Digital Asset Management Software Reviews

2010.03.21

Neocamera just added the last review for the article series on digital asset management. There is now coverage of the DAM aspects of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Bibble 6 Pro, IDImager Professional, IMatch and PicaJet FX. Ultimately the conclusion and usefulness of these software is up to you but read our reviews to find out how the compare, what they can do and where their limitations are.

Photoshop Lightroom is a very sophisticated package, backed by the biggest sofware company among its peers but every other sofware has unique and useful features with a significantly different feature set. Ultimately, Lightroom is the most well rounded and the one with the least failiures but when compared to Bibble 5 Pro and PicaJet FX, Lightroom's speed is embarassing and we certainly hope Adobe is making this one of their top priorities for Lightroom.

Bibble 5 Pro is very close to being ideal sofware for managing huge collections of images but its refusal to handle large images and the lack of response from their technical support department makes its future dubious for professional photographers.

PicaJetFX is a very interesting offerings for those who do not need the sophistication of the other DAM software reviewed here. It does extremely well in most of what it does and it does so at blazing speed, possibly making it one of the most compelling experiences among its peers.

IDimager Professional is an outstandingly complex software with unmatched capabilities. At the same time, and this is probably the price to pay for such features, IDimager is extremely slow and uninituitive in many areas.

The only true failure of this group of reviews is IMatch. This sofwate is both outdated and difficult to understand. Its incredibly sluggish performance is bound to drive away potential users, particularly those that need to manage substantial collections of images.

• Digital Photography