Expression Media Forum

Want to buy Expression Media 2

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:17:14 Z

I downloaded a 30 trial of Expression Media 2 (win) and it solves a problem for me. When I click the link to activate / purchase and get activation number, I get sent to a purchase page for Expression products with EM2 no where to be found.

Help!

Upgrade iView Meida Pro 2.5 to Expressions Media 2

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:11:55 Z

I have iView MediaPro 2.5.1 and want to upgrade to Expressions Media2. Do I need to buy the full priced version, or will the upgrade version work as well?

Very slow import performance

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:42:39 Z

Mac Pro 8 core, 10 GB memory, 3 TB disk space, 10.6.1 Expression Media 2 SP2 is very very slow to import images from a DVD. A single level DVD takes over 3 hours to read. Adobe Bridge and Lightroom 2 take approximately 15 minutes. The activity monitor shows almost no CPU activity, and disk reads are averaging 300KB/sec. This identical drive reads DVDs at 9.5Mb/sec, which is 3.8x faster.

What gives? Is Microsoft going to work on this problem? If there is no fix planned, I will have to look into other alternatives.

DreamSpark has no English Expression Media

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:04:33 Z

Ever since the release of Expression Studio 3 (which has no Expression Media included) and subsequent publication of ES3 on DreamSpark, DreamSpark pulled downloads for Expression Suite 2 in English. They left it up for German, French, and a handful of other languages that don't have ES3 available yet.

This means that I cannot download Expression Media in English any longer from DreamSpark. I filed a problem report with Microsoft Support and haven't heard anything back. It has been 6 days.

Can anyone advise how I can get Expression Media 2 from DreamSpark? Thanks!

Expression Media 1/2 & Snow Leopard...

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:37:47 Z

Does anyone know if Expression Media One is compatible with Snow Leopard, or if Microsoft intends to make is so? Baring EM1, with EM2 either work now, or in the future with Snow Leopard?

Expression Media 3 Wishlist

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:37:12 Z

name change

better GPS Map view like iphoto

Sharing of media over peer-to-peer network

backup utility including catalog metadata backup

a buit in ftp uploader

photo webpage layout export

Transparency color showing up where there is a alpha channel.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:38:44 Z

I have just installed Expression media 2 and created a simple catalogue as a test. It seems that Expression 2 has problems cataloguing TIFF files with layers and Alpha Channels. The chosen transparency colour set in preferences shows on the thumbnail and preview of an image in the areas corresponding to an alpha channel the original file contains. I have tried clearing the "use alpha channels" box in preferences and rebuild the item with no success.
Any suggestion?
Expression Media 2 service pack 2, windows XP, photoshop CS3, Tiff 16bits file with layers and one alpha channel.
Thanks

Constant crashing and freezing when resetting paths

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:22:10 Z

I've had crashing issues with EM ever since I changed over from iView but recently it's become unbearable.

I had an older catalog which contained my complete library but over the last year I've migrated this to newer, larger drives as they become available. Any and all attempts to reset the paths have been met with lockup and freezes. At first I thought I'd traced the problem to the new catalog being on a V1 Drobo (USB) so I decided to migrate the catalog to a LaCie 3TB which seemed to help. The catalog updated the paths for several years just fine but then it hit a road block.

I will select a years worth of files and attempt to "reset paths" and navigate to the corresponding year on the new drive and the program will just lock up. Once it's locked up it seems to corrupt itself so that it becomes very lethargic and unresponsive even when it isn't resetting paths. I've tried tossing the preferences and I've tried importing into a new catalog (dozens of times). I can manage to get a few files redirected but at some point it just quits wanting to update and the freezing ensues. Once the program needs to be force quit it won't open that catalog again unless it's done as "Read Only" as it believes the catalog is already open - that's generally the sign that the catalog is trashed and hopeless.

I have a more recent catalog of just portfolio selects which is only around 6-700 files and it always functions fine which gives me some glimmer of hope. The larger library is around 12,000 images and would be larger if it included the last two years but it's been that long since the program worked so my assistants quit using it. Right now I can't get it to update at all in any of the many versions of the catalog even if I try to import to a new catalog.

