SOFTWARE Round 3: Photoshop vs. Filemaker

[PSMKay]

The first two rounds of the Software division have focused on apps that are easy to use for beginnners. They also offer a gradual learning curve to get you into advanced work pretty quickly. Round 3's competitors offer no such gentleness: it's mastery or bust. This is the battle of the connoisseur executables: Filemaker and Photoshop.

Filemaker/Database
The mention of the word "database" can strike fear in the heart of digital newbies. However, true masters of Filemaker and other database systems will tell you that there is no substitute when it comes time to organize data. Spreadsheets and documents are great for small shows and single productions, but when you're dealing with enormous casts, multiple drafts and scattered sites the Stage Management pros turn to databases. Filemaker Pro has been the mainstay of the SM database community for years. Other options exist in the form of MS Access and any number of SQL flavors (MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc).

Photoshop
The logical folks will lean towards the databases, but for the creative/image folks its Photoshop all the way. The many-layered monster and its baby brother Elements have found their way into pop lyrics and traced their pen tools around political controversy. The learning curve for true excellence in Photoshop is just as steep as that of Filemaker - perhaps moreso. However, other graphic editors on team Photoshop include GIMP, Paint.net, Pixlr and even editor emeritus MS Paint. These make it somewhat easier to get your art on without an art degree.

Cast your vote for one of the big boys and help us decide who goes on to the Sweet Sixteen! Voting closes at midnight EST on the night of Dec 10.

[BenTheStageMan]

As much as I'd love to get into databases, as far as i can tell that's beyond me for now.  However, I've definitely used Photoshop in my SM life.  One of my favorite uses is cleaning up ground plans for blocking blanks and scene change diagrams.

[Michelle R. Wood]

Wow you guys really put a hard one up today. As someone who works in web development in my own other life, I can not imagine doing without either of these tools (though I'm a GIMP girl all the way now). I'm going to have to mull this one over before casting my vote.

[nick_tochelli]

A well constructed data base that can be used to track everything in a show will always outweigh photoshop for me. I actually found very little use for something like photoshop as an SM. There's (in theory) someone else who is supposed to be doing that stuff anyway.

[smejs]

While a database seems helpful, I've never actually used one for stage managing.

I work with Photoshop Elements, partially because I also do website work BUT I just used it on my last show to create my mini groundplans, "erasing" all the extraneous stuff I didn't need or was in my way to take blocking.