Messages posted by boristhemoggy

And even those little thumbnails show a marked difference.
Yes I have decided what to do, but as I said, the crashing wasn't apparent in PD 4 so there was no issue with that anyway.
Finally, I've given this a good shot. I've responded as you asked, tested as you wanted and fed back as you requested but I feel you're defensive because my test hasn't proved positive.
Let me say this, tell me I've got it wrong about keywords not being read, and dng/png not being supported, and ask me for my picture files for comparison and tell me why there's such a marked difference, and I would be very happy to change my mind.

OK my very first impressions are:
It took over 4 hours to import 14,948 files, a mixture of RAW and DNG files. (JPG are lossy files so I don't keep them, TIFF's are 4 times the size so I don't keep those either.) It did give me a standard Windows error message at 96% of the import saying there was an error and it had to close, however it didn't close and went on to complete the import. Way to go!

PD4 says it can't import DNG but it did, it allowed me to process one, and export it as a JPG. The colours were shocking but as it was not supposed to be allowed, I forgave it that. There's no PNG support which I find highly surprising.

Some keywords have been imported, however I picked one at random...Derwentwater. LR tells me there are 556 images tagged with that word, PD4 tells me there are 18 from the same catalogue. I did wait a while in case it was just taking a long time to read them but it wasn't.
On that one feature alone, PD4 is I'm afraid useless to me apart from as a one off, now-and-again editor. One of the key functions of a good library management tool is to be able to read existing meta-data.

Using a RAW file, I exported a JPG from PD4 and one from LR4 of the same file. The colour rendition from PD I'm afraid was terrible. However maybe it has to be calibrated to use a specific profile? I stuck with sRGB for the test which is about as standard as you'd find.
I did notice also on one particular file that not only colour, but the actual quality of the image itself was noticeably poorer in the PD version as compared to the LR version. I couldn't find anywhere to set resolution of exported files except the slider for JPG quality which I set to highest. To try and make the comparison fair I set LR4 to the same. That means even as a one-off editor it's no good to me.

I took another RAW file and used the background remove tool. I removed the background then saved the file as a TIFF. Of course it didn't save the layers so you must finish a job when you start. It will save as PNG, however you can't select it as a choice. You must try to exit the tool, then you get a warning box saying you will lose your work if you don't save, and if you choose to save then you get the option to save as a PNG. Deeply puzzling why there is not simply an option to export or save as a PNG.

I didn't play with it any further. No proper DNG or PNG support, poor colour rendition, poor quality of exported JPG's and very poor meta-data operation mean it's not any good to me at all.

Sorry to be so negative, it's not an attempt to brutalise your software, simply to evaluate it. It's got a nice interface and some fantastic tools, but it's simply not 'quality' or finished. PLease let me know if I've been unfair by missing something though.

Oh just a minor annoyance, but the splash screen hogs the focus whilst it loads and that's incredibly annoying when programs do that

TBH I have no malice toward CL, really, I haven't paid anything, so I've lost nothing. I've used other Cyberlink products in the past without problem.
Anyway I tried to attach my dxdiag but it seems this forum doesn't allow attachments? Or am I just being thick?
I'll try the trial of 4 and see how it goes.
My maintenance regime is born of long experience of unreliable hardware and software and the ease with which us humans can make errors.
It will never be foolproof, but it's pretty dam good

My apologies, I assumed tech support as you are mod.
Reliable is a weird word. It's reliable for you but not for me, so that means it's not reliable, even though it has been for you.
Lets say for example, it doesn't like nvidia cards, but only when the latest drivers are installed, and only when a generic monitor is installed, and only on my build of Windows 7. Now, that's a problem that's extremely difficult to identify, but fairly simple to solve.
However given that hypothetical problem, it means PD is reliable for you, but will never ever work for me. And that's when you get say...70% of users who think it's fantastic, and 30% who simply can't make it work.
Most large software houses have a %'age that they're willing to go to and call their software successful, that's how they operate because for whatever reason, they can't or won't fix the problems of those 30%.
So, when I hear people say "but it worked for me", that's OK, as long as they don't make out like it's my fault. It's simply that software like hardware has tolerances. Some have lower than others. Some companies spend more time trying to raise their tolerances. You get the picture anyway.
So, there's 3 major things that mean I simply am not able to use PD. If Cyberlink have enough users without problems they won't bother with me, otherwise they may try and find out why it's happening.
Thanks for the link to send in a ticket, I'll do that and see what happens.

