Who was it who said they didn’t mind buying iPhoto 4 but didn’t want to buy iLife?
iLife includes iPhoto 4 as well as GarageBand, iTunes 4.2, iMovie 4, iDVD 4. For $49 I reckon that’s a pretty good deal assuming you are interested in more than one application.
No, I don’t have any connection with Apple or commercial interest, just checking if you knew this.
Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!
They should already be included but check just in case. When we bought our Mac OSX was fairly new and some of the Macs had it installed but others didn’t … we found one that did!.
Tel …. "I reckon that’s a pretty good deal assuming you are interested in more than one application"
I agree Tel but quite a few people are not interested in more than one application … I for one would be happy to buy iPhoto4 but don’t want the rest of the package.
It’s not very attractive to me – for $79Aus- I’ve already got itunes 4 (and i can’t use the music store anyway from Aus – I was hoping that would be announced at macworld – anyone know anything about that?) I don’t use imovie or iDVD, and while Garageband looks interesting – my husband is a musician – my machine doesn’t have the specs to run it… I’d be happy to pay 20 or 30 $Aus for iphoto on its own I guess – if it gets around some of the issues that I have with the iphoto3 – the main one being the way that it stores the photos in their own arcane folder structure. Susan S.
Yes, but you have to be careful, Joe. If you buy an old machine that’s been sitting in stock I believe the shipping/handling fee to get iLife is $19.95.
Jane, Joe is right. Just do it (to coin a phrase).
Getting closer and closer, all I have to do is stop reading MacWorld and MacHome magazines, or looking at any Mac forums. Seriously, when I do get the new Mac, I indeed will have both, yes, both running right here independently of each other. I do agree, that X is fancy, pretty, and fun, but so is a Hummer. I love our old Chevys and F150s,,,,,,, Jane
I just read a review of the performance of iPhoto 4.0 on another forum. The person was really impressed with it, and he said it handled his 5,000 image library flawlessly and fast. He felt it was worth $50 all by itself. FYI.
Getting closer and closer! But I am being very good, by staying away from our little Apple store, not going in and ‘playing’, but I will soon, March, April,,,,,? Jane
That’s what I’ve heard too Beth. Like I posted before, I ordered it on the day of the keynote. It’s supposed to ship on the 16th. so I’ll post back with some "real life" test results.
Thanks for the input Beth. I’m ready to shell out the $49 if that’s what it takes to have a zippy iPhoto. And I’m not going to complain about it. I promise. I really mean it..err..maybe.
Ok, so iPhoto arrived today along with the rest of iLife 04. Here are my thoughts:
1. Speed is way better. Scrolling my 3200+ library was in real time, no stops, stutters or SBOD’s. Very nice!
2. My biggest pet peeves (after the speed issue) haven’t been addressed despite the 415 feedbacks I submitted to Apple.
What are my pet peeves you ask (come on ask would ya)? I absolutely hate the current system of managing libraries. It just plain sucks and is so un-Mac like that Apple should be embarrassed. I know there are third party solutions but IMO that’s not a solution. Grrrr!
My other pet peave is that iPhoto can’t catalog images on a removable disk and remember them. You can import and permenantly store the images in iPhoto’s library, but that doesn’t work for me. I want to burn images onto CD/DVD and then delete them from my library, and then I want iPhoto to remember those images with thumbnails and be able to tell me which disk any given photo is on. Is that too much to ask? I know of many third party apps (just about all of them in fact) that can do this as a matter of routine. Double Grrr!
If speed is what you’re looking for iPhoto 4 is for you and well worth it IMO. If you’ve got other pet peaves they probably weren’t addressed in this version.
I went to the Apple Store today to check out iPhoto. I viewed it at the store, played with it and noticed that it was definitely faster but I didn’t notice too much difference- improvement- with its features. I guess I really wasn’t in the mood for spending $50+ today. I decided to hold off my purchase for now. Seems like the upgrade is for an iPhoto that works like it should speedwise but they didn’t take it much further than that. Garage Band is only usuable with a DVD player and a bit faster processor so I guess that makes a barely two year old iMac left out in the cold.
I must say, using Photoshop CS on a 17" 1ghz flat panel iMac is a much bigger universe than I live in right now.
Seems like the upgrade is for an iPhoto that works like it should speedwise but they didn’t take it much further than that.
