet, with the same ease as on a local network, and it only takes a few minutes to install and configure.
One of the benefits of Comodo Unite is that it provides complete access to all folders and printers on remote computers, even across corporate firewalls with strict restrictions. Of course this requires your personal credentials and is protected by strong encryption.
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IS IT TIME TO CHANGE YOUR HARD DRIVE?
| February 24th, 2012 | by Murat |
Just like other mechanical devices, hard drives (where your files and documents are stored) have their own working lifespan.
And when it becomes apparent that the end is approaching, it’s better to replace them.
These days all modern hard drives have a built-in self-test mechanism, called S.M.A.R.T.
Japanese programmer Hiroyuki Miyazaki has written a small free utility called CrystalDiskInfo. It helps you to check the health of your disk.
The major benefit of S.M.A.R.T. is that it will diagnose any problems immediately, without the need for a lengthy disk surface scan.
If you run a small business you probably take on a number of different responsibilities such as accounting, design, staffing, manufacturing, etc., and the task of replacing a hard drive and transferring information might be too complicated and time-consuming for you to handle on your own, so you give it to your IT administrator. However, diagnosing potential problems is something you can do yourself, easily and quickly, and it is definitely advisable to do it from time to time.
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INTERVIEW WITH ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHER SCOTT DUBOSE
| February 20th, 2012 | by Murat |
Scott DuBose is a real estate photographer and marketing professional who produces images for real estate firms, interior designers and stagers.
Raised in South Carolina, he holds an electrical engineering degree from Clemson University.
Scott is a member of Real Estate Photographers of America.
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INTERVIEW WITH ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHER RICK HARRIS
| February 12th, 2012 | by Murat |
Rick Harris was born and raised in Toronto. He studied at Glendon College and has held a variety of careers, including software and graphic design.
His work has appeared in Max Magazine, File Magazine, The Shadow Collective, and UTATA.
He works with Heritage Toronto to document and raise awareness on endangered properties and heritage buildings.
Rick says he is an amateur photographer, and his architectural photographs definitely do have a style of their own; quite different from the work of most professional architectural photographers.
His architectural portfolio doesn’t contain hundreds of photos, so I didn’t have to sit and to choose the most interesting shots among them – they’re all remarkable and deserve to be seen in their entirety.
St. Stoney
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DAMINION VS PICAJET FX
| January 30th, 2012 | by Murat |
1. Is Daminion the same as PicaJet, with the same functions?
2. Should I move to Daminion from PicaJet?
3. How much is one single license? And is the PicaJet FX License transferable to Daminion?
So I’ve compose the answers as a blog post…
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DAMINION CASES STUDIES
| January 16th, 2012 | by Murat |
We’ve launched a new Case Studies column on our web-site, where our customers can share their experiences of using Daminion (or Daminion Server). You’ll find the column by going to Tour > Case Studies.
J.R. Shute, Co-director of Conservation Fisheries, Inc. kindly agreed to share his experience of using the Daminion Server.
Conservation Fisheries is a small, non-profit company located in Knoxville, TN, USA. Co-Directors, J. R. Shute and Patrick Rakes have been working to protect and restore rare, endangered stream fish in the southeastern U.S. for more than 25 years!
Daminion Server is helping Conservation Fisheries to manage their digital images. It helped them to quickly index their media archive and provides multiple users with simultaneous access to the library across the corporate local network…
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CHOOSING THE RIGHT FILE STORAGE SCHEME FOR DAMINION SERVER
| December 30th, 2011 | by Murat |
One of our customers recently asked us a very good question:
This depends solely on your file storage strategy. You can use any method, and even mix them: some of your files can be uploaded, others can remain in their original locations.
I’ve listed some of the pros and cons of these methods below…
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DAMINION 0.8.9 RELEASED
| December 28th, 2011 | by Murat |
A new minor Daminion 0.8.9 update is currently available for download. This is mainly a bug-fix version.
To get the latest version of the program visit our Download page.