Hi
All good suggestions.
However at boot a batch script runs which basically cleans out all temp files in all areas of the computer part from installation files and prefetch folders. When it's done that it runs cleanmgr which has been pre-set by sageset.
It's defragged weekly automatically on schedule.
Nothing runs at startup that doesn't need to run. I've found the majority of things that go into startup are just convenience or update checkers so I cleared all mine out.
I use Windows Defender, but all programs which are necessary for being online are turned off when I'm not online. Again, the principle of not running stuff that's not needed.
I accept I don't have the fastest machine in the world but I can run Lightroom and Photoshop together, sending from LR to PS to edit then back to LR to be saved as a TIFF.
THere may indeed be something about my system which is making PD crash all the time, but is't that what tech support are for in this forum? To help me identify what that might be? However I've been told they "hope it starts behaving for me" lol
I'm guessing if I had a dollar for every program author who blamed their product on my computer...
Thanks for the suggestions though ontheweb, all good ones if I may say so.
I always have patience, but only if the other side do too. None of the issues I've raised have really been seriously spoken about, in fact the one about the keywords has been completely ignored.
So yeah I got buckets of patience, if anyone wants to come into the forum and suggest resolutions.

I'm using an nVidia GeForce 9600M with 2 gig of onboard RAM, and the drivers were updated last week.

Sorry to say it's not my system, it's PD. It has failed to import now on 18 of 20 occasions when I pick large folders.
It clearly can't handle more than a few hundred at a time.
Whilst I have my complaints with Lightroom being slow, it doesn't crash. Neither does Zoner, Capture One, Paintshop Pro or Bibble.

Why it crashes when saving PD I have no idea, and clearly neither does Cyberlink or Pix would have given us an idea. No offence Pix, but the only suggestion you've really offered is a reboot and a reinstall. That to me isn't tech support, my sister could have suggested that. In my experience it crashes when trying to import anything over 1,000 images. As an aside to that, please don't tell me there is no problem in importing...there isn't for you, but there is for me.

I've uninstalled it now anyway, it's clearly an immature product not ready for professionals to use.
However I do like it's ease of use, and variety of tools so here's three suggestions.

Don't rely on importing as Lightroom does, you're asking for trouble and importing and collating a database is really unnecessary. Look at Zoner, one of many tools that doesn't import, you simply work from the existing folder structure. Much more reliable and takes a huge problem away instantly.

The second suggestion is collate some data as to why things go wrong. Again, nothing against you Pix you do your job, but clearly you've been given no info to do that job with, so the forum is less useful than it could be. We need at least some support info passed to you so problems can be looked at and resolved, instead of suggesting "when you get it behaving itself", or at best, one of the software authors to come in and offer support.

The final suggestion is get keywords showing. Every program I use sees my embedded keywords and other meta-data, except PD. Even a Wordpress plugin I use can read them, yet PD can't. I seriously am not going to re-do keywords and all other meta data on 45,000 files! It also makes me wonder, what other problems are there that I haven't discovered yet? Keywords or meta-data, should be one of the first things I see along with my image.

If it was reliable, I really like it and I would buy it instantly, so I'll keep an eye on it to see if it develops. Good luck everyone.

See my other posts. I've given up with PhotoDirector unless you can point me to the reason why it crashes almost every time during import.
Importing is a daily thing for me and if you can't even get your photos in, what's the use of the program?