Yep. That’s my thought as well. The thing is, that it went from version 2 to version 4. Seems like they ought to have done a little more than what they did for a full two version number upgrade. This is definitely a .1 or so upgrade. Even so, for me it was worth it for the speed increase, which was significant. Somewhere around 2800-3000 images iPhoto became almost unusable. I’d click on a thumbnail and get a SBOD, and then I’d click on another thumbnail and get the same thing. Scrolling was hell, and full of SBOD’s.
So for me, it was either pay for the upgrade or switch to another cataloging program, and I just wasn’t up for that.
The managing libraries feature hasn’t been changed! … I can’t believe it. It must have been number one on everybodies list … it was on mine!!. 🙁 Were Apple not listening!
Joe … you mentioned third party solutions to the libraries issue … as someone who is still doing it manually would you give me some information please. Which ones are they and are they any good?
On the speed issue …. if you have lots of different libraries doesn’t that mean the speed stays OK? … since I split mine it seems to have been fine.
I’m thinking about adding iView Media Pro to my list of photo apps. I still like iPhoto for doing slide shows and making home pages, but I think iView will be a better library manager.
Steve (I have not yet bought iLife 4, but I will…soon. (Going to Dallas Apple Store in early March.)
I would think that you’d be ok with smaller library as far as speed goes. When Apple updated iPhoto to version 2 there was a significant speed increase but that was back when I had around a thousand images. I don’t remember exactly when but like I say it was around 2800 images and iPhoto pretty much ground to a halt for me. If you’re staying well under that figure, and are running iPhoto 2 and Jaguar or Panther, I bet you’ll be fine.
I just find it easier to keep things organized by date and subject. Never really saw the point of iphoto, to tell the truth, although I do think the books are very cool and it does work well with .mac if you have it, which I don’t.
Barbara and Beth: Of course you know that I’m a PC’er so I don’t really belong in this thread….but, having said that, I’ll offer that my image saving, like yours, is in folders – generally one for each day of shooting, sometimes more than one if there are two different topics being photographed. My camera software creates the basic name – today’s file would be 2004-01-17. I rename the folder with a brief description of the contents following the date. Works well….with a catch. I have a lot of folders with similar content; I keep going back to the same spot to try more shots. It becomes very time-consuming to find a particular image. Enter Photoshop Album, which allows me to tag photos and view them in a group by tag. PSA can do a lot more, but that’s really the only thing I have it do for me. If your software has that kind of functionality, it would be a nice complement to your folders method.
Prior to release I did send feedback about none sale of iPhoto as a stand alone but I will go back and send more feedback about changing libraries.
At the moment I have about 1500 photographs but that is spread over 9 libraries and I also control the size of the photo files … I tend to work in tiffs but once I have finally finished changing a photograph I then save it as a jpeg before loading into iPhoto (Well all except a precious few) this does keep the file size down. Originally I had some pretty large tiffs saved so I sorted them out a while back.
Something I did pick up on the Apple site is that the use of drop shadow slows it down a lot too.
Thanks for the info on iPhoto Buddy … I will check it out
Can you say a little more about "folders". IPhoto files images by folders by date it as I understand it. How do you do it differently than iPhoto does it?
I set mine up just like I would if I were using a filing cabinet, with subsets.
I have a section for "Vacation Pictures" and then I have them sorted by either a descriptive phrase or a date. For example, all of my "Alaska Trip" pictures are in the same folder. I have another one for "Trip 2002", and the subfolders there are sorted by location. Then I have folders by year, for example, "2003" contains "Easter03", "Mothers Day03", and "Christmas03". There are also subject folders, such as the one for the dog ("Isaac"), and a couple for the cars that were for sale, where I stored photos I’d taken for advertising.
Maybe it’s just because I worked for so many years and was so accustomed to setting up filing systems in either regular old cabinets or on my hard drive (still have to!) that this seems much more logical to me than trying to lump every photo I’ve ever taken with the digital camera into a mass storage unit. For me, sorting strictly by date doesn’t work, because how in the heck am I supposed to remember what year I took a photo of the dog that I really liked?! How often do I care?!
It’s just an old fashioned method befitting an old fashioned person! 🙂
Here is how iPhoto does it (it’s quite bizarre at first):
iPhoto Library Folder>Year Taken Folder (2000, 2001, etc.)>Month Taken Folder (01, 02, 03, 05 etc.)>Day Taken (01, 10, 28, 31, etc.). The confusing thing when you first look at the library is all the extra crap. For instance, there is always (I think) a 2018 folder, an Albums folder, about a billion "data" files, Thumbs folders and a bunch of .attr files (no idea what these are) as well as many other folders and files. It’s really a mess the first time you have to dig through it.
