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I use Images frequently

I use Images occasionally

I've tried it but I don't use it

I've never tried Images

I have no interest

[JimH]

I recently started a poll on our TV Feature.  I'd like to ask for your feedback on our Images Feature.

Thanks,

Jim

[RoderickGI]

Occasionally, but do plan to use it more in future. Just need time to curate all my images, then get them onto the HTPC for use in slideshows and as background images.

I wouldn't use it as a primary management tool at the moment, but for tagging and management, possibly.

[jmone]

I'm somewhere between "Dont Care" and "Occasionally".  If I get a batch from a Holiday, I will import them into MC just to know where they are..... but I don't do anything with them.

[kensn]

Recently I created an album of our favorite pictures of our granddaughter, and played them on the TV with a playlist of background music for her 1 year birthday party. The guests enjoyed it a lot.

[marko]

Oh yes... all the time

I find the editing tools are too clumsy for me to use, but oh how I wish they weren't.

I now import everything initially into Adobe Lightroom. In there, I perform any required post processing... and keyword tagging. Once done, I export to a folder MC watches, the Lightroom keyword hierarchy is imported into MC and replicated from the tags during import,  and from that point onward, MC takes over. For management and playback, it's brilliant, although...

My HTPC scores around 3000 in the JRBenchmark tool, but whilst navigating my image library, there's almost a two second delay from button press to screen activity. That's spoiling things for quite a while now.

I have a good half dozen or more smartlists that mix music and pictures (mellow instrumental tracks to a slideshow of landscape photos being my favourite).
The whole family love that they can be visiting, and just pick up the remote and immediately see any new additions, or photos of themselves, or whoever, from whenever, or wherever.

Tagging is the biggest pain. It has to be done, and done right, else the library won't work, and there's no way to automate it in the way we can for our audio libraries. We all think our photo library is the mutt's nuts, but I'm the only one who knows how many hours goes into it to get it that way

I also have a ton of clipart in a branch of my MC images library which makes that stuff a breeze to filter down to what I'm looking for.

Overall, I'm very happy with my images once they arrive in MC, except for the HTPC sluggishness, which, I'm sure, is caused by heavy use of expressions.

[JimH]

My HTPC scores around 3000 in the JRBenchmark tool, but whilst navigating my image library, there's almost a two second delay from button press to screen activity.

Is it a custom view?

Or are files on a NAS?

[marko]

Custom views

Many of them are expression based, either directly, or by way of a custom library field, which I think may be the root of the problem. Things like a calendar tree built from the date, People tags extracted from the Keywords tag and so on... Thing is, it used to be very snappy indeed, but for about a year now, has gotten steadily more and more sluggish, which is a shame as the expressions allow for some pretty neat stuff with the images.
i tried troubleshooting, but gave up. The default, out of the box MC was about twice as quick in the image library, with around a one second lag, and I wasn't sure if that was to be expected on this ageing i3 powered ASRock?

Thumbnails are all built.
HTPC is a client with a wired ethernet connection.
files reside on the server PC, and should be accessed directly by way of the fact that I have the drive mapped on the HTPC, so the file path matches the library, and the "use local file if it exists" option checked in MC.

-marko

[Gl3nn]

Adobe Lightroom does everything I need for my photographic needs.

[Daydream]

I use it a lot.

I would use it even more if you guys would update the IPTC implementation and drop your custom fields.

[Manfred]

~13 000 Images under Management. I would like to have something like in my Apple Device Photos assigned to a location on  a map. Better Tagging. Some features to find out the location ( I had a lot of DIA's but it's not like today that the GPS data are stored).

[flac.rules]

I use it occasionally, but would like to use it more, a good image-viewing tool is useful in a media-program.

