Dec 11, 2006
Stop me from throwing my iMac out the window, someone, please
With the caveat that this post is written in the middle of a frustrating session in which it feels like I’m trying to wade through treacle, let us continue:
While I love the way my iMac
a) looks
b) handles music/movie files
c) is whisper-quiet and
d) takes up a fraction of the deskspace my old PC used to
I must confess that at this moment in time I’m on the verge of flinging it against a wall, HARD.
You see, I’m big into photography. I take loads. You may have spotted them over there on the right, in my ever-growing Flickr stream.
For years, on my PC, I used Google’s Picasa app to import, tweak minutely, organise and export/print my images. It did me well. It struggled a bit with a gazillion images, but it managed. I liked the way it
a) allowed me to save modified images in the same place as the originals
b) allowed me to create temporary workgroups
c) had one-click gmail integration
d) integrated with photobox printing solutions to allow me to upload direct to them from the app
e) preserved file structures and showed them – so a folder name was a roll name
f) auto-discovered images on my machine. Hallelujah.
Yeah, it had its problems, but overall it was a good application.
The trouble was, in early summer, that the rest of my PC was crumbling – too many rogue apps, ridden with viruses and trojans and spyware, plus bloated and crappy in the way that windows can only be. So I succumbed to the hype and got myself an iMac – a switch which I mentioned back here. But, you know, from day one I’ve been struggling with iPhoto and its stupid quirks like
a) file handling and
b) version control (I know I’m not supposed to care where files are on the mac, but I DO) and
c) rubbish interfaces
d) the fact you have to tell it to show certain files within iPhoto: if it’s on my machine, let’s just assume that I HAVE imported it and I WANT to see it, shall we?
e) the way that everything you want to do (from opening the damn thing up to closing it down and everything in between including organisation and printing) takes about FOUR TIMES LONGER than it really should.
And it’s driving me potty. I think the main problem is that iPhoto is designed for people who want to dabble occasionally into the odd snap of their grandkids or whatever.
That’s just the everyday, though. There are some infrequent things I try to do which are so frustrating I want to punch the screen. Like, every year for the last five or so, I’ve created
a) cards and
b) calendars and
c) sometimes other photo-print related things (like books)
for myself and for gifts, using cafepress, photobox, lulu and various other services.
And yet, thanks to iPhoto and its inherent crapitude, this year, I can’t. My mac is conspiring to make it nearly impossible – and where possible, nail-on-blackboard-style irritating – to do things like find images in particular folders, collect them together, export to a new place (ftp, or burn to disc, or email, or ANYTHING sensible).
So, alternatives?
a) I’ve looked into Adobe Lightroom Beta. It’s bloaty and possibly overkill. Dunno. It just seemed to be all the application in the world, which is a bit much when I just want to find a photo.
b) People keep saying Aperture is worth a look. Yeah? I’m suspicious of another Apple product which is going to be all new flows and hidden file structures. A bigger iPhoto, if you like. The trouble is, I’m so fundamentally frustrated with the existing iPhoto, I’m going to take convincing that it’s not just a bigger version of same, with all the (perceived) flaws magnified.
c) switch back to PC. I really, really don’t want to do this. But I’m already finding myself using my work (compaq) laptop for more and more photo things in the evenings, which is annoying
d) Google pull their collective big-brained finger out and release Picasa for Mac. Unlikely.
e) Something else? Please suggest.
So, basically, I’m in a right royal stink about this machine at the moment and its photo-handling: so much so that I’m going to switch it off and do something more enjoyable instead – like cleaning the bathroom, or dental surgery.
I’m glad it’s not just me that loathes Apple software’s habit of organising things how it wants, rather than how I want it.
It’s the exact same reason I don’t use iTunes – the entire “it doesn’t matter” ethos really really hacked off the control freak bit of me.
And I was told the exact same thing about “It doesn’t matter where the files are held, because iTunes’ll just have them all” – I’m sorry, but to me it does matter for when I want to chuff about and burn backups to CD/DVD, or move things to another computer.
Many sympathies, but no useful suggestions, I’m afraid.
I think there are three equal parts to your problem: part of you is really more of a “power-user” than iPhoto accounts for, part of you isn’t quite sold on the iPhoto way of doing things, and part of the problem is that iPhoto (whilst not in any way bad) isn’t the greatest tool ever.