Some bugs that have been fixed in this version of Daminion
- Server: Improved import speed for large files from shared locations
- Server: Version Control now only works for files uploaded to Daminion Server
- Server: Fixed program freezing after “Undo Checkout” operation with checked “Delete the local file copy” option
- Server: Fixed a bug with “Downloading” window freezing when double clicking on a server based file
- Server: Windows Event Logs are shown in the Daminion Server Administration panel when an error occurs during server launch
- Server: optimized performance when importing files
- Server: Fixed several bugs in Daminion Administration panel
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BUY DAMINION SERVER WITH DISCOUNT
| December 27th, 2011 | by Murat |
We have 2 items of news for you:
1. A new version of Daminion Server has just been released
The latest version has undergone comprehensive optimization, with many improvements and bug-fixes. Click here to download the latest Daminion Server 0.8.9b.
2. Order Daminion Server right now and get a 25% discount.
If you order Daminion Server right now you’ll save 25% (for example, save $373 US buying 5 user license). The license will be transferred to the Release version (release is planned for: Q1-Q2’2012).
The promotion lasts for a limited period only, valid till 15 February 2012.
This offer is definitely not to be missed, because:
- There’s a 90-days money-back guarantee
- It includes 1-Year’s Maintenance* (from the Release date!)
- The current beta version is very stable
- The offer also includes a 7-day bug–fix guarantee
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DAMINION SERVER 0.8.8B RELEASED
| December 07th, 2011 | by Murat |
After 3 years of hard work, the Daminion Server is at last available for public download.
First of all, a big thank you to our team of active testers; not only for their sterling efforts in testing out Daminion Server so enthusiastically over the last 3 months, but also for supplying us with their invaluable feedback.
Daminion Server: server-based photo management software for small teams.
Unlike standalone image and video management applications that allow a media archive database to be shared via shared network folders, Daminion Server is a TRUE multi-user photo archive server. It has been specially designed for use by small teams, with limited budgets, in need of a simple, fast and reliable solution to managing their growing media archives.
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DAMINION 0.8.7 RELEASED
| November 24th, 2011 | by Murat |
A new minor Daminion update is currently available for download. This is mainly a bug-fix version. A lot of work has been done to bring forward the date of the Daminion Server release. At the moment the Daminion Server 0.8.7b is available to our testers for evaluation. About hundred issues have been resolved since 0.8.6 version
To get the latest version of the program visit our Download page.
What’s new in this version?
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CATEGORIES VS. KEYWORDS ~ A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW
| November 07th, 2011 | by Murat |
One of the frequently asked questions by Daminion customers is – what are the differences between Categories in and Keywords in general and in Daminion particularly.
Categories are broad & general, high level views that allow the user to easily identify a particular group of images (or documents).
Keywords are more specific, low level descriptions, offering a finer view of what an image (or document) might be about.
If you have an idea what you want but don’t know the specifics you can browse categories to see what ”jumps out”. Otherwise you can search using keywords to find the image you need.
In most cases a picture belongs to a few categories and contains a lot of keywords.
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INTERVIEW WITH ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHER SCOTT HARGIS
| October 18th, 2011 | by Murat |
Our guest today is Scott Hargis, author of the popular book “The Essential Guide to Lighting Interiors”. He is a location photographer specializing in Interiors & Architecture.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Scott also shoots portraiture and adventure sports. Known for his technical expertise and “can-do” attitude, Scott approaches every project with enthusiasm and professionalism, applying creativity and flawless technique to deliver outstanding images under any conditions.
A member of the International Association of Architectural Photographers, Scott also teaches photographers’ workshops throughout the United States, and has been widely recognized as a leader in the Interiors photography genre.
His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, This Old House, The East Bay Express, Bay Crossings Magazine, WEND Magazine, and Bay Nature, among others.
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DAMINION TEAM AT SOFTOOL 2011
| October 17th, 2011 | by Murat |
From 25 to 28 October, we’ll be exhibiting at the XXII Annual Exhibition of Information and Communication Technologies – SofTool 2011.
You can find us along with the 1C company – Russia’s leading software developer and distributor since 1991. 1C is one of the companies that distribute our products on the Russian market.
Any questions can be addressed directly to members of the Daminion team. Everyone’s welcome – we’re open to all your suggestions!
Come and check out the beta version of the Daminion Server – the multi-user photo and media document management solution – ideal for small teams.
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