[tij]

not used it yet ... but planning to try ... something i look forward to is managing (sorting and tagging) through standard view on clients machine (as server side machine will be housed in dedicated room)  ... then distributing it to other clients so family have access to all photoes (theatre view, JRemote, gizmo)

tagging and sorting from multiple clients (possibly at the same time) will help a lot as family members can help out with this enourmous task

Tried many managing tools ... Lightroom, ACDSee, and couple of others ... none of them are client/server oriented ... some of them allows other client to access database, but not edit ... their managing capability are awesome, but oriented at power users with no easy to anderstand interface for just accessing (searching and viewing)



Photo in iOS used to be great ... but then they move on to cloud

[Trumpetguy]

I use it as my primary permanent storage and (keyword) tagging of photos. The browsing is fast (MC benchmark ~3800), and keyword-based filtering works really well.

I do not use image processing tools.

On the wish-list:

• I wish I could use JRemote to view them....
• MC to make use of gps data and present images in a (zoom-able) map
• More eye-candy improved timeline views

[astromo]

Great capability.

It's used occasionally but it's a great organising / curating tool. Very glad that it's part of the package. The ability to easily assign meta tags and then set up views to suit makes MC even more useful.

[RD James]

I can see some merit to it for photo sharing among Media Center clients or perhaps via Panel, but it's not something I personally have any use for.
I use Adobe's Lightroom to manage and edit my actual photography work.

What would make it useful for me is if it had support for GIF transparency and animation in all views.
So if I have a page of 60 thumbnails, they would show the background rather than a checkerboard, and they would all be animating at once.
But I don't know if that would be feasible. A web browser handles pages like that easily, but I've yet to find any image software which can do it, and it's the one type of content that I haven't found a good solution to manage.
I realize that's probably a niche request, and not what it's intended for though.

[mattkhan]

I do use it intermittently and would probably use it more if it could automatically receive content from google photos (as pretty much the only source of pics are android phones so everything goes into google photos), agree with the previous posts that nicer/shinier ways to navigate the library (maps & timelines) would make it more likely that I'd use it more often

On the wish-list:

• I wish I could use JRemote to view them....

you can use jremote to view them today

[Trumpetguy]

you can use jremote to view them today

Actually, no. When trying to play "on device" it says "playing all files, starting with XX", then nothing.

[mattkhan]

Actually, no. When trying to play "on device" it says "playing all files, starting with XX", then nothing.

Ah I see, so it only displays them as an accidental feature.... i.e. if you play to a server zone then you can see them in the jremote playing now view. I guess you could setup a non exclusive zoneswitch rule as a hacked workaround (make a zone, tell it play to images in that zone so you don't disturb existing playback), might lead to side effects though....

[DocLotus]

Zoner Photo Studio X does it for me.

[1maynard]

I have not used yet, but plan to in the future. Right now I am working on my audio and video files getting them into the library and tagged and organized. I have always wanted an easy way to view photos on my TV and never cared for any of the other options out there. If it is as easy as playing audio files or videos I am sure that we will love it.

[marko]

I do use it intermittently and would probably use it more if it could automatically receive content from google photos (as pretty much the only source of pics are android phones so everything goes into google photos),

Mine does this. You need the Google Drive app (Backup & Sync?) on the PC, set Google to show your photos in Drive, and set MC to watch the drive folder. Job done.

[contium]

I have all my images in my JRiver library but I rarely use JRiver to view them.

[cncb]

I have gone back and forth between MC and Adobe Photoshop Elements over the years.  While PSE is generally easier to use and is focused on photos, I am currently using MC because the DLNA server can't be beat for viewing images and home videos on my Shield Android TV.

[Museum]

Lightroom  does it for me, but I am missing a Feature : HEIF Support (I am on Windows). I have tried Zoner Photo Studio X - this program supports encoding in HEIF but sadly only in 24 bit. HEIF should be the future to store Pictures in the camera and everywhere. Perhaps Microsoft will support it in the near future with full 48 bit - so you can get rid of Jpeg banding issues. JRiver should support it (license is not owned by Apple -it is MPEG) as soon as Microsoft has payed the bill. Mostly less space for saving and capable of 12 bit per Color.

[MusicHawk]

I use MC so much for photos management that I have a PC dedicated just to doing it, a fast machine with huge drive, plus backup drives, plus cloud backup. MC tells me I now have more than 61 thousand images, and I still have many more boxes of family photos to scan. (A separate PC in another room is used to show photos to family and friends.)