So: multiple versions. That’s an inherent limitation of the software. Duplicating a photo in iPhoto re-imports a new copy of it, which is annoying. By contrast, Aperture is very happy to stack multiple versions of an image with the original (and also stack “similar images”, as defined by you, ie ones taken a second apart – useful for bursts or shots from the same angle).
But a lot of the power of Aperture comes from the fact that it’s a big database with a filesystem, and you’re meant to navigate it from the database, not the filesystem. Same with iPhoto. If you want to use iPhoto, you use its library. You don’t look at the filesystem, you drag photos out of the app. Which isn’t how you want to work, and isn’t really how I want to work much of the time, but it’s a limitation of the tool. If you don’t like it – or don’t want to change – you’re going to have to stop using iPhoto.
But that might not make the problems go away. Any organisational tool is going to be new flows and new structures. Lightroom’s library is organised in a set way. So’s Aperture’s (though Aperture lets pictures belong to multiple libraries – it’s got organisation far in sophistication of the iPhoto-big-bucket metaphor).
To conclude: it sounds like iPhoto isn’t right for you, but I don’t think some of the other tools are going to solve your problems unless you consider altering your workflow. After all, you mention wanting these tools to find all the images on your hard disk. But that presumes that you don’t care about jpgs that aren’t photos. I don’t want non-photos in my photo library. And it also presumes you’re not going to move things. There are certain efficiencies to consider. That said, I have never used Picasa (and heard many good words said of it) so maybe all this really is possible.
Aperture’s designed to handle original RAW files (or JPG, but its forte is RAW) and multiple versions for printing, publishing, etc; Lightroom the same. Both aren’t really very interested in where you’ve put files on your system – they want them in a library, Aperture more so. Aperture does give you a fair bit more control on file naming than iPhoto, from what I’ve seen.
iPhoto is also crippling my workflow right now – on a 3.5-year-old Powerbook, 4 gig of photos are slowing it to painful speeds, and it makes me want to shoot myself. The solution is, I fear, a new computer. Do you have 1 gig of ram or 2? I get the feeling iPhoto likes RAM with large libraries. If you don’t have a large (multi-gig) library, it sounds like it’s just being crap.
It certainly worth might be checking out the 30-day Aperture trial, though £219 is a lot for software. There’s a good article here explaining the Aperture library, which might be interesting. Lots of good articles there for the prospective purchaser, in fact.
So I’m not sure what the solution is. I’m definitely sure it’s not just you, but finding a tool that will be “perfect” is going to be difficult.
Thanks for the extensive reply, Tom.
To be clear – I don’t mind altering my workflow, but I need something that allows for a flow which includes doing things with images beyond a particular application. If I did everything related to photos in iPhoto, I’d be laughing. But I don’t – I want to upload to flickr (doesn’t need to be a direct upload – but if I can find images quickly, that helps), and print (not just via Apple) and back up to disc, and upload elsewhere (e.g share via mail, or ftp).
I think the thing that bugs me the most is the multiple versions of an image, and the fact they’re kept in different places, miles apart. Daft.
I’ll definitely agree with the multiple versions one. It gets dafter when you put RAW into iPhoto – it keeps the RAW file on disk, but immediately converts it to JPG, and it’s the JPG you edit!
Will have a think more on how I handle some of this. Have you looked into the FlickrExport plugin for iPhoto at all? I use that a lot and it’s really very good. That’s one of that list dealt with – but you’re entirely right about other plugin/export functionality being thin on the ground.
I am totally unfamiliar with the Mac so I can’t give any advice on other software that may be available there and I’m so new to using Lightroom (on Windows) myself that I don’t really have a hang of it’s organising capabilities yet. One thought that occurred to me is that if you are not averse to considering yet another operating system, you might consider installing Linux on your iMac. Picasa is available for Linux and unless you have any special Mac-based applications you can probably find Linux software to do anything else that you need. Admittedly the support for video is not quite up there with Windows and Mac OS but if you don’t mind spending time and getting your hands dirty you can probably overcome this.
OK. Don’t hit me.