Joe, you’ve just saved me a lot of trouble! I have iPhoto, but I’ve never even opened it. Now I won’t bother. My brain could never handle something like chaotic! Yes, I am a touch obsessive-compulsive. Not to mention being a control freak. 🙂
Hi, Carl. My system isn’t terribly different from what Beth does. I save things in folders by subject, mostly. For instance, yesterday I was in Lake Wales getting shots of an abandoned fertilizer factory, some phosphate mines, and the Bok Singing Tower (a tremendous challenge for a vertical photomerge, btw–I’ve never managed yet because the light changes so dramatically as you go up) and its gardens. The Bok photos go in a folder labelled Bok (I’ll remember there are camellia and spanish moss portraits in there without notes) and the rest in Architecture or Industrial, depending.
Of course, I don’t take nearly as many photos as most of y’all do–usually when I need a pic of something or other, so I don’t have as much to organize. And I’ve never been big on organizational software for any purpose, myself. I think I just tend to think in ways that are too different from how programmers think.
As for iphoto, I do have to say that I think it was a good idea when it started. Back then almost everyone was brand new to digital and its way of organizing your digipics like they came from a film roll made it easier for lots of people. But there are many, many people who’ve gone way beyond that stage now.
And just as Adobe’s Photoshop Album does, it allows you to add keywords to categorize photos, and albums to organize the pictures (as in Beth’s "Christmas ’03" and "Easter ’03" examples). What’s cool about programs like iPhoto and PSAlbum is that, magically, you can have the same photo in 2 or more albums. So a single picture of your dog Isaac can be in the "Christmas ’03" album, the "Pictures for My Web Page" album, and the "Best Isaac Photos of all Time" album all at the same time.
iPhoto 4 also lets you rate photos. In fact, since you can now have dynamic ("Smart") albums in iPhoto 4, the "Best Isaac Photos of All Time" can be generated automatically from all 5-star photos with a keyword of ‘Isaac’ assigned to them. How cool is that? (Very. It’s a rhetorical question. 😉 )
This can be used in all sorts of ways. At the end of the year you can have a Best Photos of 2004 album generated automatically, and burn it to a DVD slideshow or just put the pictures on a CD (most recent DVD players can play JPEG slide shows automatically).
Beth, as a fellow control freak, I must say I played around with it for a while before I felt comfortable actually using it for all my photos. It really has a lot to offer when you get into it; I imagine Photoshop Album is much the same way.
Like Joe said, it could always be improved. Nested albums and permanent thumbnails (for photos stored on CD or DVD) would be on the top of my list.
No it won’t catalogue from a removable disk but you can burn the whole iPhotoLibrary folder to a DVD then delete the iPhotoLibrary folder from your harddisk. Next time you start it it will ask you where the library is and you can point to a dvd or whatever or create a new one for the next few images.
I haven’t actually tried this just read it somewhere.
I’ve been using Brand X software for a couple of years, so I can preview photos that are contained on a CD, and it’ll tell me the name of the CD on which the image files themself are stored. I can also insert the CD and generate a catalog. That might be part of the reason iPhoto has never sounded like it has much to offer me. I bought the other program while I was still using OS 9 exclusively, and it’s fully operational under OS X. There is an update out that I understand has a lot of improvements, but I haven’t bought it yet.
I have burned an iPhotoLibrary folder to a DVD then deleted it from my harddisk. Later I put the DVD in the slot and it shows in the library that you are currently working in (just like another album). Works fine!!
I did it when I had finished working on an old photo album and I didn’t want to keep in on my hard disc. I also use the same system for backups.
Beth … I like the sound of your software … sounds like a great idea.
I don’t know how you do it. I’d be lost without a central place to "dump" and organize (what there is of it) my images. Also, I do use most all of the integrated features (Mail, Homepage, print ordering, books). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the red-eye removal tool is the best I’ve found, so I use that a lot as well.
Beth, you really should give it a try. What do you have to lose as long as long as you have your images backed up in your existing folder system? Despite my bitching ("het bitching" in Dutch 😉 ) I wouldn’t go back to digital imaging prior to iPhoto, although if they hadn’t fixed the speed issue I wouldn’t have had a choice.
Lou,
But, but, but . . . Joe, you’re not supposed to dig through the directories! That’s the whole point of iPhoto.
I know but occasionally you have to find a particular (the original) image and if you imported into iPhoto and don’t have the images stored anywhere else, you’re screwed. At least if you don’t know how iPhoto’s file structure works, which I didn’t the first time this happened. It was a bad day.