The huge value is tagging, which then supports smartviews. I avoid MC's proprietary fields, and only use Keywords, Date and Caption, and (rarely) Description for long explanatory text if it happens to be needed (especially, interesting stuff written on the back of print photos years ago). For Keywords I use the trick of nesting to create pseudo-category-tags such as Person names, photo Places, Events, and various other types of tags, in this format: !Places\CH\Zermatt, !Places\US\CA\San Diego, etc.

I don't use MC's image editing tools, instead have MC's Send To set to open selected images in various external apps I use. But it would be terrific if MC's capabilities can be improved. Also, I run Google Picasa 3.9 in parallel, it can be live with MC and they co-exist. Picasa is terrific for quick adjustments (image straightening is very cool), but it is horrible for tagging (and it messes up MC tags unless they are done a certain way).

As explained by Marko, I easily import into MC all photos from family phones, which auto-upload full quality to Google Photos. Then Google's backup app pulls them onto my PC, where MC imports and I organize. I also load the photos from memory cards of my real cameras, from my scanners, from email, etc. All photos go into MC for management, even those that are not for routine viewing -- photos of important documents, product labels, bad things growing on my dog, other oddities, are simply tagged differently, then stored in different MC folders that slide shows ignore.

I have a family room PC dedicated to running a slide show as screensaver. I don't run MC for a slide show because this PC runs MC for music, I've tried to run two instances, images and music, but it is not a stable situation. Also, MC doesn't (that I know of) let me display Caption or other info in the way I desire -- super-imposed, readable from across the room, in an exact position, font, color. To do this I use an excellent screen saver from UK, ABScreenSavers.com, which allows customized display of image and text (via a CSS file) and photo files used and display order (I like random), and more. The adjacent TV is also connected to the slide-show PC; for a non-TV party I have both PC and TV showing photos, ABScreenSaver sends a different random photo to each screen. It is always a huge party hit, so I've sent many people home with the name of the screen saver. Of course, I'd be very happy if MC could fill this need instead, driving the photo show via smartlists would be "awesome".

The other big need in MC is a way to upload the edited, organized, tagged images to one or many "cloud" photo sites for sharing with family and friends. Google Photos is horrible because it does not respect or use any of the above, it just tries to be robot-stupid "clever". But if there are other suitable photo sharing sites (are there?), allowing MC to connect, sign in, and upload would be wonderful.

To restate the oppoprtunity, the photo/image world is exploding. People are taking more pictures of more things/people/places/activities/food than ever. And the business of scanning old print photos into digital is very big. But all of this soon gets overwhelming and needs organization. Dopey solutions like Google Photos can easily be shown to be a black hole, where important photos get miscategorized or overlooked or lost in space.

On the gear side, today's so-called "phones" are mainly promoted for their camera quality, because people love photos! Even actual cameras are selling strongly, Costco displays pricey (in my store $600 to $2600) DSLR and mirrorless cameras near the store entrance, and they do not carry items that don't sell very well.

[dtc]

I checked Occasionally, but that really only means once a year or so, and I have other options. In fact, it has probably been 2 years since I used it for anything meaningful.

[mattkhan]

Mine does this. You need the Google Drive app (Backup & Sync?) on the PC, set Google to show your photos in Drive, and set MC to watch the drive folder. Job done.

thanks for the pointer, TIL that google keep this option fairly well hidden (I found the details in https://support.cloudhq.net/how-to-enable-google-photos-folder-in-your-google-drive/ in case anyone else is similarly in the dark, i.e. go to the settings cog in the drive website and tick the relevant checkbox to create a photos folder in drive)

[hoyt]

Mine does this. You need the Google Drive app (Backup & Sync?) on the PC, set Google to show your photos in Drive, and set MC to watch the drive folder. Job done.

That's a really good idea... One of the reasons I stopped using the Photos very much is because I rarely would use my DSLR.  I might have to do this now.  Thanks for the idea!