The other problem I have is that some files won't update at all unless navigated to singly. If I select a year and choose reset paths (when it worked) it would update maybe 90% of the files but leave some unupdated. If I tried to select them in small batches, even ones in the same base folder, it won't see them - they're grayed out. If I select them singly they're no longer gray and they will update. I do not want to update 1000 stragglers singly each time I try to update. All I want is for it to work.

Please help - this has been a problem that is so frustrating that I end up just stopping the whole cataloging process until a client requests an image and then I start again only to become frustrated anew. I would give anything for a stable program.

Gregor

How do I save a keyword list?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:28:30 Z

I have a catalog with keywords and hierarchical keywords entered for 4000 images. How can I export these keywords in a file? so that I can use is them in another application. The present vocabulary editor only contains the default set which contains nothing.

Applescript

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:53:10 Z

I am interested in writing some scripts for Media 2 but I have not found any references or examples of how Media 2 handles its various tasks. Would anyone have any example scripts or links to sites with them.

Update Thumbnails?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:44:00 Z

I've made changes to pics in Bridge/ACR, but attempting to Update Thumbnails in EM 2 is not working. I've tried Rebuild and Update Catalog. Do you have a suggestion?

Charles

Expression Media 2 and Snow Leopard - sending small pics ( Windows users see it in body of email, not as attachement)

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:59:55 Z

Hello,

please could you help me in this matter?

I have a snow leopard and in my 17''mabook pro. And now my customers sayd that if they became a email from me from EM2 with small thumbnails (f.e. 640pixwith watermark) they see it in a body of email (no chance to download it or save it) my mail.app preferences are plain text. with 10.5.8 no problem and now, if I tray converted pics and create new email and I drag selected thimbnails it is OK. Could you help me?

Tomas

EM Read Only errors, mac OS 10.6.2

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:27:53 Z

Hi, I am running EM 2.0.2 (2096) on my new Mac 8 core with OS 10.6.2. I am the only user of my computer and it is not connected to a network although it is connected to a bank of external hard drives. I am a photographer and I use EM for all my editing and managing my images. Often, but not always, I get Ready Only error messages when I open catalogues telling me to do a 'save as' and that I can not write to the catalogue because I am already using it, even when I have just started up the computer and am clearly not using it.

This is a problem, as I do not want to have save a new version of a catalogue with a new name every time I open it. Just now I closed the error message and reopened the catalogue several times and the error message went away.

It would be much better not to have to do this and not to have this message come up at all, and be able to write to any catalogue I need to open.

Do you have a fix for this problem?

Many thanks,

Mike

Problems with 'Reset Paths' command

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:25:24 Z

Hi,

I have moved my entire photo library from an external hard drive to a new laptop's internal hard drive. I have literally cut and paste the entire folder structure, so beyond the name of the root folder (originally it was G:/, now it is C:/), everything remained the same. When I opened my Expression Media (Version 1.0.9058.0), I selected the 'reset paths' function and pointed EM to the new root folder. The catalogue contains more than 22,000 items, and it took an enormous amount of time for EM to work its way through the entire catalogue. When it finally finished, I found that many files had not been correctly reset to their new location. Out of 22,000 or so files, the majority were correctly reset, but approximately 8,000 had not been found, despite the new file location (listed in red above the image window) being absolutely correct. There appears to be little or no logic as to which ones were successfully reset, and which were not. There are parts of the catalogue where, for example, I took 50 files in one photoshoot. All these files have the same file root, and only differ in the actual file name. Even here, a handful of files were correctly reset, but the majority were not. It seems to make no sense as if EM could find one of those files, it should have been able to find all. To reiterate, the file structure, and the files names are the same as they were in the original catalogue; the only difference is the actual root directory of all 22,000 files.

The only way I can find of remedying this is to go to the individual image, and manually pointing it to the file's new location. When I do this, the file location turns from red to black (indicating it is now properly linked). However, nothing at all in the file location actually changes. It is precisely the same. In short, EM already has the correct location for the file. However, for some reason, it's not actually linking up. Given I have 8,000 unlinked files, I am not prepared to spend days and weeks using this solution to reset the entire catalogue.