But a cleaned up PC is probably your answer here?? Why not resurrect that old one, kill internet access from it so it’s safe and use that as a dedicated photo computer?
iPhoto works for some people, but I sacked it within a few days of first opening it. The big problem for me was that it seemed to be impossible to assign creation dates to images that weren’t the date and time that you added the images to the library. Fine for the noob, who just got their brand spanking new Mac, and their first digital camera the same day – a year zero approach to the user, which in most cases can be worked around, but not with iPhoto, it seems. I went back to GraphicConverter (lemkesoft.com) which has years of development behind it, is scriptable, and its file management functions don’t assume the user was born yesterday. As picture management software goes, its very inexpensive, too. Worth looking at.
its simple things that annoy me! I’d like to organise my photos into albums and have easy tagging, but noooo I cant do that! and if I make an edit like rotate a photo it saves it again! I want the option to overwrite the original! I also would like to have ‘selected importing’ from my camera, but no, I cant have that either, its SO enfuriating!
If you find an alternative or a solution, please tell me!!
Photoshop Elements is good enough for me, but then I never get the time to go out and take as many photos as I’d like. Plus I must go on one of those Nikon training courses so I can actually work out how to use all the knobs and twiddly bits on my D50.
Lightroom?
Mind you – the thing that would help me most of all? Flickr having a UK link to something like Photobox… it’s *so* much better for sharing, but b&%ger all printing options if you’re not the other side of the pond…
PS: Wasn’t Anna looking for a cheap dentist? ;-)
Have a look at iView MediaPro … I gave up on iphoto and now use this..
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/
(they have a trial download)
Naaah, throw it out. Macs are fashion accessories, not computers ;)
Clean up the PC, put Linux on it and you will be a happy smily person :)
I’ve also been using Adobe Lightroom quite a bit recently and will probably buy it when it comes out. I haven’t yet tried out the demo of Aperture. Both of those programs will let you keep your photos where you want them rather than importing to their own locations (although you can have them do that). For dealing with RAW photos Lightroom is really nice.
As for another option, if you have a MacIntel you could run Parallels and use Picasa on the “PC on your Mac,” (although I’d rather die than do that).
Although iPhoto has many quirks, it really is good for very quick/easy stuff. I actually got a few shots in a national magazine two months ago that were just tweaked in iPhoto ;)
In any event, I would give Lightroom (still beta of course) a try. It can be integrated with the Flickr Uploader (there is a beta version out for the MacIntel, but you’ll need to find the link in the forums), and has many other features. The version 1.0 should be out in the next month or two (maybe at MacWorld).
Alot of people have given you good tips already, but basically here is what it comes down to with iPhoto:
iPhoto handles the files. Period. It is unfortunately not up to you whether or not you want to work that way so long as you are working with iPhoto. That said, I’m a power user, and I get a long with iPhoto fine. There was a time when I tried to go into the file structure and mess around with stuff, and I broke things. If you are going to use iPhoto has to be the gateway. Once I got used to this idea, I rather like it. I find it more convinient than a file structure, but it took some getting used to. Here are some tips:
1) Files can be dragged into or out of iPhoto freely. Dragging into iPhoto imports into the library, and dragging out exports the photo(s) to wherever. Something asinine about iPhoto I ran into: it does not export with any metadata you might have changed, including file name. However . . .
2) Under the File menu, there is an export option. Use this is you need to take your new filenames with you or make some other adjustments.
3) You can create a simple Automator workflow to allow you to access your iPhoto library from anywhere even if iPhoto is not open. Here is a link http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060429075843216&query=automator
In my experience all of my frustration with iPhoto came from my trying to bend iPhoto to my will. It reacts poorly to that. A little shift in perspective has not only removed the frustration, but made me quite an iPhoto fan.
Go back to PC. Apple sucks ! Everything I have ever needed to do with a still image I can do in Paintshop Pro 9 (even RAW files)
Versions X and XI are a bit naff after Corel bought the rights off JASC.
First, don’t rule out Aperture without at least trying it. There’s a reason why the iApps come with every Mac and is sold cheaper than their professional counterparts, and it just ain’t for simplicity’s sake. I’ve read a lot of the pro apps, and have seen a few in action – more often than not, they do a halfway decent job with their pro stuff.
If you don’t like that, Adobe has versions of Photoshop and Elements coming to the Intel macs soon, although the current versions work fine using Rosetta. (Go with Photoshop: its scripting capabilities could help you make your workload a breeze, and make things faster than when you were on Windows.) If that doesn’t make you happy, try some shareware: GraphicConverter is cheap and part of my toolbox.