[JimH]

That's a really good idea... One of the reasons I stopped using the Photos very much is because I rarely would use my DSLR.  I might have to do this now.  Thanks for the idea!

You can use Camera > Acquire to move images from your phone to your computer.  Options allow you to delete those from your phone or not.

[marko]

You could. If you go the Google Drive app route though, the photos are auto imported into MC within a minute or so of being taken, so no faffing around connecting the phone to the computer, which is nice.

I use iPhone, but choose to use Google Photos over iCloud. I'm not sure about Android, but for removing, to have everything in sync, I need to remove from Google Photos by logging in from the PC. These are then automatically removed from MC a few minutes later, and I get a notification on my phone to confirm deletion of the photos.

I think it might be easier than this from an Android phone though, at least, I would expect it to be.

-marko

[RoderickGI]

If you delete a photo using the Google Photos App on Android, it is deleted from Google Photos on the web as well. Actually, when you delete in Android the photos are just moved to the "Bin", which allows undeleting for 60 days.

However, if you delete photos using another App, such as the "Album" App on my Sony Android phone, the photos are not deleted in Google Photos on the phone or on the web. So the photos on an Android phone obviously aren't managed as a global resource that all Apps can manipulate, and the Google Photos App includes additional functionality.

So if you use the Google Photos App on iPhone to delete photos (I assume that there is a Google Photos App in the Apple store, since there is a Backup and Sync from Google), it may delete on the web. But if you use another App to delete photos on the iPhone, and only use Backup and Sync from Google to sync the photos to Google Drive, then maybe it won't delete from the web.

Also, Google Photos has recently been sort of separated from Google Drive, in that Google Photos no longer has a view under Google Drive. But you can still show Google Photos under the "My Drive" view in Google Drive. So "Backup and Sync from Google" has to be set up to only sync your photos if this is what you want to do. By default it syncs everything on Google Drive.

Google also only stores original quality photos up to you free or paid limit of storage. Go over that limit and Google will unilaterally reduce the quality of the photos, to save space. So Google Drive is a great way to quickly get photos from a phone to the web, to a PC you can manage, but it is probably best them to copy those photos to another location on the PC, if you wish to retain lots of photos long-term at original quality, and then delete them from Google Photos.

The other issue with this setup is that every photo you take with you phone will appear within minutes on your HTPC. Is that a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not sometimes!

[marko]

The other issue with this setup is that every photo you take with you phone will appear within minutes on your HTPC. Is that a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not sometimes!

This is why the HTPC has a top level exclusion of -[filename (path)]=Google

In fact, the entire image library on the server has this exclusion, so once vetted, only the 'keepers' make it into the library proper. There's lot's of stuff that has no place in there, mostly things like small labels my eyes can't read, I take a photo and zoom into it, and tada...

I've tried all kinds of ways on the iPhone. The only way I've found to keep everything synced up is to log in to Google Photos from a web browser and delete in there. Then the deletions get propogated. I get a notification in Google Photos on the phone, in the "assistant" to advise that x number of photos have been deleted, and do I want to remove them from the device, and when I say yes, iOS then asks if I want to allow Google to do that. Removal from MC is however, almost instant.

[hoyt]

Google also only stores original quality photos up to you free or paid limit of storage. Go over that limit and Google will unilaterally reduce the quality of the photos, to save space. So Google Drive is a great way to quickly get photos from a phone to the web, to a PC you can manage, but it is probably best them to copy those photos to another location on the PC, if you wish to retain lots of photos long-term at original quality, and then delete them from Google Photos.

This is one of the reasons I bought a Pixel.  The unlimited original resolution backup size is something I've taken advantage of.  I noticed with the Pixel 2 they changed this verbiage to be something about the lifetime of the device, but the original Pixel is much more vague.  Good idea about backing them up outside of the Drive folder though.

The other issue with this setup is that every photo you take with you phone will appear within minutes on your HTPC. Is that a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not sometimes!

