First Annual Natural Exposures Mylio Workflow Research Event
One of the best ways to build sincere, productive relationships is to meet face to face, share a beer, maybe a Coke, possibly a glass of wine—anything’s an option when there are no margaritas in town. Call me old school, but great relationships are founded on more than tweets, hashtags, and Facebook posts. Such was the case last week when the Mylio crew met myself and a few of our intrepid NE Explorers at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. We were there to photograph the annual snow goose and crane congregation and share our individual photographic workflows with our friends from Mylio.
Sandhill cranes silhouetted against the waters and the setting sun. Bosque del Apache, NWR, New Mexico. Lumix G85 12-35mm F/2.8
We had three solid days of great photography and spent several hours sharing with JP Duplessis and Marcus Donner– the Mylio boys– the way each of us currently use other pieces of software to process our pictures. Currently, for most, Lightroom is the software of choice, so it was important for Mylio to understand why most photographers are still using Adobe’s well entrenched product.
JP giving a lesson on Mylio.
JP threw out a big surprise by giving us each a FREE iPad. His goal was to showcase Mylio’s exceptional ability to sync across numerous devices. I thought he was joking about the iPads—but he wasn’t. Freddy Kurtz, Shiela and Dave Glatz, and Dave Easton all walked away with a brand new iPad. JP spent a couple of hours getting them set up along with a tutorial on how Mylio works.
Dave and Shiela getting Mylio setup on their new iPad.
During our class time I mentioned the need to be able to grab an Album of Mylio images and “Open With” an external editor. For me, the external editor I prefer is DXO Optics Pro 11. Currently Mylio can only open one image at a time in an external editor, which makes tweaking a series of pictures very time consuming. That’s a big disadvantage when compared to Lightroom that has
JP lines up his monster bazooka. Freddy and Sue can’t believe what they’re seeing.
the ability to work on them all within the program. I’ve been struggling with this drawback since switching to Mylio. All it took was me showing JP what I was up against during our day of workflow sharing and within 24 hours he had written an update for Mylio to open any number of images, all at one time, in ANY external editor.
JP looking towards the sky, hoping the leaving geese don’t decide to unload like they did earlier on him. As I told JP, wildlife photography is not for the faint of heart.
That’s the beauty of having the ear of the lead coder building a great piece of software. This isn’t the first time JP has jumped in with both feet for a special request. He’s been unbelievably helpful on other ideas like writing a program within Mylio that imports many items from Aperture. He custom built an option I requested to add watermarks to images when exported. He wrote
A pair of sandhill cranes in flight heading out to feed. Photo shot with the Olympus OM-D EM-1 Mark ll with Leica 100-400mm zoom
my own personal photo re-numbering system that is currently in beta and will be available to others in the near future. I could go on with several more ideas that he’s either coded or are currently in the pipeline. The point is, these guys are responsive! Two years ago I started a post on the Adobe Lightroom forums asking for the ability to add a watermark to photos when using Lightroom mobile. The thread has 43 other comments, all requesting the same idea, yet to date it’s still not possible within Lightroom Mobile.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of Mylio’s greatest strengths is its speed, but equally important are its people. Not just JP and Marcus; they also have a superb team working the phones in Customer Support. And that’s huge! I won’t name names but until recently, the biggest company in photography software wouldn’t even let you call them. The only help available was
Mylio support crew from left Matt Vollet, far back is Mack Collins, and on the right side is Matthew Bonhage.
online, chat, or email. Not Mylio. Mylio has several ways of getting you help including connecting directly to your computer via the internet to sort things out. Mylio’s support is second only to Apple Care which is the finest support I’ve ever used. Mylio doesn’t have a huge team but they certainly have a dedicated one.
In closing, all I can say is that if you haven’t tried Mylio for yourself, you should give it a spin. For me it all began with Mylio’s speed. No program, up until now, has been able to handle my nearly 1 million image library. Mylio does so with ease. Speed was my initial reason to use something different but in the end equal importance is the terrific people and the dedicated staff. I can’t wait to see how Mylio progresses. Support Mylio by signing up for their FREE version. Or you can go all out with the more powerful paid subscription at www.mylio.com.
Sue WolfeOn Jan. 22nd, 2017
Boss, nice blog! Hard to beat sandhill cranes … but somehow you managed to add to that experience a beautiful sunrise and sunset. Also, thanks for the introduction to JP and Marcus .. wishing Mylio much success!
How is Kenya? Tell Henry hello!
Until our paths cross again.
