iPhoto 4.0.2 Now Available

[MacRumors]

iPhoto version 4.0.2 is now available via Software Update:
iPhoto 4.0.2 addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books, and provides notification when new versions of iPhoto are available.

The update can also be downloaded here (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoto.html) (requires iPhoto 4.0.1 in iLife 04).

[Update] Apple has pulled the update, both from Software Update and from downloads. So far, no reason has been given.

[belair]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac.
I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.

Besides I don't like the fact of the thumnails taking up even more space what for? I use my Nikon Viewer that came with my D70.
You guys tell me if this update is worth anything.
:rolleyes:

[stoid]

ohhh, an update that tells me when there's more updates...

I'm thrilled. :rolleyes: What's the 'minor issue' though?

[atari1356]

Installing it now... minor update, but any update is good I suppose.

[Soire]

Who cares??

Maybe if it had something to do with 10.3.5 or the 2.5s shipping...

[belair]

Is it possible to change the settings in iphoto so it does not rearrange everything according to date?
Thanks

[stoid]

Who cares??

Maybe if it had something to do with 10.3.5 or the 2.5s shipping...

I use iPhoto, in conjunction with Photoshop for image manipulation to organize my growing catalog of digital photos. I've had my Canon PowerShot S45 for a little over a year and have already amassed over 1000 great shots. It may still lack a few features, but it's a great program, not to mention the iLife integration is superb! Any update, no matter how small is more than welcome.

[musicpyrite]

Updates are always good, even though I rarly use iPhoto.

[MacUnit]

Can we get a new Page 2 rumor going then?

[wPod]

iPhoto is one of apple's best applications, im surprised there is an update!

er by 'best' i mean 'worst' and by 'im surprised' i mean 'its about time'

i like iPhoto b/c it pulls the pics off my camera quickly, and it has a LOT of potential, i just have never gotten it to work very at organizing stuff. oh well.

[jxyama]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac.
I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.


iPhoto works great as long as you let it do its thing in file organization. you run into trouble when you try to access them via Finder. i realize this isn't a prefered way to deal with pictures for some, but i think it's fantastic.

when i edit my photo using PSE, i either export the picture and re-import or simply designate PSE as my editing software - any changes you make in PSE will be recorded by iPhoto.

does anyone know if this update fixed the annoying habit of iPhoto to take the text input focus away from title/comment fields while editing?

i guess i'll get home and try in a few hours...

[stoid]

Is it possible to change the settings in iphoto so it does not rearrange everything according to date?
Thanks

I don't think so. The only way would be to throw them into an album and rearrange them by hand. I don't what other order you'd put them in that the computer could do automatically. Size? Orientation? What do you have in mind?

[colmaclean]

Just installed it. Not too happy... on the first couple of tests, my iPhoto now takes over 5 minutes to quit with the beachball of death taking control and a LOT of hard disc thrashing.

I'll try again after a reboot to make sure the update is set up correctly...

Note: using 12" PB/Panther & iPhoto with 4300 pics.

[After G]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac.
I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.

I don't know if this is a new feature, never having looked at iPhoto preferences before this update, but there's a preference that allows you to open photos in another application when you double-click on them. Hope that helps.

[Mudbug]

Can we get a new Page 2 rumor going then?

have you got something in mind, or would you like us to just randomly make stuff up?

[belair]

But its not that good for work.

What I usually do, I upload my photos trough image capture, its really fast as well. Then I look at them in Nikon view and in edit in photoshop.And save the new ones in another folder with the same name only called edit.
The thing is when I edit I like to keep the original.
You never know when you touch up pictures you might want to return to the original in case you want to lower contrast. level ect. When you do that on an already retouched photo, its just gets worse.

If I want to find those pictures in iphoto trough the folder its really hard to find them. Guess I just like to know where my stuff is.

[JW Pepper]

I downloaded the Extensis Portfilio 7 demo (http://www.extensis.com/en/downloads/index.jsp) and I will definetly buy the application when my 2.5FG5 finally arrives. It just shows how good iPhoto could be with a bit more work.

[autrefois]

I installed the update. No noticeable change and no problems on my Tibook (running Panther).

I'm curious why Apple seems to be putting update mechanisms in more and more of its software. Have they found out that people don't check Software update?

[jxyama]

I don't think so. The only way would be to throw them into an album and rearrange them by hand. I don't what other order you'd put them in that the computer could do automatically. Size? Orientation? What do you have in mind?

just to add a bit more info, as far as i know, i think the only other arrangement is by import date...

[SilentPanda]

Initial load and quit took a bit longer than expected but now everything seems to be as fast as normal... this is with 1932 photos taking up about 1.4 gig on my iBook G4 800 w/ 640 megs of RAM.

[må¥å]

where is MOTION. Is it released yet. :(

The iApps need a level of advancement I had recommend this in one of the forums.

Use an Expose style with each iApps for level of useability. :eek:

[nitz]

I installed it and iPhoto promptly crashed when I started the program. I'm sick of iPhoto. What are some better picture management programs out there?

[madrobby]

I've a TiBook 1GHz with 4624 photos (about 5,2 GB, most of the photos are 5MP from my Sony DSC-F717). I noticed iPhoto launches a bit faster, but takes much longer to quit (SBOD on display...).
Must be some new "check-if-everything-is-allright"-thing on exiting iPhoto... :confused:

Anyway, I really like the app a lot, it does exactly what I need when it comes to creating albums, importing, rotating, sorting and exporting photos. No need to change anything...

Also, the photo sharing function is really nice when swapping shots with friends and family.

[~Shard~]

Updates are always good I suppose, but the update I'll be holding out for and expecting great things from is iPhoto 5. There are still too many little things that annoy me with iPhoto that I would like to see fixed, such as simple editing features, which Photoshop shouldn't be required for.

[stoid]

My biggest pet peeve with iPhoto. The stupid zoom thing! I would like to be able to set it to even percentages like 100%, 50% 200% and what not.

[Flowbee]

have you got something in mind, or would you like us to just randomly make stuff up?

Isn't that what you usually do anyway? :p

[voodoofish]

The thing is when I edit I like to keep the original.
You never know when you touch up pictures you might want to return to the original in case you want to lower contrast. level ect. When you do that on an already retouched photo, its just gets worse.

If I want to find those pictures in iphoto trough the folder its really hard to find them. Guess I just like to know where my stuff is.


In iPhoto you can go Photo > Revert to Original, though you will loose your edited version unless you've made a copy of it first (just drag it to the desktop and then back into iPhoto once you've reverted - this may loose the date info though)

I too have found iPhoto takes longer to quit after the update, although I have yet to restart my computer (the update doesn't require one and I'm used to not having to restart my Mac as you do with Windows!!)

[MacUnit]

have you got something in mind, or would you like us to just randomly make stuff up?

Are you telling me that rumors can just be made up? That sounds like fun!

[dudemac]

I installed it and iPhoto promptly crashed when I started the program. I'm sick of iPhoto. What are some better picture management programs out there?

iview media pro is excellent.
QTpic is also good.
If you need a really huge program then Extensis Portfolio 7 would probably be best.

The best free alternative to iPhoto is Kodaks Easy Share program. It is put together very well and it does not rearrange your photos like iPhoto does. I used it for a long time until I need something with more features then I switched to iView media pro. Plus the current version works with both mac and windows.

Hope this helps you figure out your media management solutions.

[legacyb4]

I used to be an iView user but switched over to iPhoto because of the integration with .mac, Mail, and other stuff.

I download through Image Capture and then drop-import into iPhoto. The nice thing is that if you've configured your preferences, editing in Photoshop is a right-click away and iPhoto does a fine job of maintaining the original photo when you do any edits. Simply select "Revert to Original" and all your changes are reversed.

Now, I really don't care where the originals are in the folders because I rarely make copies of full size shots for distribution anyway. Simply select the photo you want and export it.

Cheers.

But its not that good for work.

What I usually do, I upload my photos trough image capture, its really fast as well. Then I look at them in Nikon view and in edit in photoshop.And save the new ones in another folder with the same name only called edit.
The thing is when I edit I like to keep the original.
You never know when you touch up pictures you might want to return to the original in case you want to lower contrast. level ect. When you do that on an already retouched photo, its just gets worse.

If I want to find those pictures in iphoto trough the folder its really hard to find them. Guess I just like to know where my stuff is.

[confusion]

i'm sorry to say so, but iphoto is one huge memory leak. i just came home from my vacations in california (yes, i also visited the mothership) and imported the 3000 pictures (3 and 5 mpixel) my friend and i took. it took forever to get them into iphoto on my ti 400 (although the pictures were on my hd), 1-5 sec per image - WTF?!
then i wanted to rotate some images - guess what. i could have had a cup of coffee between my clicks and the time iphoto responded. plus it leaks memory as hell, eating up all the ram while rotating images and scrolling through them - shouldn't 768mb be enough for simple rotation??

we'll see, if this version get's it fixed (i doubt it though, since after startup it needs 160mb out of the box).

you can do better, apple!

greetings from switzerland
confusion

[ifudge]

It would be great if iPhoto worked as advertised. Unfortunately, it softens every image just after they open in edit mode. (Workaround: click on the brightness or contrast tab.)

I could live with that, but the slide show feature doesn't function properly in iPhoto, either. Nor does Preview work properly, and the image dplayed on my desktop isn't as sharp as it should be, either.

Considering I paid money, for both iPhoto and my computer, the program - as well as Preview - should function properly. I guess the fix, if it ever happens, will have to involve a system upgrade.

[puckhead193]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac.
I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.

Besides I don't like the fact of the thumnails taking up even more space what for? I use my Nikon Viewer that came with my D70.
You guys tell me if this update is worth anything.
:rolleyes:
How do you like the nikon D70? I was thinking of getting it

[movabi]

I think qpict works better... for me anyway. Very feature rich. It also handles large amounts of files better. I do all my image editing and image creation in photoshop anyway so i don't need any image editing bloat. It also syncs with photoshop or any other app for that matter. Handles a large range of file types... swf, psd, picture clippings, fonts, icons, tif, jpg, mpeg, mov, pict... imports perfectly from my cannon 10D including raw.

[Porchland]

I don't know if this is a new feature, never having looked at iPhoto preferences before this update, but there's a preference that allows you to open photos in another application when you double-click on them. Hope that helps.

I'm pretty sure that's not new.

[GeoffRuth]

I also have noticed that the "updated" iPhoto now takes abhorrently long to quit. I also feel pissed about this program (like most others in this thread): I bought iLife with the understanding that it would make iPhoto useable (as distinctly opposed to iPhoto 3). While that update did make iPhoto faster, it brought its speed from glacial to molasses-like. How hard can it be for Apple to produce a photo program that doesn't feel like it was made by Microsoft?

[autrefois]

I also have noticed that the "updated" iPhoto now takes abhorrently long to quit. I also feel pissed about this program (like most others in this thread): I bought iLife with the understanding that it would make iPhoto useable (as distinctly opposed to iPhoto 3). While that update did make iPhoto faster, it brought its speed from glacial to molasses-like. How hard can it be for Apple to produce a photo program that doesn't feel like it was made by Microsoft?

You mean iPhoto 2 (they skipped 3).

Maybe it's people with large libraries that are having problems. I'm below 1000 and am having no problems.

For people having problems: hopefully Apple will come out with a fix soon, if enough people are affected. Maybe because of the very minor changes in the update, they didn't test it out on a variety of set-ups. Maybe they accidentally screwed something up that would affect larger libraries?

[GeoffRuth]

Yes, you're right -- I forgot about the version skip.

Perhaps you're right about the library size being an issue: I have about 3600 photos in the program.

You mean iPhoto 2 (they skipped 3).

Maybe it's people with large libraries that are having problems. I'm below 1000 and am having no problems.

For people having problems: hopefully Apple will come out with a fix soon, if enough people are affected. Maybe because of the very minor changes in the update, they didn't test it out on a variety of set-ups. Maybe they accidentally screwed something up that would affect larger libraries?

[Hansel USA]

I installed it and iPhoto promptly crashed when I started the program. I'm sick of iPhoto. What are some better picture management programs out there?

iView Media Pro is awesome... but it will cost you $200 bucks. Worth it though if you have a lot of images (or any media files actually) to deal with. Check it out (http://www.iview-multimedia.com/) - there's a full featured demo that hooked me into buying it.

[crakly]

It takes a long time to quit the first time you quit after updating. I've launched and quit a couple of times now and everything is fine (2567 photos)


Maybe it's people with large libraries that are having problems. I'm below 1000 and am having no problems.

For people having problems: hopefully Apple will come out with a fix soon, if enough people are affected. Maybe because of the very minor changes in the update, they didn't test it out on a variety of set-ups. Maybe they accidentally screwed something up that would affect larger libraries?

[mlrproducts]

i'm so sick of people complaining about how it supposedly "blurs" pictures in edit mode. for those who know nothing about megapixels and screen resolution - what iphoto is doing is zooming in or out on your photo so that it fits to screen. what happens most of the time is an odd zoom rate, like 27% or 83% or something. if iphoto left the image like that without the blur, it would appear very jagged and overly sharp.

because iphoto is a consumer app, they blur it so grandpa and kids say "that looks nice" instead of "why is it messed up (jagged) looking?"

iphoto is really NOT blurring the photos in a permanent way, it only displays them that way in the program. drag them to your desktop, open them in another app at 50 or 100% and they'll look fine.

btw - begin the complaining about NO CAPITALIZATION and BAAD grammer, speeling, etc.

[fatfish]

Geez, some of you's love to moan.

Sure iphoto don't have a heap load of functions and it isn't over endowed with speed, but its fine for me. I don't want loads of functions, I'm quite happy with just viewing the photo's I want when I want, and that's exactly what it does.

I don't use smart albums, (never really had much success there) and I don't fiddle about with the original photo folders. I rarely want to edit more than the odd photo and I simply drag it to my desktop, work on it with PS and drag it back.I usually organise each album by date, but there are 3 other ways to organise them. I don't bother rating 98% of my photo's, but it can help if you need to organise by something other than date.

I'm sure if you want more bloated software there are many other apps available for me iphoto is just what I want, especially because of the ilife integration.