I was thinking of this today and how I'd "clean" the photos first.  I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm certainly going to play with images more after reading this!

[pschelbert]

Used never "image" feature on JRiver nor TV.

But all about music, sound-DSP, music-library.

Peter

[RoderickGI]

I was going to buy a Pixel 2 but wasn't happy with the flex test as it has a weak point and breaks. Also no SD card support. The Pixel 2 XL is stronger, but still no SD card. Hence I bought the Sony XZ Premium.

Google put an actual expiry date on the original resolution storage for Pixel 2 of January 15, 2021. Not good enough for permanent storage of precious memories.

While this discussion is a little off topic, it is still about our photo workflow, and how MC fits into it. Basically, I think MC can be a great final repository for photos, but isn't the tool for collection, editing, and I'm not sure about tagging, but management and display it is certainly good. Particularly display for friends and family on a TV driven by a HTPC. I would love to see MC handle standard geographic and faces tags, so that these tags created before the photos get to MC are used without further effort.

[v_erich]

My problem is, that I have only RAW images and they are all edited with lightroom.
So I dont want to see unprocessed images.

BR
Erich

[MusicHawk]

My workflow of Android phones to PC to MC is simple to avoid various pitfalls:

1. Phones automatically load full-res pictures to Google Photos. No worries about "filling up" my Google storage because they don't stay there long.

2. My PC dedicated to MC Images runs Google Backup app that automatically downloads new photos to the PC. It does this for my wife's phone too since I set her Google Drive account to share the photos folder with me.

3. MC watches the folder and Imports all the photos, immediately if MC is running, or later when I run it. No hurry, the photos are already "safe" by being on the phones and on Google's servers. If the PC is running (usually is) they quickly appear there, grabbed by my various backup routines. And pulled into MC whenever I run it.

4. Tagging is in MC, which also moves the photos into my main Images tree of year\month folders. I do that manually (press F6) after reviewing, fixing up, and tagging the photos. This assures that only desirable photos are viewed by others. (Any photos that are odd but needed are put in various other folders.)

5. To clean up the phone's storage, Google has an option to delete from the phone any pictures already uploaded to Google Photos.

Other than the tagging/typing I do, being automated it all takes less time to do than it did to type this, and after a few years (adjusted as Google diddled with things) it has been totally reliable.

[Library Eye]

I use it , but I run JRiver for macOS. I like it. I keep cover art in some album folders, so it's nice to be able to view from within the program I use for music playback. I wish I could rotate the view from within Images, that would be helpful sometimes.

Funny thing is first time I used it, it ended up somehow resetingt my Now Playing to just be pictures, which was fine, but it also removed the "recent Now Playings" smart lists. I got them back somehow but they were empty basically and then they vanished again. I always thought that was such great feature to have built-in, for when i inadvertently cleared my Now Playing or when program crashed. But somehow using Images lost that.

[RoderickGI]

Funny thing is first time I used it, it ended up somehow resetting my Now Playing to just be pictures, which was fine, but it also removed the "recent Now Playings" smart lists. I got them back somehow but they were empty basically and then they vanished again.

The "Recent Playing Now's" Smartlist is created and removed by MC as required. Search this article for "Recent" to see learn about it: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/How_Playing_Now_Works

[Library Eye]

The "Recent Playing Now's" Smartlist is created and removed by MC as required. Search this article for "Recent" to see learn about it: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/How_Playing_Now_Works

Thanks. Yeah, for some reason it stopped generating those. If I ever get one again, I will post an update.

[syndromeofadown]

I have every personal picture that I and my family has ever taken in MC. We use tag on import to organize them and we view them regularly. I am completely happy with the current image features and have zero interest in having more added.
If we come across an image that needs some form of editing (which is rare), we use find on disk external then edit it with one of our many photo editors.

[enazarko]

I have JRiver on the laptop I use for field processing of images (I'm a photographer.) I've got two different image management tools, two different processing apps... and now I've got JRiver running around indexing things and creating yet another cache and thumbnails etc.

I found this topic while searching for a way to turn off the video and image scanning and indexing...