Grasshopper
Daniel J. CoxOn Jan. 22nd, 2017
Thanks for the nice note Grasshopper. Just wished we could have found those margaritas for you. You might want to write a report:0
JP DuplessisOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Thank you Dan for using our product and being a crusader of Mylio.
Everyone here at the Mylio office in Bellevue(wa) are anticipating your big milestone of crossing the 1 millions media milestone in a Mylio library. Last time we chatted you had around 960,000 media. So you need another 40,000 photos, you probably shoot that on a weekend. Be sure that we will open a few bottles of Beer/Wine and we will have Margaritas this time.
( Margaritas inside joke from New Mexico, had to be there )
Daniel J. CoxOn Jan. 21st, 2017
You know it’s my pleasure JP. When that 1,000,000 image number does come through I will make sure we record it.
Fred KurtzOn Jan. 20th, 2017
As like many others, my workflow centered around Lightroom and I was quite happy using it. A few months ago Dan introduced me to Mylio. I downloaded the free version, played with it a bit and then put it away not sure what to do with it. Later I told Dan this and told him he would have to show me the benefits of using Mylio for me to change.
After meeting JP and Marcus on this trip and then having a sit down class showing us how to use Mylio and the benefits I was impressed and am now a convert. In no time I was running my photos on my MacBook Pro, my iPhone and my new iPad mini.
When I got home I got serious and started organizing my photo directories to be efficiently shown in Mylio. I am now running Mylio on my iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad Pro and iPad mini. Having access to my photos on all my devices and being able to make changes on any photo on any device and have the changes show up on all other devices plus the original file (non destructive of course) is incredible. The speed of Mylio and the efficiency of using keywords to very quickly group all your photographs is a plus. Making virtual albums of your favorite photographs is easy and exporting that album to a slide show worth music is a breeze.
Now a word about Mylio support which is second to non. When setting up Mylio on my iMac and getting started using it seriously, I had a couple of questions. I emailed JP and asked the questions. He immediately responded and wanted to video conference with me on my iMac. He then took control of my iMac and immediately saw I was heading down a wrong path. He corrected that and then proceeded to give me lots of pointers and then had me do the work to make sure I understood. He spent over an hour making sure I knew what I was doing and I was very impressed with his commitment. I spent the rest of the day practicing what he taught me. Before JP disconnected he challenged me to make an album and then export it to a slide show with music. I easily did this and sent him the result.
I am excited put Mylio through its paces and incorporate it in my workflow. Thanks to Dan for introducing it to me and to JP and Marcus for showing me the benefits of using it. I highly recommend Mylio.
The Folks at Mylio HQOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Dan, we here at Mylio wanted to thank you for your recent field hospitality, continued support, and ongoing *rigorous* stress testing of our product. Much as your personal example sets a high bar for photographers, you set an even higher one for photo organizing software! Truly: if a feature passes the Dan Cox acid test, we know it can stand up to anything. Keep up the great work, for everyone’s sake.
Daniel J. CoxOn Jan. 20th, 2017
It’s my pleasure guys and gals. I’m proud to consider myself Mylio’s number one test dummy.
MichelleOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Hey Dan,
I hooked up with Mylio last year after heading to Africa with you guys and hearing your comments on the program. I am a big fan of it. First off, their customer support is incredible. I had a hard install and Mack was terrific and patient and funny. By the end of it, we were sending each other photos of what we were doing on the weekend! Love love love Mylio!
Daniel J. CoxOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Thanks for the update Michelle. You hit it right on the head regarding their exceptional support. Glad to hear it’s working for you. I love these guys for their dedication, ability to make software easy to use and interest in challenging the status quo.
Dave GlatzOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Hey great post Dan. Shiela and I just upgraded home computer and I’ve installed Mylio on that machine – not tracking a million images but plenty for us! The program is incredibly fast, the user interface is intuitive and we are looking forward to integrating it into our workflow. The guys representing Mylio (yes even JP – LOL) are perfect ambassadors for the product. Enthusiastic, patient and great at explaining how things work – in plain English. Thanks for introducing us to these people and this product.
Daniel J. CoxOn Jan. 20th, 2017
Glad you’re giving Mylio a chance Dave. I’m finding that for most things, Facebook, personal gratuity prints, Instagram and all social media, Mylio’s editing tools are very dependable. For hardcore big print editing I use DXO Optics Pro, I’m testing ON1 RAW as well but in general really liking Mylio that gives me access to my many images hard core editing with other programs.