As for speed, I don't think it's that bad that it warrants the complaints being made, either you guys have some system probs or your just outright impatient. Just for the hell, I've just given it a quick test.

I'm using a 733 MHz chip with 1GB of RAM (so that ain't that fast) right now the mac is backing up one external HD to another HD, creating a.mov from a VOB and converting two .dv files to MPG2's, I have about 6500 photos which vary in size from about 500K to 10Mb (although most are between 500K and 1 Mb) - it took 12 secs to open and 10 secs to close.

The only thing I would like to see is nested folders, my collection is well organised in my opinion and so I have loads of albums all at the same level, which for organisational purposes I have had to call "Vacations-2002-Florida-Week1" and "Vacations-2002-Florida-Week2" and "Sports Events-2003-French GP-Qualifying" for example. Nested folders would save me lots of scrolling, but at least I can drag and drop to order the list of albums.

iPhoto is more or less ideal for me, quit moaning about a few seconds guys. :)

[CubaTBird]

still waitin for that 10.3.5 though... and where is isync 1.5??? hmmm :rolleyes:

[ifudge]

>i'm so sick of people complaining about how it supposedly "blurs" pictures in edit mode. for those who know nothing about megapixels and screen resolution - what iphoto is doing is zooming in or out on your photo so that it fits to screen.<

What iPhoto does is blur your photo and there's nothing "supposedly" about it. I work with megapixels and screen resolution for a living. In fact, iPhoto doesn't "fit" a photo to the screen except in slide show mode, where it's also a failure at creating a sharp image. No matter what size a picture displays in initially, it quickly "pops" out of focus in iPhoto. When its in focus, I don't see jaggies, I just see a sharp picture.

>iphoto is really NOT blurring the photos in a permanent way, it only displays them that way in the program. drag them to your desktop, open them in another app at 50 or 100% and they'll look fine.<

No, it doesn't blur them permanantly, and clicking on a brightness/contrast tab will pop them into proper focus. But why should I have to do that to obtain a sharp picture? Btw, my kids are perfectly aware when photos are out of focus and more than happy to let me know that iPhoto sucks.

Why should I have to look at a photo at 100%? Not much of a 5 megapixel image would be visible and I don't image grandpa or the kids would be amused.

And why should iPhoto blur photos in its slide shows? Why does Preview blur pictures? None of my other programs that work with photographs have that problem, and iPhoto shouldn't, either.

:mad:

[virividox]

you know im happy with iphoto already. i dont know why people expect so much out of a free app; or an app that used to be free. sure there is always room for improvement, but this isnt a pro app so just be happy that it can do som much more

[ccuilla]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac. I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.

Whenever I read something like this, I am suddenly struck by the inability of some people to "get it". iPhoto is your interface to the photos. You are not supposed to use the filesystem. That seems so abundantly obvious to me...why is that some folks don't get it?

[sjk]

iPhoto works great as long as you let it do its thing in file organization. you run into trouble when you try to access them via Finder. i realize this isn't a prefered way to deal with pictures for some, but i think it's fantastic.I agree, twice.

Might be possible to create Smart Folders of iPhoto folder hierarchies using Spotlight in Tiger that can be more conveniently accessed from Finder and non-iPhoto apps. And maybe it'll eventually be possible to manage custom file/folder hierarchies of images with iPhoto.

Personally, I find it tedious maintaining physical storage layouts/hierarchies so letting iPhoto do that work for me is fine.

"Folders" are becoming flexible collections of data from different locations (like iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists, etc.), without being dependent on the underlying storage boundaries of traditional files/folders. Hierarchical organization can still exist but needn't be imposed.

Whenever I read something like this, I am suddenly struck by the inability of some people to "get it". iPhoto is your interface to the photos. You are not supposed to use the filesystem. That seems so abundantly obvious to me...why is that some folks don't get it?
Sometimes there's conflict between traditional filesystem access and application-specific interfaces. Improvements will happen, in some form or another.

[wtmcgee]

totally offtopic, but i visited Basel earlier this year ... you have yourself a very beautiful corner of the world :D

i'm sorry to say so, but iphoto is one huge memory leak. i just came home from my vacations in california (yes, i also visited the mothership) and imported the 3000 pictures (3 and 5 mpixel) my friend and i took. it took forever to get them into iphoto on my ti 400 (although the pictures were on my hd), 1-5 sec per image - WTF?!
then i wanted to rotate some images - guess what. i could have had a cup of coffee between my clicks and the time iphoto responded. plus it leaks memory as hell, eating up all the ram while rotating images and scrolling through them - shouldn't 768mb be enough for simple rotation??

we'll see, if this version get's it fixed (i doubt it though, since after startup it needs 160mb out of the box).

you can do better, apple!

greetings from switzerland
confusion

[AppleMatt]

I'm curious why Apple seems to be putting update mechanisms in more and more of its software. Have they found out that people don't check Software update?

I personally think it's a bad idea, unless it launches Software Update.
- Why confuse the "joe average" user with a number of ways of updating?
- Why not utilise the opportunity. For example if SU if off, and all other apps don't check but iPhoto announces an update is available, when it takes the user to SU they will see all the other updates. Then in future they'll be aware that they can update their software via SU. It sounds stupid but you wouldn't believe the number of people I come across that don't know about keeping their software up-to-date. It's not a conscious decision not to, it's a genuine ignorance.

iPhoto 4.0.2 installed fine, first time starting up was slow (to be expected), but every-things smooth. Don't notice any performance change. Only preference change is the one to check for updates automatically.

AppleMatt

[Mantat]

I just want to say that iPhoto quit in less than a second on my computer after the update so I cant relate to everyone who had a problem...

[fatfish]

Never really noticed any blurring, always took it that iphoto was simply refocusing the picture, but again I ran some trials to see what all the whinning was about.

And yes, if that's how you want to describe it, blurring does occur - but get this. When I open a photo to fit in the window the blurring (being around individual pixels) is mainly undetectable (I say mainly and will come back to this). If I zoom in to the point where each pixel starts to become prominent and release the slider bar, then I can see the blurring you's mention.

However gotta say "Thanx Apple for this great feature"; the picture whilst admittedly "slightly blurred" is a marked improvement over the distinctively pixelated version I had before releasing the slider. To me and surely anyone who's IQ reaches double figures, this is a feature and not a bug in iphoto. I simply can't imagine anyone who would rather look at their photo's like a patch work quilt.

Returning to my observation were the blurring was mainly undetectable when the photo was opened to fit the window. In some cases, if I looked hard, with my nose virtually on the screen, I could detect the blurring occuring. However on further investigation, it occurred only with poor photos (either because of poor picture taking or where I had taken the picture with one of my lesser quality cameras).

So it is my opinion that those who have an issue with blurring, should perhaps turn their complaing towards their own photographic skills or their equipment. Yes there is blurring, but it's a compromise for poor photo's and personally I like it.

[CubaTBird]

im tryin to import some photos and after this update i keep gettin the spinnin beach ball for like the past 10 min... why is this

[Doga]

I just did the update and I regret it; iPhoto takes ages to quit now, with a spinning beach ball. If you haven't updated yet, you should wait. I should have checked to see if other people had experienced any problems before I ran Software Update - now I'm seeing comments about it on various boards (as well as adding my own). #@#%^ :mad:

[brianwells]

What iPhoto does is blur your photo and there's nothing "supposedly" about it. I work with megapixels and screen resolution for a living.

Sorry, ifudge. I agree with fatfish and mlrproducts that the "blurring" is a feature and not a bug. Those of us who do not work with megapixels and screen resolution for a living are happy with the way iPhoto softens the image after scaling.

Perhaps you'd be better off with a more professional app since you work with it for a living :D

In any case, it would be nice if Apple provided a checkbox to turn off the feature if one did not like it. That would quiet the controversy :rolleyes:

[tny]

$10 says liberal Steve isn't going to post the republican speeches. At which point i'll never buy another song from itms. -- menelaus22
The Audiobooks are made and selected by Audible, not Steve Jobs; listen to one of them (say Colin Powell's testimony to the 9/11 commission) - it says "Audible" right at the beginning of the track.

[JDOG_]

Apparently iPhoto damaged my iTunes music library because it's re-determining my song volumes & all that fun stuff...it also got rid of all my nice stats like dates added, so I can no longer sort things by when I added them. Thanks apple :I

Definitely didn't have this problem before I installed it & I wasn't doing anything else in case you were wondering. Blegh.

[Balin64]

... Compare it to comparable Windows software...

iPhoto wins in every aspect.

If a user is concerned about "blurring" or resizing... they should not be using iPhoto.

I work as a graphic designer and photographer; for serious work images, I never even think of iPhoto: Photoshop CS is THE way to go.

But, fot fun iMovie, IDVD and ,mac projects, iPhoto takes the cake: just learn to harness iPhoto when it's not running: keep the library lean by deleting stuff you know you won't need anymore. Let's just say this: I always keep back up of images: iPhoto just offers integration with some great Apple services.

Take it easy peoples.

[~Shard~]

If a user is concerned about "blurring" or resizing... they should not be using iPhoto.

Why not? is that really too much to ask, based on the simplicity of those functions? I wouldn't say that those are "power functions" which should require a multi-hundred $$$ pro application like Photoshop to carry out. :confused:

[GeeYouEye]

Works fine for me. Yes, quitting takes a while (86 seconds w/~3600 images), but going through the photos is smoother, less laggy. If only they could make iMovie as responsive when doing a Photo/video slideshow/movie with a sixth as many photos as the library; right now, on a 1.5GHz PB, it takes 10 minutes to save the movie, a minute to adjust a song by one frame, 5 minutes total to edit a simple fadeout of a song... and I know it's not simply a lack of horsepower; rendering a transition takes no time at all, but adding that transition takes 4 minutes. Hell, if I could trade all that for a 86 second quit time in iMovie I'd take it.

[reorx]

Whenever I read something like this, I am suddenly struck by the inability of some people to "get it". iPhoto is your interface to the photos. You are not supposed to use the filesystem. That seems so abundantly obvious to me...why is that some folks don't get it?

But it doesn't work cross platform from a fileserver. My wife and I share our pics on a fileserver so we both can view/edit them on our respective machines while taking advantage of the redundant drive array of the server for piece of mind (backing up to optical, mind you). She has a Sony laptop, I have my Power Book. What I've been looking for is a way to have an imaging app browse/cache the thumbnails while they sit on the server filesystem, without having to resort to the Finder... iPhoto can't do that, so I'm left with opening PSE and using their browser, which is too much overhead when I want to just sift through the year's pics...

I guess I'll be looking at some of the other alternatives mentioned in this thread... ;)

[GeorgeTheMonkey]

The only thing this monkey wants is the ability to actually search through his photos. Hey, iTunes has it -- why can't iPhoto search the metadata as well? :rolleyes:

Sure, there's smart albums, but they unfortunately just don't cut it for me. I want something quicker than that. (I've literally spent hours manually finding pictures, when I could've found 'em in half a minute with a simple search feature.)

I also am a bit less than fond of the bloating, myself. Granted, all my photos are >5MB files, and I have 4400 of them. (I probably should've updated to new photo management software a long time ago. ;)) I think once you get past 2000 photos, iPhoto bogs down significantly... So yup, better speed and image handling would be decent as well. Speed, and search. And I'll be happy. :)

But hey, iPhoto is still great, and still blows similar Windows programs out of the water. So thanks, Apple. :D

[dantec]

My biggest pet peeve with iPhoto. The stupid zoom thing! I would like to be able to set it to even percentages like 100%, 50% 200% and what not.

Set it in Preferences for iPhoto to open images in an 'edit window'. At least there it tells you the percentage in the toolbar...

I like iPhoto... I remember the days when I had to use the finder and Adobe Photoshop Deluxe 2.0... Urgh !

iPhoto has been great to me... iPhoto 4 really made everything great and with 1950 photos it worked great on my 667 tiBook... Now that I got my Alubook (1.5 ghz, yesterday) it has become even sweeter.

The one thing that bugs me though is sometimes when editing images, they become bigger than they once were... My Powershot S50 usually averages at 1.5 mb per picture and iPhoto sometimes bloats this to 2.0 mb...

Another thing is proper white balance... Enhance kinda does this but not really...

iPhoto is my 2nd favorite iApp (with iTunes being first).

[goron]

You guys tell me if this update is worth anything.
:rolleyes:
One thing I've noticed is that smart albums now work properly if you do something like:
keyword is XX
OR
keyword is YY
Before, it would show as empty.

[Vanilla]

Well I loaded the update and the first time I exited iPhoto it did take quite a while. Ever since then its been fine. Quite what the benefits of the update are I have no idea.
I have 881 pictures in my library.
Vanilla

[CmdrLaForge]

you know im happy with iphoto already. i dont know why people expect so much out of a free app; or an app that used to be free. sure there is always room for improvement, but this isnt a pro app so just be happy that it can do som much more

I agree. I like iPhoto. I use it quite often. It integrates very well into the other iApps. I have my new Sony Cam now for only 1 month and not more then 500+ pics. It works really nice.

The only thing I don't like is that I cannot create picture websites without .Mac and no independant slideshows. And I will not buy .Mac. Its jsut too freakin expensive.

Cheers

[CmdrLaForge]

The only thing this monkey wants is the ability to actually search through his photos. Hey, iTunes has it -- why can't iPhoto search the metadata as well? :rolleyes:

Sure, there's smart albums, but they unfortunately just don't cut it for me. I want something quicker than that. (I've literally spent hours manually finding pictures, when I could've found 'em in half a minute with a simple search feature.)


I guess Tiger is the answer. ;)

[sjk]

Anyone here have experience with Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0? I downloaded the free version on my wife's notebook PC and tinkered with it for about five minutes, then gave my wife my iBook soon after that and we haven't touched APA (or Windows, hurray!) since.

[LimeiBook86]

Well I guess it's ok. Seems to work fine for me. But it takes 25 seconds to quit the application on a 12'' 867mhz Rev A PowerBook, 640mb RAM. I'd expect this from my 466mhz G3 iBook SE, but not my Powerbook!

I hope there is small fix, or an explanation for the slow quitting soon.

:confused:

[Zaty]

Well I guess it's ok. Seems to work fine for me. But it takes 25 seconds to quit the application on a 12'' 867mhz Rev A PowerBook, 640mb RAM. I'd expect this from my 466mhz G3 iBook SE, but not my Powerbook!

I hope there is small fix, or an explanation for the slow quitting soon.

:confused:

On my Rev. B 12" PB it takes much longer to quit, too. Anyone else noticed this as well?

[sjk]

The only thing I don't like is that I cannot create picture websites without .Mac and no independant slideshows.
What kind of "picture web site" and "independent slideshow" are you trying to create? Have you looked at utilities like Galerie and BetterHTMLExport?

[Sherif Iskander]

All complaints about slow shutdown times. Try leaving iphoto on fo a while about a couple of minutes. Then try shutting it down. It will shut down in leass than 2 seconds!!!! I believe when we see slow shutdown time and th spinning beach ball is because you are asking it to shutdown before the start has completed!!! I think iphoto has this mechanism that allows it to startup very quickly and continue the startup tasks in the background to speed up startup time. When you start it up and then decide to shut it down before those tasks are completeed, it will just keep on going until it finishes the startup tasks and THEN shutdown!!! Should not present a problem unless you start applications just to quit them 2 seconds later!!!!

[toughboy]

I dont know whats up with you guys but I love iPhoto... its been 4300+ files (most of them over 1mb each taken by my S50) and its really amazing how it handles them all with no wait at all..

and.. every update is a good thing.. I'll do it as soon as possible (after I backup all my photos to a dvd)..

[sjk]

The only thing this monkey wants is the ability to actually search through his photos. Hey, iTunes has it -- why can't iPhoto search the metadata as well? :rolleyes:Yeah, that's weak.

Certain metadata that could be saved as EXIF data within images (e.g. keywords) is only stored in iPhoto's external database. Same thing with iTunes metadata (e.g. ratings) but that seems less an issue. Or mailer-dependent implementations of flags/labels.

How metadata is handled is an important portability and interoperability issue. A side effect of Apple's Spotlight might be to bring more attention to that.

[ifudge]

>If a user is concerned about "blurring" or resizing... they should not be using iPhoto.

I work as a graphic designer and photographer; for serious work images, I never even think of iPhoto: Photoshop CS is THE way to go.<

Since I paid for iPhoto, on the not unreasonable assumption that photos would be displayed withou blurring them, I think I and other pople who have this problem are not out of line making our complaints known. While Photoshop is for "serious" work, there is no reason a "fun" application should provide inferior images.

In reading over the posts here, and having re-read some posts on the Apple and Macintouch web sites, I think it's possible that blurred images don't show up on every computer. But it certainly shows up on enough computers to demonstrate it's a real problem for many people.

Certainly the blurred photos do not, when sharpened by clicking on the contrast or brightness tabs, exhibit jaggies. Instead, the pictures snap into crisp focus. If these same pictures can snap into proper focus with Photoshop or GraphicConverter, they should be equally sharp in iPhoto, without having to click on tabs or use other workarounds. Photos should be sharp in the slide show mode (which CS doesn't have). At the very least there should be an option for turning the blurring "feature" on or off.

[aswitcher]

I got an email from Apple today saying

"Now you can use iPhoto’s onscreen controls to rotate images, rate them (up to 5 stars) and delete the ones you don’t want to keep. In no time at all, you’ll be emailing photos to friends and creating pro-quality slideshows with your top shots. "

It also had a picture of a photo with slightly transparent grey commands to do just this.

I can't work out how to activate this cool looking feature. Help?

[AmigoMac]

I got an email from Apple today saying

"Now you can use iPhoto’s onscreen controls to rotate images, rate them (up to 5 stars) and delete the ones you don’t want to keep. In no time at all, you’ll be emailing photos to friends and creating pro-quality slideshows with your top shots. "

It also had a picture of a photo with slightly transparent grey commands to do just this.

I can't work out how to activate this cool looking feature. Help?


It works when you set your whole library as slideshow and in the settings just check, show slideshow controller ... Boom, done! ;)

[iMeowbot]

I'm curious why Apple seems to be putting update mechanisms in more and more of its software. Have they found out that people don't check Software update?
iPhoto has plug-in support. Perhaps Apple intend to make some more use of that feature, and Software Update doesn't maintain the right kind of information to handle this well?

Some wild baseless speculation: Apple were at least at one time promoting the idea that they would like to have companion products for each iApp, and iPhoto doesn't really seem to have one yet.
The PP5020 found in the iPod has all sorts of image capabilities that the iPod doesn't use. There must have been some sort of product in mind that would make use of that stuff.
Rumors persist of a tablet-like device from Apple.
The AirPort Express is on its knees begging for a remote terminal.

[aswitcher]

It works when you set your whole library as slideshow and in the settings just check, show slideshow controller ... Boom, done! ;)

Cool, thanks. Wish they had that in the standard editing mode as well.

[flappo]

i hate iphoto , it's slow , it's buggy and it's total crap

[happyadam]

... Compare it to comparable Windows software...

iPhoto wins in every aspect.



Not strictly true. Have you checked out Picasa (www.picasa.com). iPhoto isn't free (if like me you have an old Mac and upgraded your iLife suite). However, Picasa is - it has a good interface, it scans and gets all your photos (and doesn't re-organise your files in the process), it's performance is pretty good (better than iPhoto), offers some novel features (such as a timeline interface to your library). (it's also now owned by Google).

To be honest, if they did an OS X version, I'd probably use it in preference to iPhoto but I guess they saw no point.

I think the timeline feature would be a nice inclusion in the next version of iPhoto.

[CmdrLaForge]

What kind of "picture web site" and "independent slideshow" are you trying to create? Have you looked at utilities like Galerie and BetterHTMLExport?

I know these and I currently use Galerie which is really great. But still. Why can't I make it directly from iPhoto. It has the functionality built in but they want me to purchase .Mac.

[Kevinsunde]

ohhh, an update that tells me when there's more updates...

I'm thrilled. :rolleyes: What's the 'minor issue' though?

AHA! Seems like I'm actually the first person to have a clue as to what they've fixed.....I ordered an album (in the “picture book” mode) last week, and noticed that when two vertically-framed pictures were aligned, there was a rather large gap between them. In version 4.0.2, the same pictures are now aligned side by side, without any space between them. That is the only noticeable difference I've registered.

I miss an option to resize and lay out the photographs on each page exactly as one wished – just like in a Word document, or Keynote presentation. I would also like support for any font I wanted for text. By the way, I made the big mistake of using the ridiculous “magic wand”-thingy to “improve” my photos, and the pictures came back - beautifully bound - with horrible JPEG-artifacts. The moral: only use Photoshop for retouching JPEG files, otherwise it’ll only end in tears. Making a DVD from your slideshow will also sorely try your CPU. I have a Powerbook 17”, 1 Ghz, 1 G RAM, and the machine very nearly had a stroke.

[killmoms]

Since I paid for iPhoto, on the not unreasonable assumption that photos would be displayed withou blurring them, I think I and other pople who have this problem are not out of line making our complaints known. While Photoshop is for "serious" work, there is no reason a "fun" application should provide inferior images.

In reading over the posts here, and having re-read some posts on the Apple and Macintouch web sites, I think it's possible that blurred images don't show up on every computer. But it certainly shows up on enough computers to demonstrate it's a real problem for many people.

Certainly the blurred photos do not, when sharpened by clicking on the contrast or brightness tabs, exhibit jaggies. Instead, the pictures snap into crisp focus. If these same pictures can snap into proper focus with Photoshop or GraphicConverter, they should be equally sharp in iPhoto, without having to click on tabs or use other workarounds. Photos should be sharp in the slide show mode (which CS doesn't have). At the very least there should be an option for turning the blurring "feature" on or off.
The images are not blurred—they are bilinearly interpolated to make up for the fact that you're not viewing the pixels at a 1:1 ratio with the zoom (i.e. non-standard zoom on an image). It's a kind of filtering to make the images look better when you've zoomed to something weird like 142%, and it's just a display issue. I think it makes them look fantastic. Without it, images get jagged edges, whether you see them or not. I certainly do. They're not immediately visible, but look at the edge of two clearly defined objects, like a box, or a piano against a wall, anything with a good straight edge. By interpolating at non-standard zooms you get a nice sub-pixel blending that creates the illusion of a constant line better than without it. This is even more apparent in motion—if the slideshow images were shown without interpolation as they zoomed and panned, they'd look HORRIBLE. The same technique is used on the Apple screensavers. Obviously you're simply not used to this.

--Cless

[Anders Agerskov]

I have heard a lot of complaints about iPhoto's slowness, but find it quite useful. I have about 10,200 pictures or 223GB, and find the launch and exit times quite reasonable. Also scrolling through the album is quite speedy. However, sometimes iPhoto hangs or goes slow. Yes, some browsers are faster, but the app is certainly faster than it was a year or so ago and is still quite usable imho.

What are the downsides? I miss more features than performance.

* I still need to store RAW files separately and convert them before import into iPhoto. This is time consuming, prone to error and requires extra back up space and a procedure to go along with it.
* Web sharing is mediocre. You are limited to 60? photos, which is no good if you want to show all of the photos from the family wedding. myPhoto or the defunct accessaphoto delivers/promissed to synchronize between iPhoto and the web. This would certainly have made things easier.
* File structure. I see this as a risk issue. Risk of not being able to recover data easily and risk of spending much time when transferring to another file management system should you later chose to do so. We need a transparent filing system (one datebase with photos in logical folders).

[ccuilla]

But it doesn't work cross platform from a fileserver. My wife and I share our pics on a fileserver so we both can view/edit them on our respective machines while taking advantage of the redundant drive array of the server for piece of mind (backing up to optical, mind you). She has a Sony laptop, I have my Power Book. What I've been looking for is a way to have an imaging app browse/cache the thumbnails while they sit on the server filesystem, without having to resort to the Finder... iPhoto can't do that, so I'm left with opening PSE and using their browser, which is too much overhead when I want to just sift through the year's pics...

I guess I'll be looking at some of the other alternatives mentioned in this thread... ;)

As soon as you said Sony laptop, it occurred to me that perhaps iPhoto is not the correct solution for your situation. This shouldn't be iPhoto's "fault"...iPhoto has been designed for a certain category of users...namely Mac users...with capabilities to share with other Mac users (through iPhoto rendevous sharing). So given your scenario, iPhoto seems like a mis-match.

[pcharles]

I stoppded using it because of all this smart folders all over my mac.
I upload pictures every day and I edit in photoshop its just a mess finding the photos in those folders.

Besides I don't like the fact of the thumnails taking up even more space what for? I use my Nikon Viewer that came with my D70.
You guys tell me if this update is worth anything.
:rolleyes:

What language are you using? Could you try English?

[jxyama]

>If a user is concerned about "blurring" or resizing... they should not be using iPhoto.

I work as a graphic designer and photographer; for serious work images, I never even think of iPhoto: Photoshop CS is THE way to go.<

Since I paid for iPhoto, on the not unreasonable assumption that photos would be displayed withou blurring them, I think I and other pople who have this problem are not out of line making our complaints known. While Photoshop is for "serious" work, there is no reason a "fun" application should provide inferior images.

In reading over the posts here, and having re-read some posts on the Apple and Macintouch web sites, I think it's possible that blurred images don't show up on every computer. But it certainly shows up on enough computers to demonstrate it's a real problem for many people.

Certainly the blurred photos do not, when sharpened by clicking on the contrast or brightness tabs, exhibit jaggies. Instead, the pictures snap into crisp focus. If these same pictures can snap into proper focus with Photoshop or GraphicConverter, they should be equally sharp in iPhoto, without having to click on tabs or use other workarounds. Photos should be sharp in the slide show mode (which CS doesn't have). At the very least there should be an option for turning the blurring "feature" on or off.

yeah, i agree with you 100%. aliasing (technical term for "blurring") is nice for some, but doesn't do it for me. for a while, i had thought something happened to my camera because all of my pictures suddenly looked like they were out of focus when i went from iPhoto 2 to iPhoto 4. softening and aliasing pictures to make them look good is one thing, blurring it to the point it almost looks out of focus is quite another! at the VERY LEAST, give me an option to turn it off...

[FoxyKaye]

Wow - folks really seem to be bringing the hate on for iPhoto... I bought iLife '04 on sale from OWC at one point, and I have to confess I really like iPhoto. Sure, it's not as powerful as PhotoShop or other image manipulation programs, but I don't think that's what it is supposed to be.

Maybe because I'm in its target demographic: everyday users who have a collection of digital photos (I don't own a digital camera, but I get my film developed to CD-ROMs). I don't expect it to do great things, only cool things that let me look at photos, images, and other graphics in a somewhat organized fashion. In short: I think it's cute, and maybe that's what I'm supposed to think. Incidentally, my iPhoto library just crossed 1Gig in size.

Also, I did notice at one point that after I installed iPhoto (or any of the iLife applications, for that matter), my permissions got really screwed up. Perhaps this might account for the problems some folks are having with crashes and slow open/close times? I just installed the update yesterday, and before even trying to run the program I repaired permissions and rebooted. It actually opens faster than previously (which on my system is a miracle), and takes about 5-10 seconds to close completely during which I see the "spinning rainbow pizza of death" on screen. I did also notice that its utilization of my processor time seemed to increase (thanks MenuMeters!) but that's the only change I can ascertain.

[jxyama]

Wow - folks really seem to be bringing the hate on for iPhoto... I bought iLife '04 on sale from OWC at one point, and I have to confess I really like iPhoto. Sure, it's not as powerful as PhotoShop or other image manipulation programs, but I don't think that's what it is supposed to be.

don't get me wrong. i like iPhoto 4. i think it's fantastic. i use it every day and i wouldn't know what to do with my pictures if i didn't have iPhoto. and i certainly don't expect it to be a photo manipulation software. cropping, automated enhancement (which works great most of the time) and red eye reduction is good enough for me. i just want it to be the virtual photo album - which i believe is the point of iPhoto anyway.

that said, there are things that do bother me, mostly aliasing. that and it would really widen the user base if the file system changed to something more understandable. iPhoto Album -> import date/name -> thumbs/pics/originals. how hard would it be to change to that instead of the current version iPhoto Album -> month -> date -> messy stuff...? some of us do like to know where things are at the finder level. apple should maintain the transparency of the file organization instead of teling users to "let the files be, it's not for you to mess with."

