I have been trying it and there is no doubt that it is
awesome. Anyone who has to keyword marine life should get it - whether it is for library submissions or for your own indexing. For me its a no-brainer because it works and saves masses of time. Its that simple.
Like many users will do - I have blundered in and used it, without reading any instructions and I have found it very intuitive. Although - I may not be doing everything the most efficient way. I am using Lightroom, BTW.
Where it is useful is that a lot of the time we all know the name of our subject is, but we don't know the latin name or often we are not just 100% on how to spell it. That last one gets me all the time. I know most of the latin names, but always end up having to look them up when it comes to keywording, which is a big drain on time. Once you have the MarineLife keywords list installed - you type the name in to the "Add Keywords" box (labelled 1 on the screen grab below) and it prompts you with the full listing. Then you just press return and it is added.
Screen grab of part of the Keyword Menu in Lightroom
So far I have not found any marine species that are not there (and I have tried some tricky ones) - well apart from
Sus scrofa - which I think should be added as a tribute to Wetpixel Expeditions!
Now you might think that I am only writing positive words because a friend of mine helped develop it. Far from it. I have tried to look as critically as I can, but it is hard to find criticism. It installs inon-destructively to all you previous work in seconds, just works and saves masses of time.
There are several ways to add keywords to images. Either click through menus and then drag and drop, or just using the Keyword Prompts and hit return. Keywording multiple images takes just seconds.
As an improvement I would like to see the keyword database be searchable under Latin names - using the "Click here to add keywords" box in Lightroom (Labelled 1 on image above). This is the easiest way to add keywords because it prompts you with suggestions and then you press return to add them. But it is only searchable on English Common Names (although some inverts e.g. Nudis are searchable with latin names) - which is a pain if you are not an English speaker. Although actually I should say American English - grey seals are in fact gray seals - I discovered! But more frustrating is that some species have several common names - but only one will be listed.
Now I l accept that there is an argument that if you already know that latin name, do you need the list, but as I said above you may know half the name or not be 100% on the spelling. The prompt would be very useful here.
For example I tend to call this fish a bohar snapper:
But typing in bohar snapper (into box 1) does not bring up any matches (despite the latin name being Lutjanus bohar). The other common name that is regularly used is two spot snapper , but this doesn't work either. Nor twin spot, or two spotted. In Australia it is called Red Bass, on fishbase two spot red snapper and also listed under two spot banded snapper. The common name listed in the keywords for this species is "red snapper". OK, not all species are so troublesome, but having a parallel latin name search would be useful too.
You can search under Latin names using the "Filter Keywords" box a little further down (marked 2 on the screen grab above), but this then requires you to click down through the menus and drag and drop. Not a big problem, but a slightly slower solution. However this approach does allow you to drag multiple taxonomic layers in in one go. So rather than just getting:
red snapper: Lutjanus bohar
You can get:
Bony Fishes: Osteichthyes > Fishes > Marine Life, Fishes > Marine Life, Marine Life, red snapper: Lutjanus bohar, Snappers: LutjanidaeAgain, just drag and drop. Maybe I am looking too hard to find faults, actually I prefer it this way! With some species you can get a really long listing this way - here is the big listing from the Blue Whale:
Alexander Mustard, baleen whale, blue whale: Balaenoptera musculus, California, Cetaceans: Cetacea, East Pacific, Filter Feeding Whales: Great Whales: Baleen Whales: Mysteceti, Guadalupe Island, Isla Guadalupe, Mammalia, Marine Mammals, Mexico, Pacific Ocean, Rorquals: Balaenopteridae, www.amustard.com (note there are a couple of my own keywords - location - in that one too).
Anyway, that is the only negative I can think of. I would really like a Bridge Compatable version - great for adding proper keywords to already processed files.
Alex
p.s. Would a free 30 day trial delete all the keywords at the end? I reckon I could get all my files done in 30 days and then I'd have all the keywords of the species I commonly shoot on my system forever anyway!
