Street Photography Magazine

Image Database Software | Test

Cumulusis designed for use in large multi-user
environments. We used a single-user license
with multi-user functionality for our test.
Obviously, the starter version doesn’t support
Web publishing via Cumulus Sites or the
Web-based administrator tools offered by its
multi-user cousin. Although we only tested it
with image files, Cumulusis designed to
function as a full-blooded DAM (Digital Asset
Management) system that can be used to
manage video, sound and layout files too.
During import, Cumulusgives you the
choice of importing your assets to its own file
system or leaving them in their current
location. The import process offers an
impressive set of options, including import for
unrecognized files. This enabled the program
to import our complete set of sample images,
something most of the other test programs
couldn’t do. Overall, the file recognition is a
two-edged sword –Cumulusrecognized more
standard image formats than all our other test
candidates, but was unable to recognize a

lot of our RAW files (especially those

shot using older camera models). The

manufacturer is promising to add manual

catalog configuration functionality to address

this deficiency.

Cumulus is not really designed for

managing data on a file system level, but is

well equipped for handling logical assets in

the form of Catalogs, Categories and

Collections. It also supports XMP and IPTC

Core metadata. The built-in metadata editor

is extremely powerful, although not all the

changes you make in the GUI are saved to

the image files. For example, to preserve

data integrity, the program doesn’t support

direct backups for Exif metadata. On the

other hand, the editor allows you to define

your own custom metadata fields to adapt

the program to your own specific

requirements. There is no face recognition

or geotagging/map functionality, but the

Find window can be used to perform

extremely detailed searches, provided you

have some previous knowledge of how

databases work.Cumuluscan save assets to

FTP servers and catalog them, and the

built-in multi-language thesaurus is a fine

tool for professional imaging workflow

situations.

Cumulus’ real advantage lies in its

scalability, as it expands in accordance with

the user’s needs. There is no real reason

for photographers to use Cumulusas a

single-user solution, and the single-user

license only really makes sense as a trial

version for companies that plan to

implement some kind of multi-user solution

later. Both Lightroom and Aperture are better

desktop solutions, but Cumuluscomes into

its own as soon as you want to integrate

multiple users into your environment or

give customers Web-based access to your

digital assets. The combined local and/or

client-based interface offers more flexible

access options than the browser-based

eyebase mediasuitesolution.

Canto Cumulus

TheCumulusmetadata editor is highly customizable. You can create a list of
keywords for each data field, like the IPTC Author field shown here.