The version of EM is given above. In case it matters, I am using Windows 7, and my version of Quicktime is the most recent, I believe - Quicktime 7.

I noticed that other users have had a similar problem. There is one thread that looks very similar to this problem. However, it appears that the user solved his issue by upgrading to EM 2, SP 2. I think I'm right in saying that this is a paid-for upgrade, and one that I cannot afford to make. Is there anything you can suggest within EM1?

Thanks,

Graham Bond

News from the product director

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:36:35 Z

First I want to apologize for the seeming disappearance of Expression Media from our website. Microsoft decided to shift Expression Media from the Expression Studio in the v3 release due to the differences in the target markets (designers vs photographers), and we have moved the product information to our photography portal http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto. In the transition, we did not do a good job of redirecting customers from the Expression Studio pages to the photo portal -- something that we are correcting now.

Recently we released Expression Media 2 Service Pack 2, and we subsequently re-released it a month later to correct some bugs -- largely in part to the folks on this forum. In the last few months we have been working on our plans for the future of Expression Media. At this time I cannot share details of our plans, but we are actively working on the future of the product.

Microsoft will continue to provide support for Expression Media, and I want to thank Anita, JP, and Tom for their dedication to the product. They're some of the best support resources and customer advocates I've ever seen.

Please feel free to contact me with your questions, feedback, and frustrations.

Josh Weisberg
Director, Rich Media Group
Microsoft
joshwe@microsoft.com

Expression Media 2 Website not listed in Search listing

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:36:00 Z

I went to do a search in Google as well in Microsoft web site to search for Expression Media ,it is very hard to see a list on Expression Media .I am looking for the Expression Media 2 page and I still can't find it.

"People" metadata from Windows Live Photo Gallery not recognised in Microsoft Media Expression

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:59:58 Z

I think I am in a fix but perhaps there is an easy solution.

I have been using Windows Live Photo Gallery to tag photos with the people's names.

This information is added in the "People" field. I can very easily sort files by this field using Windows Live Photo Gallery.

From Windows Explorer, I can right-click on a picture and the "People" field shows the names correctly. If I open the file with Notepad, I see the field and its contents. I am pretty sure that the info is in the files.

I have imported these files into a new Media Expression catalog and the People field is not read in Media Expression.

It seems that Media Expression uses a different People field and does not recognise the other People field used by Windows Live Gallery.

My question, is it possible to make Media Expression recognise the "People" field added to the files from Windows Live Photo Gallery?

I was thinking of buying Media Expression (I am using the trial) but there is no way I am going to re-tag thousands of files... :( I would buy another tool.

Thanks in advance for any help on this!

Daniel

What is the future

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:53:33 Z

I have been evaluating Expression Media 2 and as far as functionality it would probably do the trick for me. More so than Lightroom which I am currently using for my cataloging and keywording. I use C1Pro as my RAW converter so I have no need for all of the other modules in Lightroom.

I have a concern from reading through a number of posts here. I have no clear picture that this is a product that Microsoft is actively supporting and have further development plans for it.

I have no problems paying good coin for a program that does what it says it will and is supported by its vendor. I need to know if this is EM2 is in this state. There is some ambiguity from a number of persons from Microsoft as to whether this is a product that is going to stay around long term. Is it possible to get an answer to this question with some certainty.

There is a market out there for a product like EM2 but you either have lead, follow or get out of the way. It seems stalled and it is only costing you customers in the meantime.

Catalog Sets metadata export/import problem

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:52:46 Z

I've been having problems with my main EM catalog, so I decided I'd rebuild it by creating a new catalog and move all of the images into it. I synchronized annotations and included the catalog sets info by checking the appropriate checkbox (custom fields and hierarchical keywords are NOT checked). When I import those images (i did a small subset first to make sure it would work as expected) into a new catalog, though, the catalog sets do not show up, although ratings, keywords, and captions come over just fine.

