I hope this doesn’t degrade in a ‘mine is better’ topic though because there really is no ‘this OS is better’ these days. Mac and Win are different, that’s all. They each have their own strengths and quirks.
I might be in the middle of writing my own “DAM” because it gives me more functionality but, truth be known, I could revert to using Finder Tags and Spotlight searches if all I wanted was just to mark images for future searching.
One thing that Finder can’t do is star-rate images even though Spotlight can search for them, and so that is one my app can do and the ratings are searchable both in my app or Finder’s searches 
No, I don’t go into “mine is better” (generally speaking), I should have written “my OS at home is better for my home projects and daily use for me”.
I’m also familiar with the personas, and I’m also familiar with Affinity’s sort of empty promise to prepare a DAM, that was given by some team member 3 years ago. I their forum you should find a couple of threads asking for “how’s the DAM development going?” You see, Frank, “more tabs” is the usual answer in Windows (and lately also in Apple) apps. Instead of making the already available functions better accessible and more (and easier) understandable.
Meanwhile so much time passed and apparently no company really wants to dive into DAM, or at least not into “better DAM than we think we already have”.
If you’re hungry for AI enhanced keywording, you could give Excire a closer look. You soon will discover that your concept of ducks could be wrong, as Excire considers them as dolphins and predatory fishes depending on the situation you catched them. Or as penguins. Cameras can become cars (actually, a lot of “sort of technical” stuff is suspected to be a car). It’s a lot of fun, sadly it ends up in judging normal RAWs as “unsaturated” because it doesn’t have access to DOP files, not to mention a way to interprete them. And even less to mention “editing them”.
Patchwork software doesn’t get better with more tabs. Interaction of all parts is crucial - the way Affinity does it. But that’s one company, as soon as more than one are involved things too often get worse.
Someone said before “tags come and go and are not reliable”, I believe it was in another thread and I think he was right. Especially since Apple abandoned my favourite DAM / RAW converter without further ado which had an impact on my, well, emotional connection to the Apple way of things, to the point that I lost interest in taking pictures and and also lost confidence in that company. I feel, “greed” took over and “innovation” got retired.
@Joanna, I’m interested in your DAM version as I read a couple of your posts and was already spending some 
and I found myself often to be on the same page, like Zone system, your comment about Photo Mechanics and other posts as well. But here comes into play what also was my concern about VueScan as the work of a one man/one woman show. After my disappointment with Apple I started to ask myself what happens if Ed Hamrick gets a heart attack? The Aperture dev today tries to get RAWPower started (for Apple Photos), but it’s much like putting a throne on a toy scooter. Photos itself is opposite of a pleasure to use and so I don’t want to rely on Apple’s next “soon to be abandoned” candidate.
Okay, somehow “I get around” with my bunch of images. But starting Aperture and finding a picture within less than a minute, 4 years after “no longer supported” is nothing I could perform on DxO or Capture One.
Photolibrary would be the place to find and group images which you want to process in a Project or folderwise.
Customise would be the place it says, edit a file.
DAM would be the place you tag, keyword, iptc customize, etc. Images in order to find them faster with search functions inside Library.
So if you use Photomechanic you can skip DAM and Library and lounch DxOPL customise from there by creating a project.
Me personaly use adobe bridge as DAM (the editor part of the Library.)
And FastRawViewer as culling tool. ( by starrating inthere it creates a xmp and it let the good float up from the bad.) after deleting the rubbisch it goes to tagging.
From there it’s food for DxO.
Searching through my made images would be better in dxo because bridge does nasty in folder structure boundery. After indexting in dxo i find images faster.
I stil don’t know why my full folder structure is visible all the time.
It would be better if i could hide, exclude, folders which not hold any files which i would like to be visit and worked on by DxOPL. Search is faster, less disorganised view, more private.
Third tab?
Yes only if it’s holds a lean and mean managetoolset for tagging/keywording/iptc,exif editing images.