Finally, if you want to use Google’s Picasa, that iMac – if you bought it new -should be capable of installing Windows on it. set up 3 partitions so that you can share files between the OS’s, get Parallels, and you’re set!
Kinda. iPhoto reads Exif data from the photo file to get the creation date, but doesn’t write it back to the Exif data.
I’ve been working on an AppleScript that uses the command line program exiftool to do this. It’s not a problem for new photos from my digital camera, but I’m importing old photos from CDs, and it’ll be pretty handy for that. If I can ever figure out when they were taken.
Try the Keyword Assistant plug-in for tagging, it’s rather nice.
Erm, in what way can’t you organise your photos into albums?
I’d disagree with that, but iPhoto does want entire control of your photos on your filesystem. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, then I’d really advise not using it.
One word of caution about Aperture: if iPhoto is slow on your machine, Aperture will probably be slower, as its sstem requirements are higher. If it’s just iPhoto’s interface that’s slowing you down, however, it might be worth a try. Bit pricey though.
My experience: after first scoffing at the same problems, I realized the use of iPhoto, and came back to it, changing a little bit of my workflow:
a. I scan pictures, put them in a folder, and “Add to library” from iPhoto. That way, I can manage my photos aside from my other scans (which are for text recognition etc.)
b. In iPhoto, I sort them the way I want, arrange them to a neat library, and correct some colors and scratches. Apple keeps an unadulterated copy of the image in the database, just to make sure
c. If I need a set of photos elsewhere, I choose them and select “File/Export…” to send them to the desktop. Burning to a backup isn’t a problem either. Select an album or the entire archive and hit “Burn” in the central pull-down menu. Or just export all the images into one folder, whether this folder is on an external backup drive, an ftp server, …
d. Google wrote the “Picasa Web Uploader”, at least, to export to their picture sites directly from iPhoto: (http://picasa.google.com/web/mac_tools.html). Something similar should be available for flickr.
e. Other stuff, more advanced, I do with GIMP or Inkscape. But maybe PhotoMagico is the right thing for you, part of the MacHeist deal this week, together with 7 other applications for US$ 49?
Look around, you will find something.
P.S.: iView Media Pro was just bought by Microsoft, so maybe this is not your intended way ;-)
Zac and Immo are right now – hope you read what they wrote.
The reason why iPhoto may be frustrating is because you have a built-in notion of how photos “should” be handled. iPhoto simply wants to handle photos in a different way.
As Zac mentioned, it’s just a matter of dragging photos in and out of the window – why would you need to know the directory structure when you can do that?
Also, not sure why you are having issues with burning to CD – just create an album, drag all the photos you want to burn into said album from the main library, then select the album and the burn option. Voila – all the photos in that album will be burned to a CD or DVD. Why do you need to manually drago photos from a dozen different directories?
Again, I think you may be frustrating yourself unnecessarily here. You are possibly equating “knowing the directory structure” with “more power” but it’s simply not true.
For example, think of using the original Yahoo directory to navigate the web vs. the google method. Does it really give you more flexibility and power to have to dig into multiple levels of directories to find something, and then manually sort through a list of all the items at the bottom level of that directory? Or does it make more sense to just type in what you want and get the results instantly? iPhoto can do that, once you learn how to tag photos properly.
Just remember – iPhoto wants you to be free of “directory-based thinking.” Picassa may be the best Windows photo app there is, but it’s trained you to think about directories instead of concentrating on what you want to do with the photos because of the limitations of the Windows file system (Just try adding all sorts of tags in each photo’s “comments” box in iPhoto and do a search to see what I mean).
Really, I think you’re just making it hard on yourself because you want iPhoto to behave like the familiar Picassa, but you have to understand iPhoto is different (and ultimately better, once you let go of old ideas).
Thanks for all the informative, helpful replies so far – much appreciated.
I get the point that I’m not supposed to care about the file structure – and to a point, I don’t. It’s not that I want the structure to be transparent, but more that I want to be able to know where things are, so I can do things with them outside of iPhoto – e.g. FTP to a print provider.
