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Image Management: Cerious ThumbsPlus

Last updated: 15 October 2007
Published in: Managing your digital resources |
Tags: delivery | digital collections | software |

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JISC Digital Media has surveyed a range of image management software developers to gather specific information about their systems. These are the responses from Cerious ThumbsPlus.

Please note: The following information has been provided by the system developer/vendor in answer to a detailed survey carried out by JISC Digital Media, but has not been independently verified. It is provided to help you identify systems to evaluate in more detail, but you are advised to check with the system developer/vendor to see if the system has changed or there are later versions available.

There are a wide range of different image management systems available. To help identify those most suitable, we would recommend you also look at our introductory papers on Systems for Managing Digital Media Collections and Choosing a System for Managing your Image Collection.

To compare this system's features with those of others, please see the full list of systems who have responded to our survey on the Image Management Software page.

Information supplied: October 2007

Cerious ThumbsPlus www.thumbsplus.com
We asked the system developer to use 50-100 words to sum up and promote their system to a very broad audience: ThumbsPlus is a market leading photo organizing and searching software that includes editing, viewing, batch conversion/editing/resizing, metafile support, image filtering, contact sheet creation, printed catalogs, display slide shows, change wallpaper, launch external editors, install and remove True Type Fonts, handle offline media and automatically save screen and window captures. ThumbsPlus supports all common digital cameras and file formats as well as digital video. ThumbsPlus is not just a viewer! It is an ODBC image database management program. Keep in mind that there is no shareware Image Database program except for ThumbsPlus that has the amount of options and functions as ThumbsPlus and our retail competition costs much more and still lacks the amazing features that my product offers!
Current version	Version 7 SP2
Current version released	November 2007
Next version due (approx)	Not known
Main sectors aimed at	Corporate or professional (private sector); Government (public sector); Primary or Secondary education; Further or Higher (Tertiary) education; Charitable/not-for-profit; Home users
Main users aimed at	Professional photographers; Picture Library staff; Creative staff (e.g. illustrators, designers); Marketing staff; Records Managers; Librarians; Archivists; Museum/Gallery professionals; Educators; Scientific researchers; Humanities or Social Science researchers; Medical professionals; Home users
Type of system		Folder viewer/image browser
		Web gallery system
		Image/photo management system
		Digital asset management system (DAM)
		Musem/gallery/library/achive collection management system
		Virtual learning environment (VLE)
		Content management system (CMS)
		Digital repository system
		Digital library system
Open-source/Proprietary?	Proprietary but incorporates open/standard technologies
Complexity	Simple 'off-the-shelf' system - anyone can download/load disc and install
Maximum size of the catalogue (e.g. number of records or filesize)	With SQL databases there is no size limit. With MS Access the max database size is 2 Gb
Handling of images
Image- object- or workflow-centric?	Image-centric - seperate record for each image
Adding images to system		Captures images directly from a scanner from within the system
		Captures images directly from a tethered camera from within the system
		'Drag and drop' into system
		Scans a computer for new images
		Scans external drives/memory devices for new images
		Scans network servers for new images
		Sets up automatically 'watched' folders
		Keeps system and folders in 'sync'
		Other: cards, TWAIN
File formats supported		RAW formats (Supported via separate plug-ins)
		DNG
		TIFF
		JPEG
		GIF
		PNG
		JPEG2000
		PSD
		PDF (Supported via separate plug-ins)
		EPS (Supported via separate plug-ins)
		Flash
		SVG
		Audio formats
		Video formats
Where can images be located?	Can be anywhere on or offline (i.e. system keeps record of offline storage such as CD-ROMs)
Image management		Ability to manage original image files (e.g. move, copy, rename or delete) from within the system
		Ability to organise images into virtual 'folders', 'galleries' or 'categories' to aid management and retrieval
		Image versioning
		Rating system (e.g. star or numbers for best images)
		Automatic generation of thumbnails and preview images
		Ability to zoom image to 100% (full size) within data entry interface
Image editing provision	Basic editing provided by system along with ability to automatically open image in specialist editing software
Image editing provision	Edits are made to originals and stored and applied when user decides or image is copied or exported
Specific image editing functions		Resizing