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Grouping images in a different way than using links to the source images is something I will not do. I’m a big fan of referenced images, so I can basically create as many variants (of edits) from the original RAW as I want. I had to learn when I started with forums like this that other people prefer to copy or move RAW files around. If it’s working… Sorry, I’m spoilt to eternity from Aperture.
Photo Mechanic asks for 400 $ for it’s pro version and is currently on sale for 239.– I don’t need most of it’s keywording functions but I don need a better organisation than Capture One and DxO provide at the moment.
i have a date structure:
- year
- 123month 456month 789month 101112month
- shotdate plus keyword of activity.
al exported files have the same structure.
(so the source would be in the same folder sibling as the jpeg)
by using XMP’s i tagg the rawfiles which are side by side the rawfiles.
the jpegs are propertie filled.
using “projects” you create a “virtual folder” so no movement or copying files.
By using Virtual Copy’s in customise you can make as much different variants as you like. you don’t actually “create” a new file. only a new Header developmentstate sprong form the moment of creating.
So you can make a base edit and create from there your variations.
yes not everyone needs such a beast.
But external information datafile(s) like xmp is generic readable wile “dop” is only DxO and if there also is some info unique in database most people who uses a DAM of an other brand won’t use the internal structure in DxO at all. ( maybe for incidental searching) out of fear of corruption of there carefully build iptc/exif data.
So you must have some reverse action possibility. Backup by command or by time table.
DxO is building and expanding DAM control which is a great responsibility. (we customers lay our years of work in there hands when using those DAM controls)
We need to wait for V5.0 and see how far they are in there progress of DAM tool. 
I also rely on my folder structure as main source of organisation, with a similar naming structure:
Mediapool (drivenumber)
|
Camera type
|
yymmdd - keywords
yymmdd - keywords
etc…
That combined with the best database around (my memory 
) will get me pictures fast. But not colections of certain images, like a type of bird, landscapes, hdr img, etc… for those I try to make use of the keyword system and project system in DxO at the moment.
Usually I do my first search in FastStone image viewer because it’s fast and I work confidently in it. But it has no management whatsoever.
I’m excited about the development of a DAM system inside DxO, and do hope it will be sleak and sophisticated. Can’t wait for V5 to come out.
For some reason Photo Mechanic is the only ‘Real’ DAM being used in this thread for comparison of what PL should have. I would think that Imatch and Photo Supreme might be closer to a goal for those who want a true DAM integrated into PL. And at around $130 they are way more reasonably priced than PM and are true ‘industrial strength’ DAM’s.
That said it has taken these companies years to develop into what they are today. Good database development is miles away from Photo software and I think DXO should stick with what they do best. I don’t mind using a separate DAM; Photo Supreme at the moment but may switch to Imatch when I replace my ancient I7 PC that won’t run on it.
Owh no, i am only came up with one. I was used to use pse13 's library.
Load processed images an tag there.
Then used the “write tags in propertie” command to be able to search also in windows.
Last time i opend pse13 is months or even year(s) ago sins i use bridge and dxo’s searchingmode.
I value a good keyword for searching but most special images need unique keywords to find them so plain memory is also a key.
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Agreed, IMATCH is the real DAM to go for if you want a DAM and it can handle all types of files not only images. If DXO provided IMATCH with a few hooks into their system integration would be improved and the combination would exceed Light Room, not something that DXO will ever (or should) do. Cooperation is win-win with the right partners.
OK - I’m confused !
John
He’s working on Win10 daily at his work, and uses a Mac at home, it’s in the context
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It’s a shame that Imatch only runs on Windows.
The other popular ‘industrial strength’ DAM is Photo Supreme which runs on both Win & Mac. I’m using it now. My only complaint is that it does not use what I call “Watched Folders”. When a new or changed file or folder appear it must be either Imported or have a Verify function used manually. I find this a frustrating nuisance and is why I am considering changing to Imatch which does this automatically in the background.
Yes it would be a powerful marriage to have DXO more integrated with both Imatch and Photo Supreme. ATM though I can send a file with one click from Photo Supreme to PL.