Perhaps my problem is exacerbated by not having copied my photos to iPhoto when importing them – I resisted this because i thought that would mean I’d end up with two copies of each photo – the original in its original place, then the iphoto library copy, which would spawn ANOTHER copy again if any modifications were made in iPhoto. So suddenly, I have three versions of a single image, stored in three different places. Given that I’ve got a 10.2mp digital camera, that’s a lot of storage space!
Then there’s the quantity issue: I’ve got something in the region of 40K photos, and growing at a rate of aboout 100/week. At that rate, I’m going to run out of space before too long.
So should I copy my existing photo files to iPhoto and allow it to manage everything? Will that lighten the load?
In addition to storage, there’s also a photo management problem. Sometimes I want to have an original and a modification. This doesn’t seem possible…
What a stupid comment:
(alan patrick )
Naaah, throw it out. Macs are fashion accessories, not computers ;)
Clean up the PC, put Linux on it and you will be a happy smily person :)
You’ve offered no actual suggestion and showed your ignorance about Macs.
Apple has a free trial download for Aperture:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/
Give it a try. One feature I noticed in their specs for importing:
Drag files in from any volume (preserves Finder folder hierarchy)
1. iPhoto absolutely does suck.
2. The amount of data in many people’s photo collections alone will compromise performance on anything but the most maxed out Mac (RAM/HD), regardless of which software package you use.
3. I use iView Media Pro too, and I’ve been very happy with it, but who knows what’ll happen to that now that M$ bought them up?
4. M$ fanboys: shut the fxxk up already.
I use Fraser Spier’s Flickr Export – http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/ – to post photos directly from iPhoto to Flickr, and it’s good. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it.
I have an 8MP camera and take somewhere between 3 and 10GB of photos a month. I use Image Capture, not iPhoto, to import (so I can have a directory structure of my own liking) and then I import without copying to iPhoto. When my laptop HD fills up, I move the originals to another disk and iPhoto prompts me to re-attach the aliases as needed. It seems to work for me, but it is a bit finicky.
However, given your other requirements, I’d understand you looking at other applications. People whose opinion I respect have had good results with iView Media Pro, as already mentioned, and I’d suggest considering that and – although it’s a bit bare-bones – Adobe’s Bridge.
…I want to be able to know where things are, so I can do things with them outside of iPhoto – e.g. FTP to a print provider.
That’s the kind of thing that could be addressed by a plug-in, if such a thing exists. You could also use an Automator (or AppleScript) droplet — drag from iPhoto to the droplet, and it would handle the FTP for you. But given the volume of photos you’re dealing with, you’re probably pushing the tool to its limits & should give Aperture a shot. Kind of like my wife, who does video editing work. She can’t stand iMovie, but loooooves her Final Cut Pro.
iPhoto sucks a big fat one, and I’m not a power user. I’ve always found it to be terrible at dealing with lots of pictures.
Do you have an Intel Mac? Why not keep a Windows install on there and use Parallels so that you can keep using Picasa?
Actually I have no idea whether that would work, and whether it would be a time consumingly pointless exercise. But it’s the kind of thing I’d do, so I’ll throw it out there as an idea.
Ooo…kay…
you are definitely a power user. Your camera wasn´t cheap, neither was your mac :) and you do sophisticated photos. I would recommend that, given your investment on the hardware, you should spend some money on the software, too. I know, Picasa makes you think it should be free, but when you add that amount of data every week, you need
I. more hard drive space – installed on your mac and on a backup drive. And DVD-Rs to make non-volative copies.
II. a weekly AND monthly backup strategy, to make sure your work is securely deposited so the world will appreciate your oeuvre in a decade, when the world is ready ;-)
III. Software that will go along your needs – and this will be definitely more than than the freebie stuff that came with your mac.
You need to try and trust your own experience there. Try Aperture, Adobe Lightroom beta, PhotoMagico, and definitely GraphicConverter on for size. No one´s going to be able to tell you which one is the the right for you.
Then, I would proceed the following way:
a. Get them Pics on your ´puter – into the same folder, into a sub-folder, marked by day
b. Import them into the management application you prefer, and work with them.
c. Burn a DVD of your originally imported pictures every week, and clear the folder.
d. Backup your data from your image-management application of choice on a regular basis (monthly, every two weeks, whenever a project is done).
e. Save your progress on a backup disk, on an external HD or similar.
In any way, you can work with iPhoto (and iCal or something else for scheduling) if you add a stringent workflow. But maybe another application offers the workflow in a more streamlined way. Your choice. Making your own informed choice beats everybody’s ramblings.
i would let iphoto manage the files and get rid of your extra copies as you suggest. that would certainly save some drive space.
as others have pointed out, if you want to quickly access a file for ftp or other use outside of iphoto you can simply drag and drop the photo from iphoto to the finder desktop. if you feel the need to see the original file in the finder you can quickly access it with a control click or right click if you are using a 2 button mouse on the photo… you’ll see in the contextual menu an option to view the file in the finder.
you mention gmail integration in your post. if you are using gmail you may want to set up your mac email application as it will work fine with gmail and is nicely integrated with iphoto. you can set it to leave the mail on the server that way anytime you access gmail via a browser window the mail is still there… to set up apple mail to work with gmail you’ll have to access your gmail preferences and enable pop access. follow their directions for setting it up in apple mail. the whole process is quick and painless just follow their instructions carefully regarding the outgoing and incoming server ports.
Parallels > Windows > Picasa
You have several options.
1. Get Parallels and run Picasa under it. Keep your photos in your Pictures folder, and setup Picasa to access them there via Parallels shared folders. Not the greatest solution, but if you love Picasa, may be the easiest to swallow.
2. Try several of the alternatives – iView Media or Aperture, to be precise.
3. Wait 3 weeks for MWSF2007. iLife is always introduced at MWSF, and there’s a reasonable chance that the ’07 version of iPhoto might have your quirks addressed (unlikely, but you never know).
I sympathize with you on iPhotos filing system. It’s the one part of the program that has me pulling my hair out from time to time. Understanding the logic behind it is half the battle. Go to the Apple support site and look up iPhoto. Getting some clarity on how/where it stores things might ease your pain in the short term.
Picasa is better than iPhoto hands down, ripoff or not. Its blazing fast on slow computers and bloody amazing on import and reder speeds. It renders faster than Aperture, iPhoto, and seems faster than iView Media Pro. I use them all (except Picasa, since I’m on Mac). I would move to Picasa immediately if they had it for Mac.
The closest bet is iView Media Pro. It’s fast, autoimports and keeps files where you know they will be. Its editing functions suck. If you have the power and money, use Aperture. Its slick, keeps your files where you want them, has powerful editing functions.
IPhoto… you can make calendars with it. That’s about it.
Lightroom… give it a try, for fun.
Picasa is the only thing on Windows I miss. Wait… I also miss the sense of achievement when I tweak or solve a Windows ‘problem’ every couple hours. Mac is missing out on the ‘sandwich’ class by providing software only to elite users (Aperture) and beginners (iPhoto).
there are Picasa plug ins for iPhoto. http://picasa.google.com/web/mac_tools.html
I too recommend iView MediaPro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/
Like yourself I take a lot of photographs and iPhoto was just not cutting the job. iView Mediapro is very fast and let’s me store and manage my photos across multiple drives.
I would suggest downloading the trial version of Aperture and see how that sits with you. It doesn’t cost nothing to just give it a try and you will be able to make an informed decision about it, instead of just guessing that it a big iPhoto.
You may also have to conceed that you are stuck with Picasa because it is perfect for you.
Meg,
Having switched to the Mac 2 years ago, one thing I really had to get used to was getting used to the way some of the apps like to store things their own way.
What it came down to for me, was that my method of storage was simply no better than what the app was doing. In fact, it was often worse.
You mention wanting the structure to be transparent. The thing is, the structure is irrelevant, what matters is the abstract interface. You are used to dragging pictures in and out of folders. All you need to do is get used to dragging pictures in and out of a window. It’s all about mindset.
I use Aperture to maintain my catalog of about 60k freelance images. To me, that is the single greatest product anyone has yet made for the task, but I find that iPhoto is not much behind it with the exception of a few key issues. For one, and this is a big one to me, it borks up the color spaces. You put an image in, when you export it it will have an arbitrary color space applied. For a color calibrated workflow and sending stuff to press, it is a disaster. And the second issue is versioning. A second copy of the image on the hard drive is a brute-force implementation. Aperture just writes a new folder and some files describing the changes for the new version. And most importantly, the new versions simply show up as additional images in the browser.
If you need to upload to Flickr, get the Flickr exporter plugin. I use the Aperture version and it’s simply wonderful.
If you need to tag photos, just open the keyword window and drag the keywords to the images.
Play around with smart albums.
If you need to upload to FTP, drag the file out of iPhoto and upload it. Trash it when you’re done, the original’s safe, what you dragged was only a copy (as shown by the green plus badge when you drag the file out.)
What you need to realize is that there are browsers (PhotoMechanic), there are catalogers (iView, Cumulus, Portfolio) and there are iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom. The last group are more like photo operating systems. Literally, when I go into Aperture, I can take a shoot from beginning to print and to web without ever leaving the program. And because I was familiar with the file structure I had before I got it, I set up folders and projects inside Aperture in a way that mimics my old filing system, but it’s grown exponentially more powerful due to the addition of keywording, smart web galleries, smart albums, and other reasons I can’t think of right now.
These programs remove us from the needless and wasteful acts of managing our files and create an environment where we are simply working with images. Aperture is the closest I have ever experienced to working with slides on a light table. I missed that.
Let go of your expectations, and most importantly, decide wether or not the control you had before over some things was justified. Control for the very sake of control sometimes is us just wasting our time.
A lot of things you did on the PC were done out of necessity and were ultimately a waste of time. And a lot of thing on the Mac are easier not because they take away control or power, but simply because they’re more thought out.
What Sebastian Szyszka said is right on. Manage your images visually with Aperture not by filename/structure etc.
So most of what I would say has really been said in the comments.
I have a similar problem, although complicated further by not using flickr and trying to decide weather I should ditch my whole “Write your own photoalbum” thing I have for flikr. One reason would be to eae the workflow (I haven’t managed to get a single picture up this year because I have been hectic)
I tried lightroom, and it was ok. Then the salesman told me it was god’s gift to the world and Aperture sucked. Then Apple decided to give a 30 day trial away to Aperture. Lightroom will be ditched and if in 30 days of hard use Aperture can’t cut it I’ll have to try figure out a new strategy.
If I was to move to flickr, my understanding was iPhoto and Aperture speak to each other. So the plan would be to do everything in Aperture and then connect Aperture to iPhoto and use iPhoto to import to flickr. I mean export. Of course I may be wrong in this but I was under the impression the last set of updates to iPhoto and Aperture enabled this.
Also the question remains if iPhoto is good enough, then the bugs and annoyances, will improve with every release and Apple is pretty good at regular releases. The last updated improved speed and capacity and I suspect the next one will.
Aperture, ASFAIK, also allows you to point to a file structure of files and doesn’t have to manage them for you, you can choose.
My feeling for you is, iPhoto is too consumer orientated, and not the right tool for you, as you are at least semi-pro in the product you need. Gut feel is Aperture is the right tool for you, and is more designed around your needs. If it’s not the right tool after 30 days of intensive use, then maybe try the parallels thing. But I would be shocked if their wasn’t same native mac solution for you.
As for storage, storage is cheap so I try keep two copies of my photos. One I call “The cage” where I dump the spools too, and another the edited set I upload to my site. A third copy if you count online, but my host is proving to be lest trustworth than I would have thought.
If HDD space is the problem, you can get external drives pretty cheap now, and at least short term this should be fixable until you figure out the best workflow.
I’m with you – hate iPhoto. It’s different with iTunes, I don’t need to edit music, but with photo’s as you say, I want to be able to get to them and use Photoshop to work on them. Right now I’m stuck filing by month and opening in Photoshop’s browser. There was a debate going on at flickr about this as well. Don’t dump the Mac – but I’m not sure what the answer is. I’d be interested to know what you decide to do.
in a similar mood of frustration i stumbled on shoebox express. what are the opionions on that app?
I love Mac OS X but HATE iLife. It’s a real drag for us power users and producers.
for those of you who need more flexability than iTunes, SongBird is coming out in 1.0 this year. It is going to be the Firefox of music players!
I’m a long time Mac user, but from day one, I didn’t even consider using iPhoto for my images. I read the iPhoto documentation before I considered using it, and quickly determined that the application simply wasn’t designed to handle a large number of images (which is what I wanted to use it for).
So I wrote my own set of scripts to automate my workflow and generate my own HTML-based image catalog (http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/icat/). Of course, I tailored this script to do exactly what I want, so it isn’t much use to many other people, but at least it allows me to quickly and efficiently maintain and catalog my 15,000 images, which is something iPhoto could never do.
Be honest with all of you, I think PC picasa3 beta Just sucks. I am both Mac/PC user for ages. PC finally comes to picasa as an ultimate tool for organizing the photos. However, Picasa is just copying the “big” idea from iphoto. It uses tags, it searches, it organize your photo by referencing the actual file (Just like iphoto/aperture), and it list out the folder contents as well.
Nonetheless, all that, if is not 100% it’s more or less 95% similarity in iphoto anyway. If you don’t allow “COPY” an original into iphoto library, you can still manage your folders the “old fashion” way you always wanted. Only difference is, picasa “Watches over file changes”, iphoto doesn’t. (on the referenced files).
Picasa’s watch file option has it’s good and bad. It watches for you when you move, copy, modify the image file, and make the most current update on changes into library. However, what if you “REMOVE” files from the folder and back up onto DVD media? SORRY~ Picasa will be smart (Dumb?) enough, it will just delete everything for you (including information/EXIF/settings/thumbnail images) from it’s own library. Your information on that specific image you just delete will no longer listed on the libary any more. That! my friend! It doesn’t happen in Aperture. Aperture can keep track all the file activities for you. no matter it’s on DVD, HD, or any other devices (Vaults). It keeps track on library itself and Original RAW images, or even versions of JPEGs that you’ve been modified. (Picasa is more like iphoto, but nothing like Aperture at all).
If you are going back to Windows. Only programs that can offer you the similar fashion is Picasa Adobe Lightroom. However, if you have Lightroom, you probably no longer need a Picasa. Because Picasa is slower on search, harder to browse, and indexing categories can’t have multiple layers. More over, Picasa is the slowest RAW pre-view / editor / converter out there.
What if you went straight to Adobe lightroom vs aperture? I am sure there are lots of lightroom vs aperture websites out there to tell you what’s the actual difference. But even the newest release of lightroom, from my personal experience, it just not doing as well as aperture.
1st of all, lightroom can keep the thumbnails if you remove the master image. However, sometimes the thumbnail will screwed up itself and that will require original master images to rebuild. In this case, if you happen to stored everything on DVD or offsite, you are likely to have a huge problem of updating it. It happens to me several times already. I am constantly rebuilding my lightroom library. (Somehow, JPEG preview files will offset it’s own dimensions under some unknown issues.)
2nd, lightroom is using keyword database to search images just like aperture, but the folder option just sucks. The left control panel contains both keywords and folders you have your images at. What if you have thousands of folders? (Just like picasa), You will have a huge fun to overkill yourself by trying to scroll down all the way to find the right folder for yourself. Especially when you forgot the folder name or file name? HA!! GOOD LUCK ON THAT!
picasa / lightroom are both very efficient system, only if you do not have a large library. Once you have huge enough library, I will ensure you, you will thank apple for it’s aperture.
As for iphoto. It’s meant to manage small library no larger than 25000 images in one library. Also, it’s better integration for the entire ilive family. Lightroom can easy adapt into adobe family. But what’s picasa is going to offer? Apparently nothing after all. It’s just an image browser.
Meg. Did you ever find a suitable solution that worked for you? I just bought an iMac and was coming across the same issue as you. I figure whatever you figured out was suitable, would be suitable for me.
I know this post is old now, but I wanted to chip in my 2 cents worth.
Clearly you’re a power user and as such Im afraid that iPhoto was not designed for you. I like iPhoto a lot but I use Aperture for my main catalog.
One thing that no-one has mentioned is Adobe Bridge. I’m not sure if you can buy it as a stand alone application (i.e. without Creative Suite) but it does exactly what you want. It’s a view of photographs via the file system. But it needs an additional application to actually edit your photographs.
I think you need to decide what you need. If you need strong image manipulation abilities or cataloging abilities.
There is cerainly a strong reason why pro’s have chosen Macs for their creative work for years and I believe that your experience on PC’s has left you wanting to use the Mac like a PC, which is totally against the point.
I’m a recent switcher and so no expert by any means but I use iPhoto for the import and then export to Aperture and then export back to iPhoto once the work is finished (my wife loves iPhoto and so that’s where we keep all the family stuff).
Good luck.