[QCassidy352]

have you got something in mind, or would you like us to just randomly make stuff up?

haha, post of the week!

New update doesn't seem to do much for me one way or the other... what I want from iphoto is a hierarchy, like sub-folders within larger folders. Would that really be so hard?

[jhomayne]

The only thing I would like to see is nested folders, my collection is well organised in my opinion and so I have loads of albums all at the same level, which for organisational purposes I have had to call "Vacations-2002-Florida-Week1" and "Vacations-2002-Florida-Week2" and "Sports Events-2003-French GP-Qualifying" for example. Nested folders would save me lots of scrolling, but at least I can drag and drop to order the list of albums.)
that's what i crave the most from iphoto

[mainstreetmark]

Why is the anti-aliasing such a bad thing around here? Honestly - which one of these looks better? (and "Preview" does the same smoothy thing that iPhoto does)

(perhaps this should be one of the "daily" macpolls questions)

Ok, well, I can't attach these pics - they're too big. So, i stuck them on a webpage:

http://the-alley.net/mark/iphoto.php

[kb@MacRumors]

As long as we're all talking about iPhoto, I have an unusual issue with it. I've backed up my photos a few times and changed iBooks once. When I went to put my backups on the new iBook, I duplicated (sometimes tripled) the photos. Is there any way (other than by hand, I have almost 3000 photos) to delete the copies? The weird thing is, the duplicates have the same name! Why would iPhoto allow that anyway? Anyone know of a script that could manage this, or some application?

Concerning the update: iPhoto was slow to start and quit after the update. Repaired Permissions, logged out and back in again and all is peachy once again.

[jxyama]

Why is the anti-aliasing such a bad thing around here? Honestly - which one of these looks better? (and "Preview" does the same smoothy thing that iPhoto does)

(perhaps this should be one of the "daily" macpolls questions)

Ok, well, I can't attach these pics - they're too big. So, i stuck them on a webpage:

http://the-alley.net/mark/iphoto.php

it really depends, i think. probably may have something to do with the display size as well, but for me, aliased images look too fuzzy. instead of it being soft, as intended, they look blurred and out of focus. YMMV, indeed...

[jxyama]

As long as we're all talking about iPhoto, I have an unusual issue with it. I've backed up my photos a few times and changed iBooks once. When I went to put my backups on the new iBook, I duplicated (sometimes tripled) the photos. Is there any way (other than by hand, I have almost 3000 photos) to delete the copies? The weird thing is, the duplicates have the same name! Why would iPhoto allow that anyway? Anyone know of a script that could manage this, or some application?

Concerning the update: iPhoto was slow to start and quit after the update. Repaired Permissions, logged out and back in again and all is peachy once again.

you must have dragged the backed up folder directly into iPhoto? if you do that, iPhoto will grab all the pics in the folder - thumbs, modified pics and original pics. that's why it seems to have duplicates - all with the same name because they are supposed to be different versions of the same pic.

ironically, one "advantage" of iPhoto doing its own file organization is the fact it's simple to allow duplicate names - because pics aren't organized in "neat" fashion under Finder - duplicate names in iPhoto doesn't mean duplicate names at the folder level.

the way to back up is to move the folder as a whole to /user/Pictures then force iPhoto to use the copied folder as the library. i think there are two ways to do this: erase the iPhoto pref. (or some other file specifying the default library) and re-start iPhoto or use iPhoto Library Manager to specify the folder as an iPhoto folder. i recommend the latter. iPLM is an excellent app on its own - even with iPhoto 4, i split my picture libraries by year. keeps things very fast and organized. (i used to have to split each year into at least two, sometime up to four, libraries with iPhoto 2 to maintain decent speed. iPhoto 4 is a very good improvement...)

[brydeemer]

I like iPhoto, however it is missing the all-important feature of tagging photos. In Adobe Photoshop Album for the PC you can tag each photo with as many tags as you want thus making searching a very simple task. For example click the tag Dad and the viewing pane now shows only pictures with Dad in them. Then click the camping tag and now only pics of dad camping show in the pane. Now click the Maine tag and now only pics of dad camping in Maine show in the pane. This is an unbelievably awesome feature and allows you to find any photo is mere seconds. Either Adobe needs to port this app to the Mac, or iPhoto needs to add tags. I just can't live without it.

Bry

[tf23]

I like iPhoto, however it is missing the all-important feature of tagging photos. In Adobe Photoshop Album for the PC you can tag each photo with as many tags as you want thus making searching a very simple task. For example click the tag Dad and the viewing pane now shows only pictures with Dad in them. Then click the camping tag and now only pics of dad camping show in the pane. Now click the Maine tag and now only pics of dad camping in Maine show in the pane. This is an unbelievably awesome feature and allows you to find any photo is mere seconds. Either Adobe needs to port this app to the Mac, or iPhoto needs to add tags. I just can't live without it.

Bry

Couldn't you use keywords to do the same thing? Just create a smart albums for keyword(s) that you want or don't want.

[kb@MacRumors]

you must have dragged the backed up folder directly into iPhoto? if you do that, iPhoto will grab all the pics in the folder - thumbs, modified pics and original pics. that's why it seems to have duplicates - all with the same name because they are supposed to be different versions of the same pic.

ironically, one "advantage" of iPhoto doing its own file organization is the fact it's simple to allow duplicate names - because pics aren't organized in "neat" fashion under Finder - duplicate names in iPhoto doesn't mean duplicate names at the folder level.

the way to back up is to move the folder as a whole to /user/Pictures then force iPhoto to use the copied folder as the library. i think there are two ways to do this: erase the iPhoto pref. (or some other file specifying the default library) and re-start iPhoto or use iPhoto Library Manager to specify the folder as an iPhoto folder. i recommend the latter. iPLM is an excellent app on its own - even with iPhoto 4, i split my picture libraries by year. keeps things very fast and organized. (i used to have to split each year into at least two, sometime up to four, libraries with iPhoto 2 to maintain decent speed. iPhoto 4 is a very good improvement...)

Yep, what made things worse is my backups were on cds. Every now and then I'd make new backups, duplicating my backups. When it came time to reload, my discs weren't labeled right and I ended up dumping duplicates into iPhoto. I started with something like 6000 photos. I have about 500 more to delete. Let's just say I've learned my lesson. Thanks for the organization tips, jxyama.

[jxyama]

Yep, what made things worse is my backups were on cds. Every now and then I'd make new backups, duplicating my backups. When it came time to reload, my discs weren't labeled right and I ended up dumping duplicates into iPhoto. I started with something like 6000 photos. I have about 500 more to delete. Let's just say I've learned my lesson. Thanks for the organization tips, jxyama.

man, sorry to hear that... :(

i went through a bit of trouble when i consolidated 8 or so libraries into 3 when i upgraded from iPhoto 2 to 4, so i know how much of a pain it is... good luck.

[Snowy_River]

>i'm so sick of people complaining about how it supposedly "blurs" pictures in edit mode. for those who know nothing about megapixels and screen resolution - what iphoto is doing is zooming in or out on your photo so that it fits to screen.<

What iPhoto does is blur your photo and there's nothing "supposedly" about it. I work with megapixels and screen resolution for a living. In fact, iPhoto doesn't "fit" a photo to the screen except in slide show mode, where it's also a failure at creating a sharp image. No matter what size a picture displays in initially, it quickly "pops" out of focus in iPhoto. When its in focus, I don't see jaggies, I just see a sharp picture.

>iphoto is really NOT blurring the photos in a permanent way, it only displays them that way in the program. drag them to your desktop, open them in another app at 50 or 100% and they'll look fine.<

No, it doesn't blur them permanantly, and clicking on a brightness/contrast tab will pop them into proper focus. But why should I have to do that to obtain a sharp picture? Btw, my kids are perfectly aware when photos are out of focus and more than happy to let me know that iPhoto sucks.

Why should I have to look at a photo at 100%? Not much of a 5 megapixel image would be visible and I don't image grandpa or the kids would be amused.

And why should iPhoto blur photos in its slide shows? Why does Preview blur pictures? None of my other programs that work with photographs have that problem, and iPhoto shouldn't, either.

:mad:

Strictly speaking, it's not 'blurring' your photos. As it's not able to display each and every pixel of your photo (got a mega-pixel monitor?), it has to make some choices. Editing programs like PhotoShop choose a given pixel to display in place of many. iPhoto, on the other hand, leverages anti-aliasing techniques to try to smooth transitions. The difference is appealing to most consumers. Why? Well, take the attached picture, for example. If you were to zoom in, you'd see a smooth line along the edge of her hand. However, in the zoomed out state, PhotoShop's method presents the appearance of 'jaggies' along the edge of her hand, whereas iPhoto presents the appearance of a smooth line. So, in that sense, iPhoto does a better job of showing you what's there.

Now, as a photographer, I know the difference between what iPhoto is showing me and what PhotoShop does. I happily use iPhoto to keep track of photos and put together slideshows, but I only use PhotoShop for the actual editing of the photos.

[belair]

What language are you using? Could you try English?

My english is not as good as it could be.
It is the fourth language I learned in school.
I am better in French, German or Luxemburgish.
After living 5 years in France my english did not improve either.

I have another question about iphoto tough.
After retouching images in photoshop they look really different in iphoto than in photoshop. I convert the images to CYMK and I retouch the levels so the whole image is levelled out. When I send those pictures to the publisher they come out well.
In iphoto they look overcontrasted and a little greenish. Anyone else experience this?

[Snowy_River]

I know these and I currently use Galerie which is really great. But still. Why can't I make it directly from iPhoto. It has the functionality built in but they want me to purchase .Mac.

You don't need a .mac account to use the web page export from iPhoto. I used to use it.

[Your_Dad]

But its not that good for work.

What I usually do, I upload my photos trough image capture, its really fast as well. Then I look at them in Nikon view and in edit in photoshop.And save the new ones in another folder with the same name only called edit.
The thing is when I edit I like to keep the original.
You never know when you touch up pictures you might want to return to the original in case you want to lower contrast. level ect. When you do that on an already retouched photo, its just gets worse.

If I want to find those pictures in iphoto trough the folder its really hard to find them. Guess I just like to know where my stuff is.

Does the 'revert to original' option not work when you edit with photoshop? I only use the built in iphoto editing functionality and I can revert to the original at any time without ever having to worry about keeping a copy.

[jxyama]

My english is not as good as it could be.
It is the fourth language I learned in school.
I am better in French, German or Luxemburgish.
After living 5 years in France my english did not improve either.

your english is fine... no need to be apologetic.

let's not forget that this forum is full of international members and respect/appreciate that fact - they provide different takes and new perspectives, coming from different cultures.

when we (americans) travel abroad, we are usually very well accomodated by knowing just english. let's extend the same courtesy to others. it's one thing to complain about excessive run-on sentences and awful spellings by clearly native english speakers who should know better. it's quite another to make foreign members feel uneasy because english is their third or fourth language.

btw, english is near native language for me. and here at MR, i don't bother with capitalizing much. i guess it's just a style carrying over from IMing. still readable, right? ;)

[JayBee]

Sheesh - I really hate the fact that I can't do really stretches and loops and drop the beats and put flanges and filters and echo and bounce effects on my music with iTunes! I have to fire up another editing app before I can do anything!

Man, get with the program Apple! What a PoS!

Now, that sounds pretty dumb, right? Why? Because iTunes (as we all know) is a MUSIC CATALOGUING AND PLAYING APP. It's not built to edit your songs, right? It's got some basic "editing" stuff like crossfade and the ability to alter volume and crop the tracks, but it's not going to make you Grooverider.

So, what's this got to do with iPhoto? It's the same thing - iPhoto is to images what iTunes is to music - it's for CATALOGUING AND VIEWING. Those who are railing on its dearth of image editing capabilities and turning the hate up on its rather dictatorial file handling are missing the point. iPhoto ISN'T FOR EDITING YOUR IMAGES - it's for ORGANISING THEM, and occassionally maybe doing a quick fix before you whack on a slideshow for your folks - just like iTunes.

Why do you think you can set it up to double click an image and open it in an external editor?

Blurring? Where? What do you think PhotoShop does when you open an image? Most people aren't going to want to zoom in to see Aunt Petunia's wart, but if they do then yes - instead of four pixels of brown, they'll see four fuzzy pixels of brown. These people are not proofers. They're not pros. If they are, they'll have Photoshop and should be using that.

Use the app for what it is, and it's a dream. Try to pretend it's something it's not, and it'll disappoint.

Sorry for the rant, but really - what do you expect for $10?

RTFM

-J

[iBook]

The update doesn't show up in the Apple software updater, on the Apple list of OS X software at Apple.com and the download link on the actual page for the update doesn't work. It generates an Apple page with an error message.

Anyone know?

[ijimk]

Kool i had no prob downloading new iphoto.

[machan]

The update doesn't show up in the Apple software updater, on the Apple list of OS X software at Apple.com and the download link on the actual page for the update doesn't work. It generates an Apple page with an error message.

Anyone know?


I just noticed that as well (8/3/04 at 8:35pm eastern). It's not in my Software Update (admittedly, I didn't check it until just now, so I don't know if it was there before or not...but it should have been as I'm up to date on everything). Maybe they yanked it.

[wPod]

thats weird, it doesnt show up in software update. . . . and the link on apple's web site goes to nothing . . . odd

. . . and i see im not the only one with this problem :-)

[aswitcher]

Maybe they yanked it.

Please let there be nothing dangerous in that update!

[rikers_mailbox]

thats weird, it doesnt show up in software update. . . . and the link on apple's web site goes to nothing . . . odd

. . . and i see im not the only one with this problem :-)

me too. It doesn't show up in my software update. . . and even the link on the Apple Support (http://www.apple.com/support/) website is broken. Looks like the update has been pulled!

[snahabed]

I can't be sure, but there may be a reason why they pulled it.

After installing the update on my Powermac G4, with an extra internal hard drive, my system got hosed.

The finder showed the extra internal hard drive as having 0 items, but listen "12GB" free.. indicating that my data was still on it.

