iPhoto 5 bug in Tiger ruins edited photos

[MacBytes]

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Category: 3rd Party Hardware
Link: iPhoto 5 bug in Tiger ruins edited photos (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20050601160134)

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[Daveway]

This has been a HIGHLY talked about flaw on the forums lately. 10.4.1 didn't fix it, hopefully 4.2 will.
http://www.brendanloy.com/blog/images/cat-anim.gif

[DavidLeblond]

This has been a HIGHLY talked about flaw on the forums lately. 10.4.1 didn't fix it, hopefully 4.2 will.

Why would patching Tiger fix it? Wouldn't you have to patch iPhoto?

[mduser63]

Why would patching Tiger fix it? Wouldn't you have to patch iPhoto?

Some of the people on the Apple forums have found evidence that it's a bug with ColorSync and/or iPhoto's use of ColorSync, so I'm sort of thinking it'd need to be a patch to Tiger, but it's hard to say.

[nagromme]

It seems like it only happens if you use iPhoto 5 AND Tiger, so either one might be the culprit. We just can't tell.

Interestingly, my parents any my sister can't see this issue on either of their Tiger/iPhoto 5 systems.

Maybe the reason there isn't a huge outcry (outside of forums where troubleshooters gather) and a quick response from Apple is that for most people, the effect is too subtle to even notice: most people don't edit that many times, and many of the edits ARE color changes, hiding any additional shift. (And if you do numerous edit passes, you'll face multiple-JPEGging artifacts anyway, which purists like me would mind. And so we'd do a single step anyway.)

[Paul O'Keefe]

Doesn't iPhoto save a new file for all of your independent edits? I know it saves the original.

Re-editing and re-saving to JPG will lead to crap photos as one poster already mentioned.

[trojanloy]

Depending on the individual photo, the effect is sometimes quite noticeable after just one or two edits.

Also, there are some people using iPhoto 5 with Panther who say they have spotted the problem, and some other using iPhoto 4 with Tiger who say they have spotted it as well. I've been looking and looking for a solid pattern, and have yet to find one.

[trojanloy]

P.S. And, no, iPhoto doesn't save an independent file for each edit. Just the original and the most recent edit. Doesn't matter anyway; the point is that the bug messes up the color of <i>every single edit</i>, so you can't so much as crop a photo without having your color distorted. Going back to the original obviously eliminates all the changes, good and bad. Our only choice at the moment is to leave our photos alone until Apple fixes the bug.

Seriously, this problem should not be downplayed. I've already gotten a comment on my blog from someone who decided not to switch from Windows to Mac because he discovered this bug while playing with iPhoto at the Apple Store. The fact is, this bug makes it impossible to confidently edit photos in any way within iPhoto, which basically ruins the software.

[iGary]

This is why I switched to iView Media Pro...Apple bombed on this one.

[jettredmont]

It seems like it only happens if you use iPhoto 5 AND Tiger, so either one might be the culprit. We just can't tell.

Interestingly, my parents any my sister can't see this issue on either of their Tiger/iPhoto 5 systems.


Most likely they aren't using ColorSync non-default profiles (ie, they haven't calibrated their monitors, etc, which is the norm for the vast majority of non-graphics-professionals out there). The defining factor appears to be use of the "default" color profile versus use of a calibrated "custom" profile.

That's what it looks like right now, given the various complaints I've seen about this.

Me? I'm blissfully happy (and apparently unaffected) on my non-calibrated G5 (the custom calibration came out no different from the default for my monitor so I just switched back to the default). Thanks for asking.

[Jerry Spoon]

If I just use iPhoto to organize my photos and use photoshop to edit them, there are no changes then when the change is saved back into the iPhoto organizational scheme, right?

[nagromme]

Actually my parents DO use custom calibrations. Who knows.

I certainly will await a fix before I do any editing in Tiger + iPhoto 5.

As for someone deciding not to switch to Mac because of one single photo-editing bug (yes, a significant one for some people) that will OF COURSE be fixed in the end... well, if Microsoft scores better for you in that regard, you're probably best staying there :p

[fabsgwu]

If this problem affects you, please, please SEND FEEDBACK! It's the only way apple will do something to fix it!!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html