I just purchased Excire Foto 2024 on sale and found this post while looking for a combination with PL. First of all, thanks to all the posters; it was very helpful. That’s why I wanted to contribute my modest input as well.
Firstly, I don’t use any software specifically as a DAM. I only started using one when PL integrated it. Unfortunately, dealing with keywords is a bit challenging. If you don’t title your photos, the search won’t be of any help. And since that’s usually the case for me, I found Excire’s concept quite interesting. My other main problem is time.
What I’m describing now is my personal workflow and should only be taken as a recommendation. I followed a piece of advice mentioned here: Metadata created in PL will not be altered. After several test runs, I found this to be the most sensible approach. It saves a lot of trouble.
So why Excire Foto, then? Simply because it allows me to find photos so much faster and based on more criteria. I’m not going to repeat the features here now. Everything is well described on the website and in the tutorials. The fact that the keyword search doesn’t include those already assigned in PL doesn’t bother me.
However, if you do want to read metadata from PL, you can do it as follows. I use PL, for instance, to label “Selected-Untagged and Rejected Images.” Excire does not read that. So if I want to see in Excire how I’ve tagged them, I have to do it via color marking. Then go to the File menu/Metadata/Write to file. This creates an .xmp file that Excire can read. Since I cull with FastRawViewer, there’s already an .xmp file with the rating available for my pre-selected images.