I tried opening one of the DNGs in Photoshop CS3 and using the File Info to look at the metadata. Under the Expression Media section, there is no metadata.

I went back and tried the same thing with some jpegs and had the same problem.

What am I doing wrong?

I'm running EM 2.0.2 (2096) on a Mac G5 PowerPC with OS X 10.5.7. My catalog is 1.7GB and contains just under 71000 photos, almost all of which are DNGs.

Changing Catalog Folder Settings when Importing

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:10:38 Z

I work in an office where we have hundreds of DVD's to catalog. We are trying the Demo of EM2 (after having a previous software stop working). The way the previous software worked was that the disk name became the catalog folder name for that set of assets. For example: if a disk was named Supply Disk 1 of 25 the catalog folder would be Supply Disk 1 of 25. In EM2 this is not the case though, the folder is being named by the content on the disk (so if the same disk had a folder named Designs, Designs is the name of the folder). Is there a way to change this?

When clicking on an asset the disk names still comes first as the file-path, but we need to know if we can look by disk first on the Folder sidebar - as we have many disks and many have the same folder naming within them.

Any help or insight would be appreciated, thanks!

Repeat Q 4 U Experts. No SCRIPTS!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:19:23 Z

I am missing 19 scripts that should be in a Scripts folder in the plugins folder. The last and final try to rectify this was to create a new Mail account and send a copy of the Scripts folder to my current address, then paste it into my user EM 2 plugins folder. Restarted and opened EM2. Need I say more?

I truly feel it is incumbent upon Microsoft to solve this quirk. I'm not a developer! You have plenty of them; find out what's going on here.

Charles

Please, I need help to archive Microsofts .chm file format?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:44:50 Z

I´m archiving pdf documents and books using EM2 but until now I did not manage to archive files (Help docs and books) using the Microsoft own CHM format!?!?

Could you please be so kind and give me some help!

Sincerely Yours

sorting files by name from the right?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:21:16 Z

Hi, folks--

My files have multiple numeric values in them separated by dashes (e.g., 091004-27568.jpg). Is there a way to sort the files numerically by the second set of numbers rather than the first?

Thanks!

-Greg

is Expression Media my only option for cataloguing/organizing video as well as photos?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:22:40 Z

Hi all,

I'm very worried about investing money and time in Expressions Media, if it's going to be abandoned (it's been left to wither on the vine for an unconscionable length of time; Anita, I wish I shared your optimism!). But I don't know what my options are. I'm not a professional photographer, but I do shoot quite a few pictures, AND videos (same Canon camera, which does both). Videos, for me, are another way of capturing an event or moment, and I want to be able to store/catalogue/organize these videos in the same place as my photos. The problem with Aperture and Lightroom is that they don't allow you to do this. When I've asked on their forums if this will be a future feature, most people say they hope not. Videos seem to be second-class citizens to true photographers, and they want nothing to do with them.

Does anyone who uses, or who has used, Expressions Media know of another solution like Expressions (but that has a clearer future) that allows for videos as well as pictures to be organized together?

thanks, Malcolm

ExpressionMedia 2 and custom metadatas

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:41 Z

I'm testing the range of features I can achieve with EM and custom fields and I wanted to create multi instances custom fields with same behavior I can achieve with the standard "Keywords" field.

For example, if I create a custom field named "designer" which contains "A" and "B". I can't assign an item with both instances at the same time. Of course I can write "A, B" but then in the Organize tab, the item is tagged with "A, B" but the "A" and "B" tags seem to be considered as different items which is not the case with "Keywords" field.

Could you explain me if it's possible? If not, it would be really useful to have this option available.

Expression Media 1 Mac activation key doesn't work

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:26:49 Z

I bought the Office:mac 2008 package which included Expression Media 1 with a free upgrade to EM-2. My problem is an old one as I have read the other blogs but found no answer to the activation key not working problem. I refuse to pay the $99 email support to get a key that I have paid for already. I did try trashing the EM receipt and reinstalling, but this did nothing to fix this problem. Is there any way to solve this problem without spending any more money? I read that MS sent some new keys to others but I could not find how this was done.

