There has been some discussion going around about Micro-Art and even a few people claiming that it will be the ExpressDigital killer. I have looked in to this myself as a customer at the lab is looking at it and he wanted my opinion of it. Here it is for all to see. Please keep in mind that I am stating my thoughts based solely on the information available on the Micro-Art website and from spending about 90 minutes with it on Friday afternoon. The customer of mine is looking at this software as he is a Web Edition user that uses a homemade web server with html catalogs done in either Photoshop or ACDSee to create his pages for on-site viewing. I have never been to one of his events but he tells me that it works fairly well for him. He wants to automate the process a little and he likes the price of this software. The server copy would be $300 (see below for a cost breakdown) and each workstation copy would be only $200.
About the software
First of all, the developer of this application needs to hire a UI designer. This is what the software looks like:
This is the main ordering screen
This is the order processing screen
This is the print item output page
The way that this software looks is enough to keep me from using it. Maybe that is a bit short sighted of me, but if it looks like crap I don't want to use it. I won't like it, my people won't like and if we don't like it customers won't like it. In terms of features it seems limited. From the best that I can tell these are your available print items. Further, as it says under "NOTE" above, it certainly seems that you must resize your images manually to order different print sizes. I didn't readily see any method of adding a pre-made border or creating multi node print items. I am told that all of these things are available as add on modules to the software. I went to the Micro-Art website to see that indeed all of these things are available for an added cost. They are not add on modules to Event. Rather they are standalone programs that mostly operate as batch ordering tools. Nothing visual for the customer to create as they look at and order the image.
On to functionality
The software does work. It was very odd to me as it is totally unlike anything that I am used to, but Jerry has been working with the demo for some time and he was able to do quite a number of things with the software easily. He was browsing folders, not catalogs. It was very difficult to change drives. I don't know if he just didn't get it or if this was an actual problem. Here is my rundown of what I didn't like.
- No editing tools. Nothing. No crop, no exposure, scale, focus, contrast or shadow adjustments. Nothing at all. I asked. He said idunno. I looked. I couldn't find anything.
- Thumbnail window is slow, images are spaced poorly and I didn't see a way to add display image names anywhere. Thumbs were like double spaced but on each line the thumbs were touching, In a few cases you couldn't tell where one image ended and the next began.
- Full screen view didn't create a very good preview. It seemed to be low resolution. Images viewed in XnView were just fine. Not in Event.
- Favorites cart visible at all times. At least it has a favorites cart, but it is visible at all times and takes up a tremendous amount of screen space. As the other lists in this software, it doesn't display an image in the cart, it displays the file name. This would mean that the customer would need to browse through that catalog one image at a time. It may allow you to save a favorites cart for later viewing, but we couldn't get this to work in the demo so it may not. Overall, not well implemented.
- The order cart is once again a list. The customer doesn't get any view of the image that they have ordered. Further, once an item is added to the shopping cart there is no way for the customer to review the print item. To see what images have been ordered you would have to review the order list and manually select that image in the browser.
- No borders to add.
- No multi node print items.
- No option for black and white, sepia, retro or anything else.
- No white balance.
- No zoom tool.
- No chroma key.
I became disinterested at this point and really stopped paying attention. The software is very simply a way to browse a folder of images and place very basic, generic print item orders. It doesn't have any of the advanced tools that I simply take for granted so I really didn't care to see any more. I put this in the category of OzE software. Ugly as sin, but it does what it says to varying degrees of difficulty.
Price
On the surface the software seems to be a very good bargain. At $300 for the server copy and $200 for each workstation version it is a good bit less than my first choice, which is ExpressDigital. However, when you look at the things that are missing from the list above and then factor in how much money will be spent to add some of the features it isn't such a deal. Compound this with the fact that when you spend this additional money you aren't adding features to Event. You are buying a standalone program. Here is what some of the extras would add up to. I looked at the features that I use in ED every day, or regularly enough to care about. Added up the individual items that I would have to buy to meet these demands using Micro-Art software and here is my list. Keep in mind that your needs may be very different from mine:
- Event software $310
- Bookmark $75
- Greenscreen $150
- Hot Print $185
- Image Process $185
- Montage $165
- Packager $275
- Plaque $275
- Traders $275
Grand Total $1,895 For me, not such a deal. For that money I have a copy of Darkroom Professional and a copy of Core to use as a workstation. Forget about the fact that for the money I don't end up with all of the above features rolled in to one application where the workstations inherit the features of the server. I get nine separate programs that all operate independently of one another.
Summary
If your needs are modest this software might be for you. If you can get by with simply viewing images and placing simple orders it is something that you should look at. Otherwise you are best served elsewhere. The developer of this software clearly has done a fine job. The fact that this is ugly doesn't take away at all from the fact that it does work. There is nothing here that is unique or different. Everything that this software does is available in other programs. Some of the features are implemented poorly and are not as easy to use as they could be. I just might look at their Composite program. I am leaning away from Darkroom Assembly. It hasn't been updated in well over a year and I am not certain an update is ever coming. The Timestone software looks good, seems to work well in the demo but I can't get past the annual subscription model that they use. $3,400 first year and $1,700 each year after doesn't really excite me much. I might be able to warm up to Micro-Art Composite for $450.
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Filed under: ExpressDigital, Photocenter