		Rotating
		Cropping
		Sharpening
		Red-eye removal
		Dust/noise removal
		Brightness and contrast adjustments
		Levels adjustments
		Curves adjustments
		Support for ICC colour management
		Creative filters
Other significant editing functions		Freehand select, paste into; Rotate to line; Combine images; Colour replacement; Image fading
Print templates
Auditing of who did what/when to image
Other image-related features		Zip files may be viewed as folders; The ability to save batch sets; Quick (and non-lossy for JPEG files) turns (90, 180, 270) and mirrors; Stamp an image with any image info (such as file name, date, EXIF fields, etc.), another image or any text; Show the computed similarity between selected images; Versatile batch processing, including setting file date/time
Handling of metadata
Metadata structure	Relational database structure
Customising fields		Add new catalogue fields
		Delete catalogue fields
		Hide catalogue fields from data entry interface
		Re-label catalogue fields
		Re-order catalogue fields
Time saving features		Set up templates or defaults
		Clone or duplicate records
		Automatically catalogue images upon import
		Batch edit metadata
		Global find and replace
Controlled vocabularies		Create drop-down pick-lists
Controlled vocabularies		Support for theasauri (with broader and narrower terms)
Spell-checking/validation		Spell-checking
		Validation of terminology
		Validation of dates and numbers
Support for UNICODE (non-Latin characters)
Importing		Import existing metadata in standard delimited formats
Importing		Import existing metadata in XML formats
Exporting		Export of metadata in standard delimited formats
Exporting		Export of metadata in XML formats
Metadata interoperability (e.g. metadata harvesting, cross-searching)		Automatic exposure of metadata as OAI-PMH data
		Support for Z39.50 searching
		Support for search scripts
Embedded metadata support		Read IPTC metadata from within the image file
		Read EXIF metadata from within the image file
		Read XMP data
		Read other metadata from within the image file
		Write IPTC metadata into image file
		Edit EXIF metadata
		Write XMP data
		Write other metadata
Data-entry interface		Client-based/program-based data entry interface
Data-entry interface		Web browser-based data entry interface
Reporting/auditing		Auditing of who did what and when to the metadata
Reporting/auditing		Editable templates or scripts for generating reports
Other metadata-related features		You can automatically extract EXIF information and store in user fields
Delivery to users
Web browser-based end-user interface
Customisability of interface		System manager can customise interface
Customisability of interface		End-user can customise their view of interface
Publishing of images		Publish as static gallery to Web
		Publish as dynamic searchable Web catalogue
		Publish to CD-ROM
		Email images from system
Search/browse features		Browse collection by categories
		Search the collection
		Search via thesaurus
		Advanced search features (e.g. Boolean logic, wildcard or 'sounds like' searching)
		Content-based image retrieval (CBIR)
Zooming functionality
User interaction		Users can 'bookmark' or store images
		Users can annotate bookmarked images
		Users can upload their own images to the system
		Users can create slide shows
Security/Digital Rights Management (DRM)		Access control based on roles or profiles
		Access control based on individual usernames and passwords
		Compatibility with standard educational authentication services (e.g. Athens or Shibboleth)
		Built-in Digital Rights Management technology (e.g. watermarking)
Interoperability/interaction with other systems		The ability to connect to an SQL 6.5, 7.0, 2000 and MYSQL as well as Oracle, DBase and others
Other significant delivery functionality		Search by similarity
Company and support information
Country in which system developers are based	USA
Approximately how many UK users are there?	50-100K
UK office, representative or primary reseller	The Thompson Partnership Telephone Orders: +44 (0) 1803 850044 Fax Orders: +44 1803 (0)854442 Internet Orders: sales@ttp.co.uk Internet Support: support@ttp.co.uk
Independent user-group for this system?		FogBugz http://bugs.cerious.com/FogBugz
UK-based training available?		Individual training quoted upon request
System support		support@cerious.com Phone support 704/529-0200 x 112
Other services available		Quotes upon request

Please note: The above information has been provided by the system developer/vendor in answer to a detailed survey carried out by JISC Digital Media, but has not been independently verified. It is provided to help you identify systems to evaluate in more detail, but you are advised to check with the system developer/vendor to see if the system has changed or there are later versions available.

To compare this system's features with those of others, please see the full list of systems who have responded to our survey on the Image Management Software page.

Last updated: 15 October 2007
Published in: Managing your digital resources |
Tags: delivery | digital collections | software |

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