IMatch in a family of semi-active photographers?

[Jo]

I'm trying to figure out whether IMatch suits me and my wife, both having big pile of photos and videos taken throughout decades to document both family life and personal passion. Now it would be time to organize all of them and create combined sets from best-of-picks from both of us.

We are sharing a newly built Windows pc meant to be used to do all the management, with personal Windows accounts.

First I thought it would be enough to get a single license of IMatch, which both of us would be able to use in turns, from within personal accounts, having personal IMatch databases. We both like the idea of having the freedom to create our own categories, keywords and such.

After checking the IMatch license agreement I figure a distinct IMatch license will be needed for both of us. I find that fair enough.

However, I'm worried whether there would be any practical way to browse both her and mine photos taken during our family trip to Madeira 2019 for instance, without both of us first exporting them in a shared folder or something. 

To overcome this, perhaps a shared database would be the way to go after all. It does sound a bit clumsy though, as the database should only be open for edit for one of us at a time. So if I do some photo management and leave my my session locked with IMatch running and database open and my wife logs in to her account while I'm away, she would be stuck in read-only IMatch database.

I also checked breafly the IMatch Anywhere, but I don't think it's for two persons needing equal and full capability to do anything with the photos.

Any ideas about practical way to use IMatch in our scenario?

[Mario]

IMatch is licensed per user. The licensed user can use IMatch on any number of computers, provided that she/he is the only user. Since many IMatch users have more than one computer, I think this is fair.

IMatch opens databases in exclusive mode (database cannot be opened by another user at the same time) unless you open the database in read-only mode. See Sharing IMatch Databases

I think that remembering to close IMatch when you lock the PC to allow your wife to use the database should be doable. Your wife will remind you, if you forget.

[Jingo]

Just my 2cents... I would use a single database and just use categories to separate the "ownership" of the photos.  

So long as you both aren't planning on working on the database at the same time (which you cannot), this is the easiest way to ensure you are both able to see each other's photos while still being able to manage the data separately.

This is what we do in my household and it works great (though my spouse isn't glued to the computer 14 hrs a day like I am!).. if yours is, then you may want to consider an alternate approach... 2 working databases and 1 combined database.

Each of you would work on image culling/keywording/rating, etc on unique "working" databases... but you would write all metadata out to the images and the only those images would be imported to a 3rd shared database which is considered the "production" version for viewing/sharing between you.  This allows you to work at the same time and keep you own item isolated while still producing a master shared database of the finished images.

Lots of flexibility in IMatch.... good luck and welcome!

[Jo]

Thank you @Mario and @Jingo for your advice! I guess we will start with a shared database, but it's crucial to know that the approach of personal working databases + a shared "production" database would be possible just alike, if the former turns out restrictive.

[Jingo]

Glad to help.. so long as you both "eventually" write your database metadata back to the image files, combining your individual metadata into a unified database will work a-ok!  Good luck!

[medgeek]

though my spouse isn't glued to the computer 14 hrs a day like I am!

Hey, Andy. I resemble that!