What’s cool about programs like iPhoto and PSAlbum is that, magically, you can have the same photo in 2 or more albums.
Agreed, and I use this feature all the time. The problem is that the program needs one more hierarchical level of organization above the Album. For instance, I’d like a separate library for my genealogy images. They don’t belong intermingled among the thousand or so photos of my kids. iPhoto thinks they do, however, and there isn’t anything you can do about it if you want to use iPhoto for cataloging images. There is just something inherently wrong with dumping hundreds and thousands of files into one directory (the Library). There is also something very, very wrong with having to quit the program and go through the current rigamarole in order to view a different library.
I’m not too excited about the rating option or the smart album feature. I don’t use these in iTunes and I can’t see how I would benefit from these features in iPhoto. I’m sure there are folks out there who might, just not me.
Tel,
You’re right but that doesn’t solve the problem. When the disk is absent so are the thumbnails. So if you’re looking for a particular photo burned on a CD or DVD you have no way of knowing that you’re looking for that particular photo ("hmmm… I sort of remember this one photo of my kids, outside I think and they were hugging or something") or which disk it’s on. Just doesn’t work for me.
Beth’s Brand X program (Qpict I think), iView Media Pro (not sure about plain iView Media) and just about every other image/media cataloging program I’ve tried has this feature. iPhoto doesn’t and that really peeves me off.
The big thing is, I’ve invested 2 years and 3300 plus images into iPhoto and I just don’t want to start over with something else. It’s a love-hate relationship thingy.
Well, maybe. Just for you. When I have it back. Which will be after I get that hard drive rebuilt. Except if you read your own post, you haven’t given me many good reasons! Let’s see – no thumbnails available if you move the pics to a CD or another drive; you can’t view a different library without quitting the one you’re in and going back; the genealogy photos get intermingled with the pictures of the kids… Hmmm. So tell me again why I should try this?! You just want me to mess up my system, too, don’t ya?! 🙂 And yes I do use QPict.
Hi I am new to this forum. I have a simple question. Should I use the browser in photoshop 7 or use iPhoto to import my photos? I don’t have the organization thing down yet.
Can someone please give me some insight on the issue?
Mal, you are on the wrong forum. This one is for Elements, not full Photoshop. However, that sure won’t stop me from giving a response! 🙂 I strongly recommend – assuming you’re talking about images from a digital camera – that you invest in a card reader. That will allow you to have the card mounted on the desktop of your computer just as if it were another hard drive. This way you can move your images to a folder of your choosing. Photoshop doesn’t store any images, so those need to be placed in folders on your hard drive (according to some system that makes sense to you) or put into iPhoto, which I don’t happen to use. I lean toward placing images in folders on the desktop first. You then have the option of moving them into iPhoto if you choose. Your Photshop browser will only give you a convenient way to view the contents of various folders.
I can’t seem to find the forum for PS7, however, I notice the problem I have will happen to both programs. I do use a card reader. I love the iPhoto for organizing my photos. I was wondering if I import my photos using Image Capture and then (after I edit the photos) import them to iPhoto. My question…would I be using way to much space on my drive (like double )if I keep the pictures that was first imported? By the way thank you for your fast response. Is there a better way to import, edit, and organize my photos? I feel I have to jump too many hoops.
Yes, you would be using up double the space if you keep your images both in iPhoto as well as somewhere else (where ever you have Image Capture set to download them to). Unless you’re running out of drive space, however, I personally think you should keep you’re originals separate from iPhoto. I too love (and hate sometimes) iPhoto but I download to my Pictures folder as well. Here’s what I do:
Using my card reader or my EasyShare Dock, I download my pictures with Image Capture (I have it set to automatically launch when a camera or card is connected to my Mac) to my Pictures folder. Before I delete anything off the card/camera I fire up iPhoto and download to it too. I have iPhoto set to delete the images after downloading.
Space isn’t an issue with me as I have 3 hard drives (a 40gb & two 120gb’s), but might be with your setup. Depending on what kind Mac you have, perhaps an additional internal hard drive might help? Of course you could always go with an external Firewire drive as well.
I import straight into iPhoto then any images I want to play around with I download to a folder on my desktop. When all the changes have been completed I import them back into iPhoto. If I do that I can then compare them to the original … sometimes the original is better than the altered image 🙂
I could keep extra copies of everything as I have a lot of hard disk space but nowadays only the good ones get kept in duplicate.
Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.
Related Discussion Topics
Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections
