photo management software for Macs (OS X)
 

What programs are Mac OS X users using for managing their photos?

A friend was using iPhoto, and he cropped an image (intending to zoom)
and when he moved on to the next image in the directory iPhoto
automatically overwrote the original! Fortunately this wasn't an
important image (a test shot in a series to determine how noisy his
camera is when shooting long exposures in low light, a test he's going
to repeat anyway), but IMHO this is NOT desired behavior for serious
image management software.

He also has C1-Pro and has given it a brief look. The "session"
concept is a bit confusing and I'm not sure that this is ideal for his
needs.

What other software programs do Mac users suggest he should consider?

jc

Look for the menu item - "Revert to Original" - the original was not
overwritten and you should be able to retrieve it at any time.

I personally like iPhoto, but I'm using Windows now so I pretty much
use photoshop for everything.

Brian

JC Dill wrote:
What programs are Mac OS X users using for managing their photos?

A friend was using iPhoto, and he cropped an image (intending to
zoom)
and when he moved on to the next image in the directory iPhoto
automatically overwrote the original! Fortunately this wasn't an
important image (a test shot in a series to determine how noisy his
camera is when shooting long exposures in low light, a test he's
going
to repeat anyway), but IMHO this is NOT desired behavior for serious
image management software.

He also has C1-Pro and has given it a brief look. The "session"
concept is a bit confusing and I'm not sure that this is ideal for
his
needs.

What other software programs do Mac users suggest he should consider?

jc

"Brian" wrote in message
oups.com...
Look for the menu item - "Revert to Original" - the original was not
overwritten and you should be able to retrieve it at any time.

I personally like iPhoto, but I'm using Windows now so I pretty much
use photoshop for everything.

It is nice for general stuff - i.e. wife/husband (insert your own sexual
preferecne and technological bias here...) and kids using it

However - RAW support (although now technically there) is patchy at best,
and slow.

For image import, slideshows etc it's OK - but not even good IMHO. Iview
mediaPRO is OK, but expensive - and limited in certain bizarre ways.

Photoshop is a different animal and is really an editor as opposed to an
easy-use browser.

I'd like an answer to this question as well. I've given iPhoto a fair shot,
but for my (RAW) use, it still fails dismally. I hope they improve it soon.

On 3/9/05 6:03 PM, in article , "adm"
wrote:


I'd like an answer to this question as well. I've given iPhoto a fair shot,
but for my (RAW) use, it still fails dismally. I hope they improve it soon.

I've given up on iPhoto. It's nice if you use jpeg format, but if you move
on to RAW format, it is just too cumbersome. At this point I use Photoshop
file browser.

On 3/9/05 12:29 PM, in article
, "JC Dill"
wrote:

What programs are Mac OS X users using for managing their photos?

A friend was using iPhoto, and he cropped an image (intending to zoom)
and when he moved on to the next image in the directory iPhoto
automatically overwrote the original! Fortunately this wasn't an
important image (a test shot in a series to determine how noisy his
camera is when shooting long exposures in low light, a test he's going
to repeat anyway), but IMHO this is NOT desired behavior for serious
image management software.

He also has C1-Pro and has given it a brief look. The "session"
concept is a bit confusing and I'm not sure that this is ideal for his
needs.

What other software programs do Mac users suggest he should consider?

jc

I use iPhoto to put together some small albums. But for my primary file
management I use the Photoshop CS file browser (along with the Finder).
Your friend might also take a look a iView Media Pro.
Chuck

adm wrote:

I'd like an answer to this question as well. I've given iPhoto a fair shot,
but for my (RAW) use, it still fails dismally. I hope they improve it soon.

I use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my photos. It has a lot of power
under the hood so to speak, if you can unearth it thought!

One very powerfull feature is the 'smart album' feature which is just a
custom search feature in DataBase terms. With this I can add comments to
any photo and it will automatically appear in that smart album if a
match is made. So, depending on the setup, a patricular shot can appear
in multiple collections, say, in an album collecting beach scenes, blue
sky scenes, etc. All without moving or duplicationg the original of
course.

Cratring custom slide shows for projection at particular events is very
easy this way. I think of the 'Library' as a drawer full of individual
film rolls which is fixed and unchanging - and I do the sorting and
arranging with Smart Albums.

I also really like the option to painlessly ordering prints to be
delivered to friends and family without me having to use a printer
myself - excellent service! There is a similar process for e-mailing
reduced sized images as well. I find the slide-show process very
painless - we often show friends our latest trip photos on the laptop
this way, accompanied with music of our choice, this can then be
authored as a Quicktime move or burnt onto DVD if need be, all very
painless and quick.

It is a little unfair to critisise iPhot for not being as good an editor
as Photoshop, IPhoto is free, Photoshop is the most expensive image
editor out there. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

My workflow is to use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my work - but I
have it setup so that when I double click on the image it opens
Photoshop. I believe this is possible with RAW files as well. I can't
test this out yet as iPhoto does not support my camera yet (dam!) but as
soon as it does I will get iPhoto to store my RAW images, but produce
the final print image or whatever usiing the RAW converter in Photoshop.
I don't really like the Browser in Photoshop myself.

I think the search for one programme to do everything is a long way off,
so for me I am happy to use a few tools to get the job done. I hardly
ever print out stuff these days, its mostly for screen viewing and
projection to audiences in the main (like slides I guess!), and
sometimes lots of trip photos printed on A3 to hang up in the house so
we can see lots of images of our holidays at once - saves boring friends
with paper photo albums!

On 3/10/05 3:10 AM, in article ,
"Keith" wrote:

I use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my photos. It has a lot of power
under the hood so to speak, if you can unearth it thought!

One very powerfull feature is the 'smart album' feature which is just a
custom search feature in DataBase terms. With this I can add comments to
any photo and it will automatically appear in that smart album if a
match is made. So, depending on the setup, a patricular shot can appear
in multiple collections, say, in an album collecting beach scenes, blue
sky scenes, etc. All without moving or duplicationg the original of
course.

Cratring custom slide shows for projection at particular events is very
easy this way. I think of the 'Library' as a drawer full of individual
film rolls which is fixed and unchanging - and I do the sorting and
arranging with Smart Albums.

I also really like the option to painlessly ordering prints to be
delivered to friends and family without me having to use a printer
myself - excellent service! There is a similar process for e-mailing
reduced sized images as well. I find the slide-show process very
painless - we often show friends our latest trip photos on the laptop
this way, accompanied with music of our choice, this can then be
authored as a Quicktime move or burnt onto DVD if need be, all very
painless and quick.

It is a little unfair to critisise iPhot for not being as good an editor
as Photoshop, IPhoto is free, Photoshop is the most expensive image
editor out there. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

A couple of corrections:
- iPhoto is not free. It *is* included with new Mac computers so in that
sense could be considered 'free.' However if, for example, your Mac came
with iPhoto 4 and you now want the new iPhoto 5 you have to purchase the
whole iLife package at full retail, there is no discount of any kind for
upgraders.

My workflow is to use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my work - but I
have it setup so that when I double click on the image it opens
Photoshop. I believe this is possible with RAW files as well. I can't
test this out yet as iPhoto does not support my camera yet (dam!) but as
soon as it does I will get iPhoto to store my RAW images, but produce
the final print image or whatever usiing the RAW converter in Photoshop.
I don't really like the Browser in Photoshop myself.

It is possible to double click raw files in iPhoto 5 and have them open in
Photoshop *but* (and this is a huge but) the file is converted to a jpeg by
iPhoto before sending it to Photoshop. This negates most all of the
advantages of shooting raw in the first place!

I think the search for one programme to do everything is a long way off,
so for me I am happy to use a few tools to get the job done. I hardly
ever print out stuff these days, its mostly for screen viewing and
projection to audiences in the main (like slides I guess!), and
sometimes lots of trip photos printed on A3 to hang up in the house so
we can see lots of images of our holidays at once - saves boring friends
with paper photo albums!

The above may sound like I don't like iPhoto but I actually think that it is
a pretty good program. However, whoever thought that converting raws to
jpegs in the process of sending them for editing should be retired from the
iPhoto development team!
Chuck

"M-M" wrote in message
om...
In article ,
"adm" wrote:

I've given iPhoto a fair shot,
but for my (RAW) use, it still fails dismally.

Nikon View 6 has RAW support, and I don't believe you need a Nikon
camera to use it. And it's free.

I know. I have it already. And PSCS.


Also, GraphicConverter is a Mac must-have.

Got it too !

I'm just dissapointed in iPhoto becuase my wife and kids use it a lot and I
would have liked them to be able to easily play with my RAW files as well as
thier jpgs.

"Keith" wrote in message
...
adm wrote:

I'd like an answer to this question as well. I've given iPhoto a fair
shot,
but for my (RAW) use, it still fails dismally. I hope they improve it
soon.

I use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my photos. It has a lot of power
under the hood so to speak, if you can unearth it thought!

That's what I have been trying to do. My wife and kids use it and I wanted
to use it as a generic browser/viewer.


One very powerfull feature is the 'smart album' feature which is just a
custom search feature in DataBase terms. With this I can add comments to
any photo and it will automatically appear in that smart album if a
match is made. So, depending on the setup, a patricular shot can appear
in multiple collections, say, in an album collecting beach scenes, blue
sky scenes, etc. All without moving or duplicationg the original of
course.

Cratring custom slide shows for projection at particular events is very
easy this way. I think of the 'Library' as a drawer full of individual
film rolls which is fixed and unchanging - and I do the sorting and
arranging with Smart Albums.

I have the "film roll" concept. I want to be able to create specific
directories for different reasons.

To be honest, I have been playing with Picase 2 on the PC, and it does
everything I want a browser to do.....iPhoto on thr Mac just sin't as good.

Pity there's not a Mac OS X version of Picase or iPhotow would be in the
bin.


I also really like the option to painlessly ordering prints to be
delivered to friends and family without me having to use a printer
myself - excellent service! There is a similar process for e-mailing
reduced sized images as well. I find the slide-show process very
painless - we often show friends our latest trip photos on the laptop
this way, accompanied with music of our choice, this can then be
authored as a Quicktime move or burnt onto DVD if need be, all very
painless and quick.

It is a little unfair to critisise iPhot for not being as good an editor
as Photoshop, IPhoto is free, Photoshop is the most expensive image
editor out there. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

It's not free ! I had to buy a $3000 Mac.....

And the upgrade to iLife 5 wasn't free either...

Picasa was though !

My workflow is to use iPhoto to catalogue and arrange my work - but I
have it setup so that when I double click on the image it opens
Photoshop.

Me too - with Picasa on the PC, and iPhoto (slowly) on the Mac.

I believe this is possible with RAW files as well. I can't
test this out yet as iPhoto does not support my camera yet (dam!) but as
soon as it does I will get iPhoto to store my RAW images, but produce
the final print image or whatever usiing the RAW converter in Photoshop.
I don't really like the Browser in Photoshop myself.

Me neither. iPhoto is SLOW with RAW files though if you want to browse large
sized images.


I think the search for one programme to do everything is a long way off,
so for me I am happy to use a few tools to get the job done. I hardly
ever print out stuff these days, its mostly for screen viewing and
projection to audiences in the main (like slides I guess!),

Same here. Don't get me worng - I like iPhoto, but this first version with
RAW support is slow. Maybe it will improve.

One wierd thing with iPhoto though - I can't seem to make it do slideshows
in random order.

sometimes lots of trip photos printed on A3 to hang up in the house so
we can see lots of images of our holidays at once - saves boring friends
with paper photo albums!

JC Dill wrote:

What programs are Mac OS X users using for managing their photos?

A friend was using iPhoto, and he cropped an image (intending to zoom) and
when he moved on to the next image in the directory iPhoto automatically
overwrote the original! Fortunately this wasn't an important image (a
test shot in a series to determine how noisy his camera is when shooting
long exposures in low light, a test he's going to repeat anyway), but IMHO
this is NOT desired behavior for serious image management software.

iPhoto doesn't do that. It holds the original in a separate folder.
That's how it reverts back to the original. In fact, for every photo you
even look at in the edit window, there are two copies of the file on
your hard drive.

He also has C1-Pro and has given it a brief look. The "session"
concept is a bit confusing and I'm not sure that this is ideal for his
needs.

What other software programs do Mac users suggest he should consider?

iView Media or iView Media Pro. The pro version lets you manage EXIF and
IPTC, among other things.

GraphicConverter deserves mention, too.

There are also a few bare-bones shareware/freeware image browsers out
there, such as uAlbum. Search on versiontracker.com.