Right, that's 6 more times it's crashed on importing. I've deleted the project file, started a new project, reinstalled the software and even downloaded the software a second time. (Same file)
There's clearly a problem here and by the way this is a clean install of Window 7 about a month ago, and there's little software installed on it yet so if you want to do some testing it should be fairly simple.
However I'm very put off by this test, as you can imagine, so it's up to you if you want to identify and rectify the issues.

Well it's just crashed again on importing. That's 10 out of 12 times now so obviously I'm losing patience.
It's not looking good.

Quote: No - there is no import limit. I've imported folders containing subfolders with thousands of images, with no issues.

I have the 3618 version running on a seriously underpowered laptop & it hasn't crashed yet.

It does appear that there's something wrong with the installation if PhD is so unstable. I'd do a complete uninstall using Revo Uninstaller (set to moderate)

http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

Then reboot & re-install.

On my PC, I have 3 versions of PhD & they very rarely behave badly, even under heavy workload. I've sometimes found that a project (the .phd file) can be corrupted & deleting it clears such issues.

What was the other version you downloaded?

PIX

Yeah I have revo thanks, great isn't it

One version was reg no DOHDD-5UXVA-T3CFW-AMX85-8ZWWF-WC28Q if that helps? I didn't record anything else from it, but looking at the ureg.ini file from the installation directories, they both have the same SR number

When you enter the import screen, there are two tick boxes toward the top right-ish.
Make sure the top one "Keep in current location" is ticked and the lower one "Make extra copy in" is unticked.

Nope, it crashes on import every time.
I'm importing a folder with a substructure which contains perhaps 40 folders and 5,000 images.
Does PD have an import limit?

Thanks Pix.
I've just now downloaded another version and installed and that one crashes on import
I'm going to do a registry clean of PD remains and reinstall it again and I'll get back to you.

Fantastic method of properly trialling a program. Except I just installed it on Windows 7 and it's crashed on all 3 occasions I tried to import some photos

One of the problems of course is to put a piece of software like Photodirector, or Lightroom, os Zoner through it's paces properly, you need to learn it in depth, compare the results and make a balanced decision. That all takes a LOT more than the crappy 30 day trials everyone gives.
I can tell you though that Lightroom 4.3 is frustratingly slow on my machine, but it's library module is twice as slick and feature full as PhotoDirectors.
The tools in PhotoDirector are more comprehensive and one of the reasons I dislike Lightroom is that there is no PNG support. The background erase tool in PD is awesome, but it's not reading the tags in each RAW file I import, and that's a major, major flaw if I can't find how to do it, as I am not going to retag 45,000 photos!

On the strength of features I'd rate PD way ahead of Lightroom 4 and Zoner.
On the strength of usability I'd rate Lightroom ahead of the rest.
On the strength of reliability I'd rate PD way below anything. It constantly crashes on my Windows 7 machine.
On the strength of not being able to read keywords in my photos, I'd rate PD as below the worst.
I will edit this post if I find out that I'm being a dork and the keywords are there

Version PhotoDirector Deluxe_OEM 3.0.3618
SR Number PTD121207-02

Tried to add DXDIAG file, how do you add a file to the post?

**EDIT:
Synchronise folder does not work if you de-select "Show import dialogue before importing." It simply freezes. If you tick that box to show the import dialogue, it crashes and I am unable to import a whole folder. It's crashed now 9 out of 11 times.
Is it possible that PD can't import if it's rendering and simply crashes instead of pausing one task?
Unless these are simple issues to resolve it looks like I'll be going back to Lightroom.

HI
I've just downloaded the trial and I experimented in erasing the background from one of my images.
I tried to export it as PNG as I will work on it later, but PD crashed with no warning. All that hard work!
I repeated the job this time only doing a small selection of background, and each time it crashed on trying to export the png.

It's version 3.0.3618 running on Windows 7.

Wrong forum, sorry.