I restarted, and got a "prohibitory sign". Zapped the PRAM per apple support page instructions, and it rebooted fine. At this point, the extra drive was not even listed in the finder.

Restarted again. Prohibitory sign. Zapping PRAM didn't work. Took 11 tries to get it to start from the Install Disc (got kernel panics half the time). Finally got it to start up from the Install Disc and do an archive/install (in the process right now). Reinstalled Disc 1, then was forced to restart. However, got the prohibitory sign AGAIN, so I could never get to Disc 2 to finish installation. I tried an Erase and Install, but had the exact same problem... could never get to Disc 2. So now I've erased the primary hard drive completely in Disk Utility and am trying to install it fresh.

I can't be sure it was the iPhoto update... but SOMETHING had to fiddle with system files, and it is certainly nothing I did, and the ONLY thing I have installed in the past few weeks was that iPhoto update today.

[ChrisH3677]

Not strictly true. Have you checked out Picasa (www.picasa.com). iPhoto isn't free (if like me you have an old Mac and upgraded your iLife suite). However, Picasa is - it has a good interface, it scans and gets all your photos (and doesn't re-organise your files in the process), it's performance is pretty good (better than iPhoto), offers some novel features (such as a timeline interface to your library). (it's also now owned by Google).

To be honest, if they did an OS X version, I'd probably use it in preference to iPhoto but I guess they saw no point.

I think the timeline feature would be a nice inclusion in the next version of iPhoto.

Wow! Yeah - I gotta agree, I'd never seen it before, but Picasa is one hot app. I will be installing it on all the computers at work. And yeah, I'd prob use it in preference to iPhoto if there was a Mac version.

[PlaceofDis]

now im scared of that update, but i guess since things have been running smoothly i should be in the clear

[BevvyB]

Stupid thing won't let me quit it now

Have to force quit everytime

It worked fine before

Wankers

[stephenli]

regret that i still cannot purchase photo book from Hong Kong :mad:

[Marlon_JBT]

You don't need a .mac account to use the web page export from iPhoto. I used to use it.

Thanks for letting me know about this feature! I really need to use it! Maybe I should play around in iPhoto more. :)

And belair, there's nothing wrong with your English. You speak it better than some people that I know.

[Windowlicker]

This isn't the first time apple pulls an update back ;P well, I downloaded it already and have had no problems so far.. I haven't been using it much though -- and I haven't ordered book(s), in which this update should especially affect.

[Windowlicker]

your english is fine... no need to be apologetic.

let's not forget that this forum is full of international members and respect/appreciate that fact - they provide different takes and new perspectives, coming from different cultures.

when we (americans) travel abroad, we are usually very well accomodated by knowing just english. let's extend the same courtesy to others. it's one thing to complain about excessive run-on sentences and awful spellings by clearly native english speakers who should know better. it's quite another to make foreign members feel uneasy because english is their third or fourth language.

btw, english is near native language for me. and here at MR, i don't bother with capitalizing much. i guess it's just a style carrying over from IMing. still readable, right? ;)

word.

[psingh01]

My digital camera takes small 30 sec movies (I'm sure most do). Can iPhoto handle this? I've tried using it but I don't think it stores movies :(

I rely on Adobe Photo Album or whatever it's called on the PC.

[Applespider]

iPhoto won't handle them but you can plug in the camera, open up ImageCapture in your Apps folder and it will put all your camera's movies into your Movies folder.

[aswitcher]

My digital camera takes small 30 sec movies (I'm sure most do). Can iPhoto handle this? I've tried using it but I don't think it stores movies :(

I rely on Adobe Photo Album or whatever it's called on the PC.

iMovie will handle it fine once you have bought it down using proprietry software ( Imagebrowser ) or IIRC image capture...

[Sabbath]

So apple have pulled the update, I think I ill avoid running iPhoto if I can until a fix comes out. Does anyone know more about why it has been pulled? all I have heard about is the very long time it takes to quit.

[CmdrLaForge]

You don't need a .mac account to use the web page export from iPhoto. I used to use it.

How ?

If I try it iPhoto says: failed connecting to .Mac !

So - how are you doing it ? Guess I missed something in the settings, but I don't think so.

Cheers

[AmigoMac]

How ?

If I try it iPhoto says: failed connecting to .Mac !

So - how are you doing it ? Guess I missed something in the settings, but I don't think so.

Cheers

From the File menu : Export or Command + shift + E

There is "File export" "Web Page" "Quicktime"


Boom, done! ;)

[Porchland]

I just noticed that as well (8/3/04 at 8:35pm eastern). It's not in my Software Update (admittedly, I didn't check it until just now, so I don't know if it was there before or not...but it should have been as I'm up to date on everything). Maybe they yanked it.

As someone from my (rural) hometown might say, Apple screwed the pooch on this one.

[bathysphere]

iMovie will handle it fine once you have bought it down using proprietry software ( Imagebrowser ) or IIRC image capture...
no iphoto can't do that, and it's a sorely missed feature. the only software that can handle image files and movie files that i know of is iview media.

[macridah]

luckily I followed my gut instinct, and didn't install that update. I wanted to read apple's support discussions first before I installed the update.

[~Shard~]

luckily I followed my gut instinct, and didn't install that update. I wanted to read apple's support discussions first before I installed the update.

Good for you, that's always a wise decision. As for me, I don't even have iPhoto 4 so it's a non-issue! ;)

[wPod]

well, i am relieved now, i thought i was doing something wrong and couldnt dl it cause my computer didnt like me!

is there really an apple application more riddled with problems than iPhoto?!

[~Shard~]

well, i am relieved now, i thought i was doing something wrong and couldnt dl it cause my computer didnt like me!

is there really an apple application more riddled with problems than iPhoto?!

I'm just waiting for iPhoto '05 myself...

[corywoolf]

I also had problems with my iMac when i installed the update. Maybe it's an odd coincidence, but for some reason no applications would start up when I tried to open them. Then when Mail wasn't launching I tried to force quit but it didn't work. Then I tryed to restart my iMac but it said it couldn't log out because of errors. So I ended up just doing the old power button hold. I'm shocked Apple released this without having any problems on their own macs. It sounds like it was a last minute update and they rushed it. I really hope my iMac doesn't freak out again.

[jxyama]

...

So, what's this got to do with iPhoto? It's the same thing - iPhoto is to images what iTunes is to music - it's for CATALOGUING AND VIEWING. Those who are railing on its dearth of image editing capabilities and turning the hate up on its rather dictatorial file handling are missing the point. iPhoto ISN'T FOR EDITING YOUR IMAGES - it's for ORGANISING THEM, and occassionally maybe doing a quick fix before you whack on a slideshow for your folks - just like iTunes.

...

Blurring? Where? What do you think PhotoShop does when you open an image? Most people aren't going to want to zoom in to see Aunt Petunia's wart, but if they do then yes - instead of four pixels of brown, they'll see four fuzzy pixels of brown. These people are not proofers. They're not pros. If they are, they'll have Photoshop and should be using that.

...

Sorry for the rant, but really - what do you expect for $10?

thanks for a long rant. :rolleyes:

iTunes organizes files in a very logical manner - user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/[artists]/[albums]. iPhoto clearly does not. there are differences between handling music files and picture files, but as far as cataloging is concerned, iPhoto does a rather poor job compared to iTunes at least in this regard.

blurring is real. you may not see it, but i do. and this wasn't a problem for me in iPhoto 2. it has nothing to do with me demanding pro-level visual presentation. i just want at least the option to go back to the way iPhoto 2 used to show the photos because iPhoto 4, for whatever reason, blurrs the images too much.

it being priced $10 has nothing to do with my expectations. i would like the file organization structure to be like iTunes - another $10 app, if you may say so - and have the option to turn off aliasing to go back to the way iPhoto 2 - a free app - showed the pics.

[azdude]

I got the update... it worked fine for me.

I even installed Keyword Assistant on top of it... no complaints.

BTW... Apple also (permanently?) pulled the eMac SuperDrive firmware update after less than a day being up, but nobody listened to me and posted it as an update. :D

[michaelrjohnson]

I havent' had any troubles, but I'll keep you posted.

(stupid me... updating when Apple reccomends it...)

[LimeiBook86]

I downloaded the update...o_o

<gulp>

Apple tell me what's wrong with it! My PowerBook's life is in danger!!

:eek:

[xtbfx]

I downloaded the update. No problems here. It quits like normal as well.

[ccuilla]

iTunes organizes files in a very logical manner - user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/[artists]/[albums]. iPhoto clearly does not. there are differences between handling music files and picture files, but as far as cataloging is concerned, iPhoto does a rather poor job compared to iTunes at least in this regard.

How do you suggest iPhoto organize photos? iTunes works with music which has some pretty standard meta-data (artist and album) which can be used to organize the music as you suggest. What do photographs have that are equivalent? I don't think photos do. iTunes isn't doing anything magical. The organizational structure makes perfect sense...but I don't see any equivalant structure for photographs. Perhapos by date...which is what it appears to do...but that is it.

Secondly, don't you realize that iPhoto IS your interface to the photo "database". For all practical purposes you should IGNORE the file system for the iPhoto Library. Use iPhoto...that is what it is designed for. It is designed to organize, sort, search, view, etc. photos. When you import photos into iPhoto you can give them titles, keywords, ratings, etc. iPhoto keeps things organized into "rolls" (the things you imported), "albums" (hand created collections of photos) and (in 4.0) "smart albums" (allowing a wide variety of "store searches" based on keywords, titles, dates, etc.)

[telecomm]

The installation of iPhoto 4.0.2 on my PB had to be forced to quit after its initial run after the update, and it broke three permissions that I fixed immediately after running.

After fixing permissions (I may have had a restart in there too) iPhoto still hangs when closing (5+ seconds). There are lots of complaints about this in the apple discussion forums.

This is one update you'll want to skip.
discussion link (http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@246.AhFkah3itru.4@.68980ff2)

[LimeiBook86]

...This is one update you'll want to skip.

Too late... :eek:

[Zaty]

It's probably wise not to use iPhoto 4.0.2 so long as we don't know what made Apple pull the update. As for the extreme quitting time, once you have iPhoto up and running for a few minutes, it quits as fast as ever. So I'm not sure if this was the reason for withdrawal.

[azdude]

Secondly, don't you realize that iPhoto IS your interface to the photo "database". For all practical purposes you should IGNORE the file system for the iPhoto Library. Use iPhoto...that is what it is designed for. It is designed to organize, sort, search, view, etc. photos. When you import photos into iPhoto you can give them titles, keywords, ratings, etc. iPhoto keeps things organized into "rolls" (the things you imported), "albums" (hand created collections of photos) and (in 4.0) "smart albums" (allowing a wide variety of "store searches" based on keywords, titles, dates, etc.)

...And to continue your simple but correct philosophy on interfacing with music/photos **USING** iTunes/iPhoto (and thank you for that... it's nauseating listening to people complain about file structure when it's designed to be transparent to them), here I go:

Need to edit photos in photoshop? Tell iPhoto to EDIT photos in photoshop. Double click on a photo in your iPhoto library. Photoshop opens. Edit. Save. iPhoto updates. Magic!

Need to transfer, eMail, or otherwise externally save a file? Don't bother looking for it in the file structure, just drag it to your desktop *FROM* iPhoto. A copy is made for whatever you need to do with it. This one applies to iTunes as well.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't need to see the file structure for photos/music... it was designed that way. I have never, in years of iTunes/iPhoto, looked or thought about looking for a file using the Finder. I'm honestly eager to hear, however, reasons why you all do.

[drewsaur]

The images are not blurred—they are bilinearly interpolated to make up for the fact that you're not viewing the pixels at a 1:1 ratio with the zoom (i.e. non-standard zoom on an image). It's a kind of filtering to make the images look better when you've zoomed to something weird like 142%, and it's just a display issue. I think it makes them look fantastic. Without it, images get jagged edges, whether you see them or not. I certainly do. They're not immediately visible, but look at the edge of two clearly defined objects, like a box, or a piano against a wall, anything with a good straight edge. By interpolating at non-standard zooms you get a nice sub-pixel blending that creates the illusion of a constant line better than without it. This is even more apparent in motion—if the slideshow images were shown without interpolation as they zoomed and panned, they'd look HORRIBLE. The same technique is used on the Apple screensavers. Obviously you're simply not used to this.

Cless,

Your attitude is not good. "Obviously, you're simply not used to this."

I am a professional designer/photographer and a seasoned Photoshop user. I use Photoshop for my real work, and iPhoto for the rest of my everyday snapshots.

Standard interpolation techniques (e.g., bilinear interpolation) are *not* causing this issue. Indeed, it's the Quartz graphics rendering engine's filtering mechanism (which works ON TOP of iPhoto's bilinear algorithm) that is doing this. I and others have been pinging Apple about this since 4.0.0, and people whith high resolution cameras (3MP and higher) using lower resolution screens (1024x768 and smaller) who take lots of *vertical* photos will notice this the most.

Given the set of circumstances above, the more that iPhoto (and Preview) have to down-interpolate your image (as is the case with vertical photos), the more you'll notice this effect.

It's a HORRIBLE blur - completely independent of bilinear interpolation - that wasn't present in version 3.x and earlier, and has no business in version 4.

If you want to see what your photos *could* look like (that is, merely bilinearly interpolated), your best bet is to use the zoom slider - zoom in a bit and zoom back out, keeping your mouse button pressed - and you'll see things the way they were in earlier versions of iPhoto: sharp and still smooth, the same way Photoshop would present them. Of course, things look pretty good in slideshow mode as well...but I don't like browsing photos using slideshow...I like iPhoto's built-in reviewing mode.

(If you use brightness/contrast as others have suggested, iPhoto considers this a modification, and you'll now wind up with *two* copies of the photo on your machine, unnecessarily).

Anyway, this isn't something that ought to be dismissed, and I wish your attitude towards people who experience this very *real* issue would take a turn for the better. You may think you know better, but you either a) don't really care about the issue or b) haven't really seen it first-hand at its worst. I can't tell which is reality, and I'm not going to tell you that it's one or the other, but it definitely is one or the other. If it's a), then you should just stop posting about all of this. If it's b) then I don't know what to tell you. It probably shouldn't be a concern for you then...but that doesn't mean that it's not a valid concern of others.

Thanks for listening.

Drew

[rauf]

I agree, the blur thing is quite real and a problem in iphoto 4 only since it's release. As you say, it's worse on high res images, the higher res the worse it is. Try importing a 24Mb image and you'll know exaclty what it's like.. There's a definite blur, which disappears on doing something else to the image.

And once again I'd like to add my voice to the thousands who unwisely downloaded the 4.02 update and now am stuck with iphoto on my laptop and desktop which is all but unuseable.

DO NOT INSTALL THIS UPDATE = IT WILL WRECK YOUR iPHOTO USEABILITY TO THE LEVEL OF YOUR AVERAGE UNDERPOWERED BUGGY WINDOWS INSTALLATION. Now that IS bad!

[jxyama]

drewsaur - thanks. exactly my point, except in much better details. i have a 3 MP camera and a 12" PB - 1024 x 768. the blurring is unacceptable. i thought for a long time after moving to iPhoto 4 that my camera was broken because most of my images looked out of focus. the frustrating thing is, i can see the "clear" picture (just bi-linearly interpolated, i assume) for a split sec. before iPhoto is done loading - then it bothers to blur the image as the last step in the displaying process. i just want the option to turn off this very last step. that's all.

for others telling me to just use iPhoto as the interface - I DO. but the fact
file structure is messy at the Finder level is not good. it's a bad philosophy.

"here, it's too complicated for you to handle under the hood (Finder level), so just trust us and use the interface we provide (iPhoto)."

there's a difference between making things "simple/intuitive" and "dumbing the user." it's never wise to design a program which depends on the user not exploring under the hood. is it stupid for the user to start messing around with the iPhoto file structure? perhaps. but it happens. so apple better realize that it happens and that anyone but the most basic computer user will be curious and will bother to look under the hood of iPhoto file organization and find it highly counterintuitive compared to the beautiful, simple interface of iPhoto.

if i had my choice of how to organize the iPhoto file structure, i'd do it like this:

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[Film Roll Name]/

and have three structures underneath:

/originals
/modified
/thumbs

as well as an xml file that specifies the albums pics are in, date of the pics, descriptions, etc., etc.

i realize it's more complicated for the picture files because there'll be many realizations of the picture, unlike music. but i feel that apple could be a bit more helpful in making file level organization a bit more intuitive. as it is now, i feel like it's designed for the convenience of the software programmer. that's not the way it should be - users should not be told to go look under the hood. it's our files and if an app is supposed to be well made, it should be well made for the users, not the programmers.

as an example on why i'd want to access some files via Finder: right now, if i want to give a copy of my mp3 to someone, i know where it is. i don't need to launch iTunes and export. i can just go and grab the file itself no problem. sadly, i cannot do the same with iPhoto. i need to launch iPhoto and export. plus there's some comfort, i think, to knowing exactly where the picture you are looking at is. i realize it's not an issue for some people. that's fine, but that's no basis to dismiss the "issue" for those that are affected.

[belair]

if i had my choice of how to organize the iPhoto file structure, i'd do it like this:

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[Film Roll Name]/

and have three structures underneath:

/originals
/modified
/thumbs

as well as an xml file that specifies the albums pics are in, date of the pics, descriptions, etc., etc.

That's exactly how it should be done.
I had trouble figuring out how they should do it, but this is definately the way to go.
Very simple and very clear if your looking for a photo trough the finder.
I would ad one folder called thumbs where all the viewing thumbs for iphoto would be put together. Not a separate folder inside the folder of the filmroll. You don't work with the thumbs anyway.

[nathanziarek]

I disagreed with the "it blurs my pictures" group, thinking they were just confused about anti-aliasing. But, not trying to dismiss them, I decided to take some screen shots, one, after the image had been anti-aliased and the other with the zoom held all the way out. Lo and behold, the blur folk were right, and I have become one of their gang.

http://www.ziarek.com/blur_compare.jpg

Take a look at my face, at the bars on the structure behind me. One is clear and smooth, the other is blurred.

Case Closed? (Probably Not :))

Nate

[PowerMacMan]

I downloaded the update. No problems here. It quits like normal as well.

Mine too... I downloaded the 'problem' and have no problems...

:D

[aclose72]

My english is not as good as it could be.
It is the fourth language I learned in school.
I am better in French, German or Luxemburgish.
After living 5 years in France my english did not improve either.


don't sweat it. your english is fine. most of us ignorant americans can barely handle the 'one' language we attempt to learn, let alone four. :)

[aclose72]

Sorry for the rant, but really - what do you expect for $10?


hee hee

'any ting you want'

i couldn't resist.
sorry

[jxyama]

i just thought of another "problem" with iPhoto file structure...

if you go through the iPhoto Library folder using Finder, you will note that many of the folders are empty. i assume this is because iPhoto itself does a very poor job of handling the file structure. for example, if you change the date the picture was taken in iPhoto, instead of moving the picture to a "proper" folder, it creates another folder with the date and leaves the other folder empty. this gives a very confusing, cluttered and unpolished feel for iPhoto upon quick inspection of the file structure.

this is not what i expect from apple... even if it's "$10." iTunes doesn't have this problem. i expect that apple will do things and do them well if they are worth doing to begin with.

[aclose72]

As far as I'm concerned, I don't need to see the file structure for photos/music... it was designed that way. I have never, in years of iTunes/iPhoto, looked or thought about looking for a file using the Finder. I'm honestly eager to hear, however, reasons why you all do.

i tend to agree with jxyama. i think the file structure should be more file-user-friendly.
i'm a mac newbie, recent switcher. i'm always digging in the file system to find things. i bet there's a lot of ppl that have migrated from other OS's to the mac that do the same thing. i love the mac (especially my new 15" PB) but i wish Apple used a little more structure in some of their filesystems. :)

[ifjake]

i'm assuming when they repost the update it'll wipe out the one i just installed, if there is something wrong with it

[rog]

Apparently it causes pancrease cancer. That's why they pulled it.

[jamesfowler2k]

thats not funny rog, my best friend was 20 and died of cancer last year, if you see what cancer does to someone maybe u will change u sense of humor!

[LimeiBook86]

Apparently it causes pancrease cancer. That's why they pulled it.

<awkward scilence> :rolleyes:

edit: well I was gonna post this directly after that post but, eh, it's ok :)

[jamesfowler2k]

i dont mean to ruin the mood sorry all just u know

[CubaTBird]

back to the thread, i downloaded the update when it came out.... i havn't noticed any problems with it... hmmm.... perhaps a feature bug is in place here that we shoulnd't know about? or perhaps they will make this update along with isync 1.5 as part of 10.3.5 update :rolleyes:

[~Shard~]

What a surprise, Apple removed the update - they must have been keeping their eye on this MacRumors thread... ;)

[djdarlek]

no iphoto can't do that, and it's a sorely missed feature. the only software that can handle image files and movie files that i know of is iview media.

With all this talk about video organisers, I have to mention my disappointment that there's no DIVx organiser program available for OSX.. you know? With DIVx being the film equivalent of an MP3, what's to stop Apple launching some DIVx organiser/player (iDIV lol) ala iTunes, leading to the iDIV Movie Store where people can purchase DIVx films legally, syncing with they're Video iPod (when it materialises) and offering a lossless format to those who have a LOT of bandwidth and time to spare. :)

Just a thought.

On a slightly more likely note, why not give iDive a spin?
http://www.aquafadas.com/download.html

[MikeLaRiviere]

It seems to me that once we get in the hundreds or thousands we need help organizing files. iTunes does a good job of that for MP3s. However, those who have thousands of DIVX files tend to go to jail.

Mike LaRiviere

[djdarlek]

thats not funny rog, my best friend was 20 and died of cancer last year, if you see what cancer does to someone maybe u will change u sense of humor!

I was 17 and diagnosed with testical cancer in my left bollock. I now have a rubber ball down next to my real one, so I understand how a comment like that would affect you.

However, I did chuckle at Rog's ill fated joke, and salute him for having the balls (no pun intended) to post what he thinks :)

Don't take everything so seriously and life will treat you fine.

[Doga]

Saw this post on the Apple Discussion Boards, which to my eye seems to be a plausible explanation of the slow-quit thing:

"When you launch iPhoto and quit without doing anything with the app, you will experience the slow quit time because the XML file gets updated on Quit. If you do anything, like create an Album, import etc., the XML file will be updated in a minute or so and then the quit time is quick."

Anyway, I wonder if we'll ever find out why Apple pulled the 4.0.2 update - because of the slow-quits, or something else wrong in the new version that nobody knows about?

[Bradley W]

_

[Doga]

Small mercies, huh?

[jxyama]

Come on, look on the bright side... at least when they release the new iPhoto fix for this one iPhoto will automatically tell you that an update is available...

is it just me or i find it highly ironic that the update that included automatic detection of an update was pulled? :D

[jamesfowler2k]

Yeh sorry just the dreaded C is always on my mind, Didnt mean to sound like a wnker :) Good luck steve i say :)

[Doga]

is it just me or i find it highly ironic that the update that included automatic detection of an update was pulled?


my... brain... hurts... :p

[Snowy_River]

Cless,

Your attitude is not good. "Obviously, you're simply not used to this."

I am a professional designer/photographer and a seasoned Photoshop user. I use Photoshop for my real work, and iPhoto for the rest of my everyday snapshots.

Standard interpolation techniques (e.g., bilinear interpolation) are *not* causing this issue. Indeed, it's the Quartz graphics rendering engine's filtering mechanism (which works ON TOP of iPhoto's bilinear algorithm) that is doing this. I and others have been pinging Apple about this since 4.0.0, and people whith high resolution cameras (3MP and higher) using lower resolution screens (1024x768 and smaller) who take lots of *vertical* photos will notice this the most.

Given the set of circumstances above, the more that iPhoto (and Preview) have to down-interpolate your image (as is the case with vertical photos), the more you'll notice this effect.

It's a HORRIBLE blur - completely independent of bilinear interpolation - that wasn't present in version 3.x and earlier, and has no business in version 4.

If you want to see what your photos *could* look like (that is, merely bilinearly interpolated), your best bet is to use the zoom slider - zoom in a bit and zoom back out, keeping your mouse button pressed - and you'll see things the way they were in earlier versions of iPhoto: sharp and still smooth, the same way Photoshop would present them. Of course, things look pretty good in slideshow mode as well...but I don't like browsing photos using slideshow...I like iPhoto's built-in reviewing mode.

(If you use brightness/contrast as others have suggested, iPhoto considers this a modification, and you'll now wind up with *two* copies of the photo on your machine, unnecessarily).

Anyway, this isn't something that ought to be dismissed, and I wish your attitude towards people who experience this very *real* issue would take a turn for the better. You may think you know better, but you either a) don't really care about the issue or b) haven't really seen it first-hand at its worst. I can't tell which is reality, and I'm not going to tell you that it's one or the other, but it definitely is one or the other. If it's a), then you should just stop posting about all of this. If it's b) then I don't know what to tell you. It probably shouldn't be a concern for you then...but that doesn't mean that it's not a valid concern of others.

Thanks for listening.

Drew

While it's not something to be dismissed, I have spoken with various people - such as my parents - who are more at the consumer level. As I pointed out in a previous post, without the anti-aliasing, you do see 'jaggies'. When I first loaded iPhoto '04 on my parents computer my mom noticed the effect immediately and commented on it. I pointed out that the effect was designed to give smooth transitions when zoomed out, while the actual image was unaffected. When she saw that the appearance of 'jaggies' was eliminated, but she could still see all the detail that was there, she was delighted. It may well be a wise choice for Apple to implement a preference item to allow the anti-aliasing to be turned off to make the application more desirable to higher end users, but, in my experience, this feature is part of the targeting that iPhoto has toward its target audience.

[Snowy_River]

i just thought of another "problem" with iPhoto file structure...

if you go through the iPhoto Library folder using Finder, you will note that many of the folders are empty. i assume this is because iPhoto itself does a very poor job of handling the file structure. for example, if you change the date the picture was taken in iPhoto, instead of moving the picture to a "proper" folder, it creates another folder with the date and leaves the other folder empty. this gives a very confusing, cluttered and unpolished feel for iPhoto upon quick inspection of the file structure.

this is not what i expect from apple... even if it's "$10." iTunes doesn't have this problem. i expect that apple will do things and do them well if they are worth doing to begin with.

Well, actually, iTunes does have this problem. I've noticed from time to time, as I've moved audio books on and off my computer, that there are empty folders in the iTunes music directory, left behind by the music that was moved out. Also, when I've changed the artist meta tag the same thing can happen.

Also, the iPhoto file structure isn't that terrible. Maybe it could be better. You suggested a good alternative with

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[Film Roll Name]/

But that doesn't change the fact that iPhoto does handle organization with, as someone else pointed out, the only real piece of meta data that it has: the date.

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[year]/[month]/[day]/

So, while I appreciate your desire to have it the way that seems best to you, I respectfully suggest that just because it isn't handled that way doesn't mean that the program is no good.

[Bradley W]

_

[manu chao]

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[Film Roll Name]/

and have three structures underneath:

/originals

/modified
/thumbs


If you can come up with enough meaningful names for film rolls, fine. I can't. At some point I will start with 'Strolling through the city 2004-08-04', and then it would be easier to find if filed by date.

No, creating folders by date is still the best option but agreed, one could add aliases as they exist for albums also for the rolls.

Of your suggested three bottom-level folders two already exist thumbs and originals/modified. Adding the third folder would not simplify the folder structure by much.

I agree, empty folders are unneccessary and confusing, but to me they are rather a bug than a feature of the file structure.

But most importantly, the purpose of iPhoto (and iTunes) is it to enable you to find your photos (or songs) much faster than you could do it in any classical file/folder structure. Wanting to send a song to a friend, click on the iTunes icon in the Dock, artist, album, drag the song onto the Mail icon in the Dock, dang there you are. The same for iPhoto. And yes, iTunes (and probably iPhoto) should be running all the time. And if you have at least 4GB RAM, you don't have wait for the harddrive to bring back everything from VM.

[SiliconAddict]

As someone from my (rural) hometown might say, Apple screwed the pooch on this one.

They have been doing a lot of screwing as of late. :(

Anyone care to rattle off the buggy software\patches that has been put out by Apple in the last 2 years. It doesn't inspire confidence in the company to say the least.

[SiliconAddict]

Apparently it causes pancrease cancer. That's why they pulled it.

Dude. Apologize. Not funny and that's coming from someone with a very warped sense of humor.

Seriously though not cool.

[spygrad2003]

I installed the update, and now my iPhoto icon in the dock is a white piece of paper with the applications symbol on the corner. iPhoto now won't open for me. I guess i'm screwed cause I can't find my installation cd :(

[drewsaur]

While it's not something to be dismissed, I have spoken with various people - such as my parents - who are more at the consumer level. As I pointed out in a previous post, without the anti-aliasing, you do see 'jaggies'. When I first loaded iPhoto '04 on my parents computer my mom noticed the effect immediately and commented on it. I pointed out that the effect was designed to give smooth transitions when zoomed out, while the actual image was unaffected. When she saw that the appearance of 'jaggies' was eliminated, but she could still see all the detail that was there, she was delighted. It may well be a wise choice for Apple to implement a preference item to allow the anti-aliasing to be turned off to make the application more desirable to higher end users, but, in my experience, this feature is part of the targeting that iPhoto has toward its target audience.

I would refer you back to Nathan Ziarek's post:

http://www.ziarek.com/blur_compare.jpg

Do you think your mother would find the quality of the right-hand side of this image problematic? (BTW, the blurriness gets worse than that for verticals)

Drew

[7on]

drewsaur - thanks. exactly my point, except in much better details. i have a 3 MP camera and a 12" PB - 1024 x 768. the blurring is unacceptable. i thought for a long time after moving to iPhoto 4 that my camera was broken because most of my images looked out of focus. the frustrating thing is, i can see the "clear" picture (just bi-linearly interpolated, i assume) for a split sec. before iPhoto is done loading - then it bothers to blur the image as the last step in the displaying process. i just want the option to turn off this very last step. that's all.

for others telling me to just use iPhoto as the interface - I DO. but the fact
file structure is messy at the Finder level is not good. it's a bad philosophy.

"here, it's too complicated for you to handle under the hood (Finder level), so just trust us and use the interface we provide (iPhoto)."

there's a difference between making things "simple/intuitive" and "dumbing the user." it's never wise to design a program which depends on the user not exploring under the hood. is it stupid for the user to start messing around with the iPhoto file structure? perhaps. but it happens. so apple better realize that it happens and that anyone but the most basic computer user will be curious and will bother to look under the hood of iPhoto file organization and find it highly counterintuitive compared to the beautiful, simple interface of iPhoto.

if i had my choice of how to organize the iPhoto file structure, i'd do it like this:

/user/Pictures/iPhoto Library/[Film Roll Name]/

and have three structures underneath:

/originals
/modified
/thumbs

as well as an xml file that specifies the albums pics are in, date of the pics, descriptions, etc., etc.

i realize it's more complicated for the picture files because there'll be many realizations of the picture, unlike music. but i feel that apple could be a bit more helpful in making file level organization a bit more intuitive. as it is now, i feel like it's designed for the convenience of the software programmer. that's not the way it should be - users should not be told to go look under the hood. it's our files and if an app is supposed to be well made, it should be well made for the users, not the programmers.

as an example on why i'd want to access some files via Finder: right now, if i want to give a copy of my mp3 to someone, i know where it is. i don't need to launch iTunes and export. i can just go and grab the file itself no problem. sadly, i cannot do the same with iPhoto. i need to launch iPhoto and export. plus there's some comfort, i think, to knowing exactly where the picture you are looking at is. i realize it's not an issue for some people. that's fine, but that's no basis to dismiss the "issue" for those that are affected.

Instead of clicking Export, just drag and drop to the desktop? Or to an iChat window

[~Shard~]

Apparently it causes pancrease cancer. That's why they pulled it.

Totally uncalled for and not humorous no matter what anyone's sense of humor might be. Show some respect for Steve and his condition, and more importantly show some maturity. :mad:

[~Shard~]

I installed the update, and now my iPhoto icon in the dock is a white piece of paper with the applications symbol on the corner. iPhoto now won't open for me. I guess i'm screwed cause I can't find my installation cd :(

That's too bad buddy. But how did you installed the update, as it has since been pulled? Or was this a while ago and you are only posting it now?

[NeoMayhem]

With all this talk about video organisers, I have to mention my disappointment that there's no DIVx organiser program available for OSX.. you know? With DIVx being the film equivalent of an MP3, what's to stop Apple launching some DIVx organiser/player (iDIV lol) ala iTunes, leading to the iDIV Movie Store where people can purchase DIVx films legally, syncing with they're Video iPod (when it materialises) and offering a lossless format to those who have a LOT of bandwidth and time to spare. :)

Just a thought.

On a slightly more likely note, why not give iDive a spin?
http://www.aquafadas.com/download.html

It will be a LONG time before you can download any lossless quality movies. They would be hundreds of gigabytes. But I can see being able to download Hi-Def movies in a few years. There are already a few available online and are in the ~10gb range.

[jxyama]

If you can come up with enough meaningful names for film rolls, fine. I can't.

rolls are automatically named, like film roll #XX, when you import and can be renamed. personally, i find that much more useful than seeing folders organized by date. but again, it's mostly personal taste and i agree that what i like may not be what others like. (empty folders, however, undoubtedly do nothing but make things messy.)

regardless, i do realize the proper way to use iPhoto is through iPhoto, not through Finder. and i don't have a problem using it, at all. (i know all about export options, etc. btw.) i guess i'm more concerned about the design philosophy, that's all. it's a bit disturbing to see all the empty folders not to mention very visually and navigationally unfriendly way of organizing the photos. i just feel like such a simplisitic, well functioning app should have that philosophy extended to all aspect of the app, including under the hood file organization.

anyway, i don't have experience with audio books, but do you get empty folders when you move music files while iTunes is open? if iTunes is closed, i don't expect iTunes to keep track while not running, but...

[Tulse]

i just feel like such a simplisitic, well functioning app should have that philosophy extended to all aspect of the app, including under the hood file organization.

Often things are made simpler to the user by making them more complex under the hood.

[illumin8]

With all this talk about video organisers, I have to mention my disappointment that there's no DIVx organiser program available for OSX.. you know? With DIVx being the film equivalent of an MP3, what's to stop Apple launching some DIVx organiser/player (iDIV lol) ala iTunes, leading to the iDIV Movie Store where people can purchase DIVx films legally, syncing with they're Video iPod (when it materialises) and offering a lossless format to those who have a LOT of bandwidth and time to spare. :)

If you want to see some great speculation on this exact same topic, read this blog post (http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000313.html). This guy is very insightful about what Apple's future strategies regarding iMovies or iDiv or whatever. Hint: The H.264 codec announced at WWDC gives them the capability to open the iTMS equivelant of a Blockbuster Video online.

[SiliconAddict]

Totally uncalled for and not humorous no matter what anyone's sense of humor might be. Show some respect for Steve and his condition, and more importantly show some maturity. :mad:

More accurately show some respect for those who are in a position where not only may they die but die in a gruesome manner. Just because its Steve doesn't make him any more special then the next person going through such an ordeal but I'm sure that wasn't your meaning anyways.

[Snowy_River]

I would refer you back to Nathan Ziarek's post:

http://www.ziarek.com/blur_compare.jpg

Do you think your mother would find the quality of the right-hand side of this image problematic? (BTW, the blurriness gets worse than that for verticals)

Drew

Well, as we're referring to previous posts, apparently you didn't refer to my previous post, where I attached this picture:

http://www.ghwphoto.com/Picture-1.jpg

As you can see, the PhotoShop image displays 'jaggies' (as previous versions of iPhoto did), which many users I've known have interpreted as displaying the image as pixelated, and therefore of low quality. This is, of course, a misconception, as is the idea that the apparent blurring is an indication of a lower quality image. They are two different display philosophies that are aimed at two different audiences. For the consumer, they understand that as you hold a photo farther and farther from your face it seems to get 'fuzzier' with distance, and this is what the anti-aliasing in iPhoto aims to reproduce. With professionals or 'pro-sumers', they understand pixels are pixels and want to see those sharp pixel lines.

To answer your question, I think my mom would notice the difference and prefer the non-anti-aliased image, in that case. However, the majority of cases she prefers the anti-aliased images.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the above image is a 6.3 mega-pixel image in vertical orientation.

[Ajmbc]

More accurately show some respect for those who are in a position where not only may they die but die in a gruesome manner. Just because its Steve doesn't make him any more special then the next person going through such an ordeal but I'm sure that wasn't your meaning anyways.

Exactly- In my opinion, people should be just as compassionate for everyone in a bad position health-wise as they are for Steve-- even if that person happens to be Bill Gates (for the mac-zealots out there).

-aj

[drewsaur]

Well, as we're referring to previous posts, apparently you didn't refer to my previous post, where I attached this picture:

http://www.ghwphoto.com/Picture-1.jpg

As you can see, the PhotoShop image displays 'jaggies' (as previous versions of iPhoto did), which many users I've known have interpreted as displaying the image as pixelated, and therefore of low quality. This is, of course, a misconception, as is the idea that the apparent blurring is an indication of a lower quality image. They are two different display philosophies that are aimed at two different audiences. For the consumer, they understand that as you hold a photo farther and farther from your face it seems to get 'fuzzier' with distance, and this is what the anti-aliasing in iPhoto aims to reproduce. With professionals or 'pro-sumers', they understand pixels are pixels and want to see those sharp pixel lines.

To answer your question, I think my mom would notice the difference and prefer the non-anti-aliased image, in that case. However, the majority of cases she prefers the anti-aliased images.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the above image is a 6.3 mega-pixel image in vertical orientation.

Snowy,

You're making an apples to oranges comparison. Photoshop, when using its normal zooming mode, doesn't use standard bilinear interpolation for display, mostly for performance reasons, but for some other esoteric reasons as well. OTOH, iPhoto does use something closer to bilinear interpolation for its basic scaled display and can make photos look good at almost any reduced scale (however, it's duly noted that you really can never view a high res photo at full resolution in iPhoto's view and edit modes, because display is performed using a less-than-full-res "comp" - also for performance reasons.)

Again, take hold of that zooming slider in iPhoto for all basic viewing and hold the mouse button down...you'll see how nice iPhoto looks, at *all* levels of "reduction," before the Quartz filtering "snaps" into place. Do another comparison between these two methods with the above photo and ask your mother what she prefers. Don't compare iPhoto's fuzz with a simplistic Photoshop "nearest neighbor" display interpolation - it just isn't a relevant comparison.

What it comes down to is that people are throwing out photos they think are unclear - I know two people who were unaware of what was going on with their photos until I showed them. THAT makes it a real problem, *especially* for neophytes.

Drew

[aswitcher]

Snowy,



What it comes down to is that people are throwing out photos they think are unclear - I know two people who were unaware of what was going on with their photos until I showed them. THAT makes it a real problem, *especially* for neophytes.

Drew

Apple could offer a toggle option to display in multiple ways, couldn't they?

[spygrad2003]

That's too bad buddy. But how did you installed the update, as it has since been pulled? Or was this a while ago and you are only posting it now?

I installed a like a day before it was pulled

[~Shard~]

More accurately show some respect for those who are in a position where not only may they die but die in a gruesome manner. Just because its Steve doesn't make him any more special then the next person going through such an ordeal but I'm sure that wasn't your meaning anyways.

You are right Silicon Addict, I agree with you, and this was indeed the overall intent of my post - I was by no means just trying to apply this to Steve and only Steve, as he is no different than any other human being. I was just referencing him due to the current circumstances.

[a17inchFuture]

how long until the new one'll be out you think?

I have downloaded the update, but didnt open the app before reading that it'd been removed, etc.

Now, I am afraid to open the application until the newer patch or whatever is released!

[myapplseedshurt]

as we all know (and in my personal experience), apple is always a little "premature". but I think there's drugs for that now.

[~Shard~]

Oh, and as for your sig, Silicon Addict, I'm sorry to see that you'll be buying an IBM laptop - ah well, you gotta do what you gotta do... If you do indeed have your heart set on a G5 PowerBook, I'm afraid you'll be waiting another year... :(

[joeboy_45101]

I haven't experienced any problems from the update. Maybe it was causing the PowerMac G5's to explode or something. But iPhoto 4.0.2 seems to be running just fine.

[LimeiBook86]

I bet Steve was sitting in the hospital bed and downloaded the update... saw that it took forever to close the program and told them to fix it. :cool:

Honestly that would make perfect sense. :D

[macmumma]

:D
Some of you need to get a sense of humour. The comment about Steves condition caused by the iPhoto update made my sides split with laughter. My good mate died of pancreatic cancer a few months ago, and If anyone would be touchy about this comment, I would be. But, I am not. Very whitty! HAHA HAH HAHA :D

[Colonel Panik]

With all this talk about video organisers, I have to mention my disappointment that there's no DIVx organiser program available for OSX.. you know? With DIVx being the film equivalent of an MP3, what's to stop Apple launching some DIVx organiser/player (iDIV lol) ala iTunes, leading to the iDIV Movie Store where people can purchase DIVx films legally, syncing with they're Video iPod (when it materialises) and offering a lossless format to those who have a LOT of bandwidth and time to spare. :)

Just a thought.

On a slightly more likely note, why not give iDive a spin?
http://www.aquafadas.com/download.html

For video clip organising, try iVideo from www.waterfallsw.com (http://www.waterfallsw.com)

[Colonel Panik]

My english is not as good as it could be.
It is the fourth language I learned in school.
I am better in French, German or Luxemburgish.
After living 5 years in France my english did not improve either.

I have another question about iphoto tough.
After retouching images in photoshop they look really different in iphoto than in photoshop. I convert the images to CYMK and I retouch the levels so the whole image is levelled out. When I send those pictures to the publisher they come out well.
In iphoto they look overcontrasted and a little greenish. Anyone else experience this?

I think this is a case of using the wrong app for the wrong job. iPhoto isn't going to display CYMK properly. It's a consumer app for organising your photos from your consumer-level digital camera.

You've really got to look for other software if you want colour correct reproduction. I can't offer solutions though. For pro work you need pro apps, and pro apps rarely come as free downloads.

I use iPhoto as my 'digital shoebox', but if I want to really look at a photo, then Photoshop is what I use.

[Colonel Panik]

How do you like the nikon D70? I was thinking of getting it

Go for it! Like it a lot. Still drooling and shooting stupid things like pens and walls...

[Colonel Panik]

rolls are automatically named, like film roll #XX, when you import and can be renamed. personally, i find that much more useful than seeing folders organized by date. but again, it's mostly personal taste and i agree that what i like may not be what others like. (empty folders, however, undoubtedly do nothing but make things messy.)

I think that most people will think of film rolls by date, hence I can understand their organising the Finder folder structure by date. It still gets complicated though when you dig down into those Finder folders. An explanation of exactly how the structure is organised would be nice.

I personally find that I'm not using iPhoto as my permanent archive, probably because of doubts about backing up the photos (again Folder structure).

anyway, i don't have experience with audio books, but do you get empty folders when you move music files while iTunes is open? if iTunes is closed, i don't expect iTunes to keep track while not running, but...

Personally I have the option switched off, but could this be because the 'Keep iTunes folder organised' box is checked?

[macmumma]

I think this is a case of using the wrong app for the wrong job. iPhoto isn't going to display CYMK properly. It's a consumer app for organising your photos from your consumer-level digital camera.

You've really got to look for other software if you want colour correct reproduction. I can't offer solutions though. For pro work you need pro apps, and pro apps rarely come as free downloads.

I use iPhoto as my 'digital shoebox', but if I want to really look at a photo, then Photoshop is what I use.

Sorry, but a comment like this really shows how void you are on the topic. Calibration of monitors, icc colour profiles, output profiles independant to devices are primary then and only then can you "emulate" colour reproduction. If your monitor is calibrated, you can see accurately the colours of your images, even in iPhoto. :eek:

[Skiniftz]

[Update] Apple has pulled the update, both from Software Update and from downloads. So far, no reason has been given.
No reason? OMG - that's like - SO unlike Apple. They usually are fantastic at keeping their customers informed and are superb at disseminating information about their products.

Oh no wait...

[dobbin]

I really don't understand how Apple can keep quiet when they do something like this. Surely they should put a note on the download page (or in software update somehow) apologising and saying that the matter will be resolved as quickly as possible. It could be reassuring - like "please don't worry if you have already installed this update, it will not harm your system and is safe to use." If thats not the case, then we REALLY should be told something!

Its like ordering food in a restaurant but when it comes it doesn't taste very nice. The chef realises his mistake and quickly takes the dish off the menu, but without saying anything to the customers who have already ordered it. They are left with a bad taste in their mouth.

Of course because we usually like this restaurant so much, we'll all go back in the future. But for people who are there on thier first vist, they may not be too impressed that they switched from their old restaurant. Mind you, even this broken iPhoto is probably better than they got in their last restaurant :D



PS. I wonder if Steve is reading these forums while he is recouperating and not able to go to work. Best wishes to you if you are, I'm glad to hear you're making a good recovery. They need you back when you're well enough though, they can't even manage a .0.2 update without you!

[Porchland]

Just for kicks, I checked on the timeline for the last few major updates of iPhoto.

* iPhoto 4 came out in January 2004 at Macworld Expo with the rest of the iLife updates.

* Best I can tell, there was no iPhoto 3. (Weirdly.)

* iPhoto 2 came out in January 2003 at Macworld Expo with iLife.

So if Apple stays on course, iPhoto 5 would drop in January '05 as part of an iLife refresh. So you're looking at 5 more months with this version, and maybe a x.1 update in the mean time.

iLife '05 would more than likely look like this:
* iTunes 5.0 -- possibly becoming iMedia -- driven by the new A.264/AVC codec in the (also new) Quicktime 7.0. I really see Macworld Expo '05 being all about Quicktime, and high-quality, downloadable video sounds like the killer app. Probably not a full buffet of content at the beginning; they'll do it the Apple way. A series of Apple-commissioned films a la bmwfilms.com (which I've read is doing another series) or a 13-episode run of an Apple-only TV series.

* iDVD 5 -- with support for 16:9 import and export. And probably some other A.264/AVC goodies.

* iMovie 5 -- with 16:9 support and A.264/AVC goodies.

* GarageBand 2 -- probably some kind of media pack that Apple will promote as having been used by some band in its last album. The band will come out and jam with Steve at the (slightly refreshed to add a 2.0 GHz G5) iMac.

* iPhoto 5 -- with under-the-hood improvements and more organizational options.

[Colonel Panik]

Sorry, but a comment like this really shows how void you are on the topic. Calibration of monitors, icc colour profiles, output profiles independant to devices are primary then and only then can you "emulate" colour reproduction. If your monitor is calibrated, you can see accurately the colours of your images, even in iPhoto. :eek:

Huh?
I was responding to belair, who complained about iPhoto not displaying his CYMK images properly. My response was trying to imply that iPhoto is not a tool aimed at professional photographers, or those who work in the printing industry, which I do.
How many iPhoto users do you know who have calibrated monitors or know about ICC profiles? And how many professional photographers or professional publishers do you know who use iPhoto for viewing their photos? I don't.
Does iPhoto even respect the ICC profile?

[iEric]

I keep getting Kernel Panics after I installed this stupid update. Thank god I have my Powerbook to back me up.

[Potus]

At any rate, it appeared last night on my Software Update.

[iMeowbot]

Does iPhoto even respect the ICC profile?
Yes, but in a bizarre way when it comes to on-screen display. It applies the profile, but assumes an ideal screen instead of using the colorsync profile. iPhoto allows you to convert the image to use your monitor's profile, and it will then display correctly, but that's just weird.

[Zaty]

* Best I can tell, there was no iPhoto 3. (Weirdly.)



You're right, there was no iPhoto 3. They skipped v. 3 because iTunes, iMovie and iDVD moved to v. 4. In order to make it consistent with the other iLife apps (except for GB, of course), iPhoto moved from v. 2 to v. 4.

[Porchland]

You're right, there was no iPhoto 3. They skipped v. 3 because iTunes, iMovie and iDVD moved to v. 4. In order to make it consistent with the other iLife apps (except for GB, of course), iPhoto moved from v. 2 to v. 4.

It's just marketing, seems like to me. I wouldn't be surprised to see several minor updates of GarageBand get full numerals over the next year so that when iLife '06 comes out, GarageBand 6 will be the current version. Silly, isn't it?

GarageBand 3 -- featuring new colors! GarageBand 4 -- now with pink!

God forbid Apple number like Microsoft and just call everything by year. GarageBand '04. GarageBand '05.

[Snowy_River]

Snowy,

You're making an apples to oranges comparison. Photoshop, when using its normal zooming mode, doesn't use standard bilinear interpolation for display, mostly for performance reasons, but for some other esoteric reasons as well. OTOH, iPhoto does use something closer to bilinear interpolation for its basic scaled display and can make photos look good at almost any reduced scale (however, it's duly noted that you really can never view a high res photo at full resolution in iPhoto's view and edit modes, because display is performed using a less-than-full-res "comp" - also for performance reasons.)

Again, take hold of that zooming slider in iPhoto for all basic viewing and hold the mouse button down...you'll see how nice iPhoto looks, at *all* levels of "reduction," before the Quartz filtering "snaps" into place. Do another comparison between these two methods with the above photo and ask your mother what she prefers. Don't compare iPhoto's fuzz with a simplistic Photoshop "nearest neighbor" display interpolation - it just isn't a relevant comparison.

What it comes down to is that people are throwing out photos they think are unclear - I know two people who were unaware of what was going on with their photos until I showed them. THAT makes it a real problem, *especially* for neophytes.

Drew

In point of fact, when I was showing things to my mom, PhotoShop never came into it. I showed her the difference between iPhoto 2 (on her iMac) and iPhoto 4 (on my PowerBook) before I installed iPhoto 4 on her iMac. Now, if there are people who are throwing out photos because of this, then there needs to at least be some communication about it. My mom, on the other hand, almost returned her 2.1 mega pixel digital camera when she first got it because she thought the images in iPhoto 2 looked terrible and thought that was the fault of the camera. I had to show her that zooming in or printing out showed the true appearance of the image.

Just out of curiosity, I put together this comparison:

http://www.ghwphoto.com/Picture-2.jpg

I do see the difference between PhotoShop and iPhoto, but that doesn't change my point. There is an element of design philosophy in here. As I said before, I can certainly understand the desire to have this as an option, and perhaps the anti-aliasing algorithm could use an update, but I don't see this as being such a make or break issue that so many people here seem to try to cast it as.

[SiliconAddict]

Oh, and as for your sig, Silicon Addict, I'm sorry to see that you'll be buying an IBM laptop - ah well, you gotta do what you gotta do... If you do indeed have your heart set on a G5 PowerBook, I'm afraid you'll be waiting another year... :(


Actually I just found out about 2 weeks ago if all goes well the company I'm being outsourced to will be providing me with an IBM laptop by the end of Sept and I can bide by time for a G5 PowerBook *sighs* next year. And If all goes well not only will I get a G5 PowerBook next year but Tiger and all kinds of good updates on iLife. *does his best Mr. Burns impersonation* Excelllllent.
I REALLY don't want another PC but my Tosh 850MHz laptop is getting pretty long in the tooth and the G4 doesn't fit my needs. Even playing iTunes on it along with a few other moderately intensive apps can cause skipping. :(
Anyways. Back to iPhoto.

[Macheath_Messer]

I REALLY don't want another PC but my Tosh 850MHz laptop is getting pretty long in the tooth and the G4 doesn't fit my needs. Even playing iTunes on it along with a few other moderately intensive apps can cause skipping. :(
Anyways. Back to iPhoto.

Couldn't the skipping also be related to a slow hard drive? Just wondering. :)

[gorkonapple]

How about that they shot themselves in the foot by making performance WORSE!

[soniquev8]

I like iPhoto. I really don't understand why a lot of people hate it so much. Aside from a few minor issues (like one library per user) which are easily solved with free third party applications (iPhoto Library Manager), I really like the features included with iPhoto.

One of my favorite features is the keyword system introduced with iPhoto 4. I can't get enough use out of that. I have keywords attached to almost every photo now describing who's in the photo, the location of the photo, and more. It makes for great smart libraries when I can just search for what I want; for instance a picture of my brother, mother, and I outdoors. I really wish Apple would include this keyword system in iTunes to replace the 'Genre' or 'Grouping' meta data.

[Macheath_Messer]

. . .but I haven't had any problems with the new iPhoto update. I know I'm in the minority with this, probably, but that's the way it is for me. I've attached a screen capture showing the size of my library. It's not as large as some folks', but iPhoto has been behaving itself for me, in spite of my applying this update.

It would be interesting indeed to hear why Apple pulled the update.

FWIW

Mackie

[Rick65000]

This would be a great addition to iPhoto. In iTunes you get to see the all the music in one pile just by clicking library which is conveniently the first playlist.

If only you could do this in iPhoto then it would be a great preview tool and like iTunes if they added the Ctrl-click menu option "Show Picture File" you would have convenient access to work the image with your favorite application.

But just looking at the buttons at the bottom of the iPhoto window its pretty clear that among its uses iPhoto is designed to generate up-sales in the form of Printed Photo orders and any modification that interferes with this function is not going to get in.

However, if they could make it more like iTunes, I don't see how that would interfere with the sale of printed photo orders. If you're into that. I pretty much don't print any photos and have started to move my shoe box of old photos onto CDs. Well there might be one or two photos I would print to display, but that's really only one or two.

[macdong]

i do the exactly same thing as you do, to keep an original and edited copy of each picture.
but you can do that in iPhoto easily as well.
make two albums, named them "original" and "edited".
make a copy of each picture, drag them into one of the album accordingly.
then you can do all the editing in the pictures in "edited" album.
no messing around in finder, that's the way i like it.
perhaps you can try it.

But its not that good for work.

What I usually do, I upload my photos trough image capture, its really fast as well. Then I look at them in Nikon view and in edit in photoshop.And save the new ones in another folder with the same name only called edit.
The thing is when I edit I like to keep the original.
You never know when you touch up pictures you might want to return to the original in case you want to lower contrast. level ect. When you do that on an already retouched photo, its just gets worse.

If I want to find those pictures in iphoto trough the folder its really hard to find them. Guess I just like to know where my stuff is.

[SiliconAddict]

Couldn't the skipping also be related to a slow hard drive? Just wondering. :)


7200 RPM 60GB drive and 384MB of RAM? Prob not. I've upgraded that thing as far as I can take it. Its just showing its age. *shrugs* If nothing else 1024 x 768 is starting to wear thin esp when I tweak picts in Photoshop. Nope its time for something new. My Tosh has been a reliable cinderblock (8.6lbs close to 9 with the power adapter.) of a laptop for the last 4 years. Its time for an upgrade. Which is why I've been jones'n for a G5 PowerBook. This lucky break with the company providing a laptop for me will keep me going til next year. Come on 17" G5!!

PS- For the people who have been suggesting other apps other then iPhoto thank all. I've been keeping a list of must have apps or possible replacement apps to pick up next year. Keep the tips coming guys. :)

[Porchland]

... isn't doing much for the reputation of computer forum users as a nerd herd.

[myapplseedshurt]

... isn't doing much for the reputation of computer forum users as a nerd herd.

LOL!!! :D I thought I was the only one who thought that.

[mrsoundman24]

iPhoto 4.0.3 is now available via software update.

[moep]

Yep, 4.0.3 is out.

I don't like iPhoto anyway. Hey, I think iPhoto is ok for occasional a 2-megapixel party shots, but if you are a more or less "serious" hobby photographist, it's just not enough. AFAIK, it doesn't even support RAW-Files.

It's iView Media Pro for me and my D-Rebel... much better in terms of organization, exif-features, speed and so on. The only thing I miss are the scalable thumbnails, but I can live without those.

[Doctor Q]

iPhoto 4.0.3 is now available via software update.News story (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/08/20040805164041.shtml)

mrsoundman24 was credited on the MacRumors front page.