Can anyone help me out with this problem?

Free upgrade

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:15:12 Z

Hello,

I've recently installed Microsoft Expression Media bundled with a copy of Office Mac 2008. On the DVD cover it reads: "Receive a free upgrade to Microsoft Expression Media 2 any time after June 1,2008." Please provide the link / download location from which to retrieve this free upgrade.

Many thanks,

Any reason to use Expression Media over Lightroom?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:31:22 Z

I just downloaded Lightroom 3 beta to try out. After looking around the interface and modules, I was wondering if there are any reasons that I would want to use Expression Media compared to Lightroom. Right now I shoot raw and develop in ACR, then on the PS for work and output to print.
Thanks for any help you can give before I make up my mind which to go with.
Jonathan

Key is suddenly incorrect

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:51:05 Z

Hello, i use Expression Media 2 for a long time. I started using it when it was iView MediaPro (Multymedia publishing) before Microsoft bought it. Now, suddanly it says my key is incorrect, which is impossible since i bought it and had support when it changed to microsoft. I tried all sorts of things.

I cant install the SP1 version since it says SP2 is allready on it, even when i deleted it. The readers version helps me out for the time being, but i have piles of memory cards en DVD which need to be imported in the catalogues.

Does anybody have any suggestions? Or ideas what might have cause this?

Thanks,

Arthur

How do you share your catalogs with others on a network server?

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:54:09 Z

I am a corporate photographer. If I want others to see share my catalogs, do I put them up on a network server? Do others have to have Expression Media to see the catalogs?

Thanks

The current demo version records 10 minutes

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:17:36 Z

Please remove this restriction!!!!!!

Cannot edit and apply Subject Code

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:25:39 Z

In a catalogue I have created entries for Subject Codes, and initially assigned some to various images. Closed the catalogue, reopened, and Now I cannot change them. Clicking in the Subject Code box under the thumbnail does nothing. What happened.

ALSO

I had created a custom field... called it CD Name, and assigned an name to it...ie. Textures #3, is the aany way to select ALL the images and fill in that entry. Doing them one at a time is absurd.

thanks

Andy

Help with organization

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:45:04 Z

I need some assistance organizing my stock images. The basic problem is that I have no idea of what the "Norm" is for using the various fields this program offers. For instance; I have main groupings of images ( Textures, People, Food, Animals, etc). Then I would like sub identifying groups or words (like Textures> Stone, or wood, or patterns, etc). And within the "Stone" sub category options like "Warm, Cool, Grey). And lastly the specific keywords. So my question is : where might the fields like "Categories, Subject codes" fit in? Should I use "Categories" for my main groupings (Textures, People, Food, Animals, etc), and then use "Subject Code" for the Stone, or wood, or marble,or patterns, etc? I guess I can use the hierarchical keywords for entries such as Marble>grey?

thanks in advance

Andy

HTML Gallery: Shadow - How to set default image (currently, large image on left is blank UNTIL a thumbnail is selected)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:29:54 Z

HTML Gallery: Shadow - Need to know how to set default image (currently, large image display area on the left is blank UNTIL a thumbnail is selected).... (then, it shows the enlarged view of whatever is selected)...
*I would like to have one of the images automatically appear in the left (zoomed in view) upon initial loading of the page... .then, after the person clicks on another thumbnail, of course - it will display it or others for general viewing....

I don't see a setting to define a specific image that I'd like shown.
Assume - to achieve a default image, it will have to be hard-coded somewhere ---
I'm still learning HTML, so, if someone could tell me what code to insert -- and where to insert it -- I'd be MOST THANKFUL!

THANKS SO MUCH!
=============
Edited: After posting this, I continued to search code to find where it might be adjusted..
I found in the "ASSETS" folder, a file called "embedfix.js" --- it holds the following:

document.write("<NOSCRIPT class=fix>")

window.onload = function() {
  elems=document.getElementsByTagName("noscript");
  for(i=elems.length-1;elem=elems[i];i--) {
    if(elem.className=="fix")
      elem.outerHTML = elem.innerHTML
  }
}

Could this be where an edit might need to occur?

