“Excire Search 1.4” Review

This is a quick-and-dirty review of the Excire Search 1.4.1 plugin for Adobe Lightroom. I got this plugin for free in an online “advent calendar”. As it was free, I can’t expect anything, obviously. But still I can tell you what I think about the tool. 😉

Let me mention that version 1.4 is not the latest version as of today. So the more recent 2.0 version may be performing much better than the one I tested, but I have no way of verifying this.

So, what is this tool about? Excire Search is a photo organizing software that sifts thru your photos in order to organize them. The company claims Excire Search is “The best software for organizing your photo treasures”, using AI it analyzes and tags photos automatically so that “image management [is] fun again.”

Ok, let’s see how helpful the tool actually is. One category that Excire creates in your keyword hierarchy is “Image Color.” So if you are searching for images of a certain color, this should be helpful, right? Well, have a look yourself. This is the hierarchy it created for some 15K photos I have in this Lightroom catalog:

“Image Color” keywords

Let’s have a look at some of the images Excire classifies as “black”:

Photos of the moon

Yeah, ok, that’s certainly a lot of black, so I agree the tag is useful. But what’s that?!

Photos showing several flowers

Black? Hmmm…. Ok, let’s see some more…

Many photos of a sunset at the beach…

I’m not convinced either… So let’s have a look at some other categories… Let’s look at image content… Here’s part of the hierarchy Excire created for my current catalog:

So let’s have a look at image content:

“Animal” keywords

So what about frogs?

Photos supposedly showing “Frog”

This is not a frog:

Two ducks

And this is not a frog either:

A bee in a blossom

And again, neither is this a frog:

A fly on a leaf

Huh, not impressed so far… None of the “frogs” it “found” is actually a frog. Maybe it’s better with man-made stuff, like architecture?

Keyword hierarchy “Architecture”

So what about bridges?

Photo of a “skywalk”

Yes, that qualifies as a bridge. Well done!

Photo of an art installation in a pond

That’s not really a bridge.

Pidgeons

Neither this.

Man sitting on a bench in front of a pergola

And that’s not a bridge either.

What about lighthouses?

Sculpture, kind of an obelisk

Nope.

Or skyscrapers?

A wall as a sculpture

Not really a skyscraper.

Ok, let’ try something completely different… What about texture?

“Texture” keywords

Let’s have a look at “glass”:

Honeycombs with bees

Nope, not at all. That’s honeycombs…

Maybe metal?

Many photos, mostly showing insect hotels.

There’s a single object that one could qualify as “metal” — the others are clearly not.

Maybe it’s better with vehicles? What about boats?

“Vehicle” keywords

Photos showing surfing boards, a swing, driftwood.

From these 32 photos, there’s only 9 with “boats.” Ok, there’s also many photos with surfing boards, let’s be nice and also count them as “boats.” But what about the 5 photos with the bird’s nest swing? Or the 2 with the driftwood? Or the other 2 that have absolutely no sign of a boat?!

Well, maybe have a look at image properties?

“Image Property” keywords

So, show me “colorful” photos…

Photos that should be showing “colorful” photos, actually it’s just a ladybug on a beige wall.

Seriously? Well, show me “sepia tones” then:

Multiple photos using “sepia tones”

Ok, I’ll buy that.

More photos using “sepia tones”

Yeah, ok, also accepted.

Photos showing blossoms, not really using “sepia tones”

Naaaah.

Photos showing blossoms, not really using “sepia tones”

No sepia here either.

Ok, let’s try something completely different. Excire Search can search “similar” photos to a given one. So let’s search for photos similar to the “swan” in the below photo:

Photo showing a swan as the main subject.

Here’s the dialog that will pop up when you invoke the content search:

Search dialog for content search, using the swan from the previous photo.

And here’s the search results:

Search result of a search for “swans” — most photos indeed show a swan, but some don’t…

Yeah, there’s definitely lots of swans in these photos, but also different birds:

Photo showing two ducks, no swan…

Not very close to a swan, isn’t it? And then lots of planes, like this one:

Photo showing an airplane, no swan…

Come on, is this really so similar to a swan?! 🙁

Last try: Search something similar to this flower bouquet:

Photo showing colorful flower bouquet

The result:

Selection of photos showing flowers
Selection of photos showing flowers
Selection of photos showing flowers

Ok, this is somehow convincing at least. It’s all flowers.

Now it’s time for a resume: Excire Search 1.4 doesn’t convince me. At all. I really don’t see how this tool could help me organize my photos. Uninstalled.

Now it’s your turn: Was I too harsh? Let me know your view on this in the comment section below.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *