Extensis Portfolio - 8.5.2

Isn't US$100 kind of high for a .5 upgrade? Geez, I bought Portfolio when it was Adobe's Fetch and have bought every upgrade all along. I just finished paying for Creative Suite 3 plus Fireworks CS3 upgrades and Lightroom, I have a US$100 roll of paper coming for our Epson 4800 tomorrow, and the printer needs five new ink cartridges at US$50-83 each (depending upon capacity), and I want to make sure I can afford the new CS3-Intel-compatible version of nik Sharpener Pro and the forthcoming Lucis Art Pro 5.

I don't think I can afford to keep up with all of this stuff. Maybe I'll hold off on Portfolio 8.5, at least for a while. I'm using 8.1.1.

I really loathe how I can't permanently disable that Folder and Gallery view stuff in a new Portfolio catalog. All I want is a single-paned window that lets me see as many 256-pixel thumbnails as possible. I know it's possible to disable these things on a per-catalog basis, but I'd like to be able to tell Portfolio to never give me those panes (pun intended) unless I ask for them.

No matter what Extensis does, I can't let go of Portfolio. I have 2600-2700 Portfolio catalogs on my boot drive. One might say that I depend on the program, though all I really do is put my work (original raw images, edited Photoshop images, some graphics created in other programs) into catalogs as I add them to my archived libraries. I use Bridge to browse the current stuff.

If Adobe would archive the information in Lightroom and/or Bridge about where the file is stored--an offline volume--and it would open my Portfolio catalogs, then I wouldn't have to keep upgrading this utility. I believe this utility cost US$50 back when it was Adobe's Fetch. [Who was Portfolio's first developer? Was it Adobe, or did Adobe purchase Fetch from another developer?) This is a good question for Matt Deatherage (www.macjournals.com).]

Another Portfolio gripe I have regards catalog conversion, upgrading old catalogs to work with newer versions of Portfolio. I have a bunch of old Portfolio catalogs that take too long and too many steps to convert. The problem is the index node size. For a utility as expensive as Portfolio, one should reasonably expect the latest and greatest new version to easily upgrade old catalogs, especially since the whole purpose of Portfolio is to make life easier for us digital asset managers.

I'm almost sorry about this long vent, but this comes on the heels of that nasty Suitcase 12.1.4-12.1.5-12.1.6 fiasco that cost me a few hours of twubble.

Still, even after griping all this time, I appreciate Extensis's efforts to continue to develop top-tier professional Mac software. I appreciate Michael Ninness, too, whom I believe might still be employed by Extensis.

Also, I really appreciate the fact that Extensis always offers thirty-day demos on its products. That's important when I recommend Extensis products to my clients. Lastly, I appreciate the free Portfolio browser. That's very handy to give to clients whom I know have no interest in the full version of Portfolio.