==========================
Kept looking and found it!

If you go to the file called "blank.html" (found within the ASSETS folder) -- then, add an image to that .html page.... save, etc. -- then, it will display "THAT" image upon initial load.

There might be another way of achieving this --- if so, PLEASE post.
Meanwhile, I'd hope that MS will add a change request to the software to allow developer to designate a default image within the settings tab - prior to Gallery > Shadow output.

Here's the code that shows where the "blank.html" file is the one being displayed in an iframe (the left side of that 'shadow' gallery).

<body>
<table class="container">
	<tr>
		<td class="bgleft"><img src="assets/bgleft.gif" width="7" height="10" alt=" " /></td>
		<td class="content">
			<h1 id="header">MY HEADER NAME HERE</h1>
			<div class="bar">1-12 | <a href="index2.htm" target="_self">13-13</a></div>
			<div id="columns">

				<div id="left">
					<iframe frameborder="0" name="iframe1" src="assets/blank.html" style="width:402px;height:452px;"></iframe>
				</div>
				<div id="right">
					<table class="gallery" cellspacing="5">
						<tr>
							<td class="thumb">
								<a href="source/happiness.htm" target="iframe1"><img src="preview/happiness.jpg" alt="Happiness.jpg�" /></a>

							</td>

Hope this helps!
If you know of a better/easier way -- please post as I would like to (not) have to edit this manually for every iframe I plan to have on my site...
Thanks!

Why isn't there a help file or user manual in Expression Media 1

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:58:47 Z

Hi,

I am having some serious problems with the reset paths function in Expression Media 1. I have posted a question on the forums but it's now several days on and I have had no answer - all of which got me thinking, why isn't there a help file or user manual I can consult with problems, or questions such as the one I have? I am assuming there is no such thing - it certainly doesn't appear in my Help file menu.

Regards,

Graham Bond

building a catalog then changing the folder name?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:49:38 Z

Hello,

I've been having difficulties building a catalog, then later changing the folder name (that contains the files in the catalog) and not being able to get EM2 to assign the new folder name to the images.

Do I need to rebuild my catalogs from scratch every time I change the parent folder names?

Thanks!

-Greg

new catalogue from existing issue

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:27:29 Z

I have created catalogues from multiple cd's, many were labeled only as "untitled". I labeled the CD and its corresponding Expression catalogue with the same name (ie. Flowers #1). I open the catalogued file and select a few of the images and drag them into a new catalogue. so far so good. rename and save the new catalogue. The problem is, there is no way I can "see" the original catalogue name in any data... hense, once the images are imported into the new catalogue I have NO idea what cd they are on. Any work around here?

thoughts appreciated.

Andy

duplicating keywords and heirachies

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:54:48 Z

I have MANY CD's of images in a category called "Textures & Backgrounds". I created a catalogue for each CD. I began creating hierarchal keywords. How can I simply copy the entire set of hierarchal keywords from one catalogue to another...(and then assign them individually to each image in that catalogue)?

ALSO

I saw an example somewhere, where, within the Thumbnail view, the fields below the actual image were labeled...like Keyword:Bird... how do I get this to show up?

Andy

Find not working

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:53:08 Z

I recently installed Expression Media 2 on my Mac, an he up grade patch and began catologing many cd's of images. I assigned keywords to some images and decided to find a few images based on the keywords. I directed the "Find" to the folder of all the catalogues, it looks for images with the keywords but never actually "open(s) in a new catalogue"... nothing happens, no new catalogue, nothing. what am I missing?

regards, Andy

Keywording Images

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:15:31 Z

Can you have keywords automatically created based on the path name at the time of import? For instance, let's say I have images in the following path: "/2009/April/Smith Wedding/". For every image in that folder, I'd like it to have the following keywords, "2009", "Smith", "Wedding", "April" applied automatically when the images get imported (which is what I can do with my current image management tool)

Can this be done? If so, how?