Is it just me or does iPhoto just suck

Hmmm.... My iPhoto library is about 5Gb, but with around 3900 pictures, copied to the library. I have a 5mp camera and shoot jpegs.

kfergiez said:

I would normally be okay with copying the photos to the iPhoto library, but I like to keep track of where my photos are, and am not okay with them 'disappearing' into the indiscernible iPhoto library abyss.

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I'm sure I won't convert you but, can I ask why you "want to keep track of where my photos are"?

Your photos are in iPhoto, that's where they are. I have 30,000 pictures in my library. Not even sure how much disk space, 60GB maybe.

For my usage, 99% of what I need to do with photos is available directly in iPhoto. iPhoto is *the Finder* for photos. The only time I need to export a photo to the file system is for upload to Craigslist. When I need to do that I have a dedicated folder on Desktop. Then the pics get removed after upload to CL.

Everything else I do with photos--print, make slideshow, upload to Kodak, Facebook, Flickr, make books, cards, email, create iWeb site, etc. is available to me in iPhoto or other apps that use the photo picker object.

With Events, Tags, Faces, Folders, Smart Folders I have all the organization tools I need.

I just don't see why people still want to manually manage photo storage. Photos are data, they should be stored in a database that allows access and query in order to find what you want. That's iPhoto.

I can't get used to iPhoto either. I, like you, have tried it several times and I even upgraded to the new version for Photo Stream, but it still seems complicated. I want to move totally away from Window's, so I guess I have to get used to it. Perhaps with time I will grow to like it.

No, it's not just you. iPhoto has sucked since the beginning of time. But Aperture although a better manager imo costs $$ and still keeps your files in the 'abyss' Library. Adobe Bridge is my photo manager of choice, in harmony with the CS5 suite. Again, $$$.

Anything free is usually worth about what it costs..-

Your photos are not kept in one giant mass database they are actually all stored in seperate folders in seperate files under the Masters Folder in your library. With Photo Stream you have the option to automatically import or not, if you automatically import they photos are organized into events by date, and named as such, for example, take a photo today and if automatically imported you will have an event called October 15th Photo Stream and any photos from that date will be in there to do with what you please. Seems logical to me.

The issue is, if you do not automatically import, then any photo sitting in your photo stream will be deleted forever after 30 days or when it becomes the 1001 photo, so you need to be aware to copy and move them from Photo Stream to your library often. Big risk IMHO, so I enabled automatic import.

I've looked and do not see where the photo stream photos are being stored and the sizes, but I do not see a way around it if they are stored locally, then for 30 days, some of your photos will be duplicated on your Mac OR after you import your photos just reset your photo stream to clear them out...

kfergiez said:

My problem is that I want to organize my photos not based on the parameters that iPhoto has set up.

Additionally, if I want to post pictures online, I don't want to have to set up an export, then delete the file after uploading... I just want to locate the picture, upload it and be done. Oh, and I don't want my photos taking up all of my disk space.

Click to expand...

Then use finder. It's quite simple and easy.

theSeb said:

Then use finder. It's quite simple and easy.

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Another option, download a free Adobe PS or Elements trial; when it expires the editing software will no longer work but Bridge will still do fine, a great quick viewing/ management tool with large previews, that works hand in hand with Finder. You might even find yourself paying for the editing software.. it's nice.

It's not just you. iPhoto is the ONE Apple app that sucks garbage fumes for dinner.
It's amazing, since media is so vital to the whole Mac experience.

theSeb said:

Then use finder. It's quite simple and easy.

Click to expand...

+1

Personally, I think you're nuts for not wanting to use iPhoto-like features for finding your stuff, but if you'd really rather try to remember the year and month you went to Italy, rather than just click Italy on a map, well...

+1

Quite honestly, you sound like a former PC user that wants to do things the same way you did on your PC because that's what you know. I was the same way when I first made the switch, so if this is the case, I understand. I tried to PC-ize everything when I bought my first Mac. I even went straight to Entourage instead of giving the Mapple stuff a shot. Then I realized that I didn't switch to emulate the PC experience. I switched to find a better way to do things. I gave in and went 100% Apple. After a little discomfort, I was rewarded with a much better experience.

And, for the record, you don't need to export, upload and delete to post pictures online. When browsing for photos, scroll down in the left column a little bit further.

I'm a recent switcher, and I couldn't get on iPhoto either, for me mainly because it is so slow and flaky. Now using Picasa which is much better for my requirements.

This is what I did...

I'm a Mac user since 1994.

The use of certain apps varies according to specific needs or desires. This is what worked for me.

I wanted to have all of my photos (about 30 GB for 30,000 items) available on all of my devices and available from any browser in the world, without having to manually copy them, and for as long as I wish (which, for now, is forever).

I was lucky enough to buy the 80 GB plan from Google BEFORE Google Drive came out, so now I have 85 GB of storage space in Google Drive, for USD 20 a year (Google charges USD 4.99 a month for 100 GB now, and USD 2.49 a month for 25 GB).

I created a folder named "Camera" in my Google Drive folder, and inside that folder, folders with years + months, like "2012-08".

I use the Picasa software version for Mac to import my photos and videos in any of my Macs. It would be great to have the videos also uploaded to Google Drive, but the file sizes are too large and would fill up the 80 GB very fast. Therefore, I import first into a local Mac folder, then select the photos and copy them to the corresponding Google Drive folder (eg: 2012-08).

How do I know the photo's dates? Because, before moving them to the Google Drive folder, I rename them to the EXIF date, with a software named "A Better Finder Rename", to something like "2012-08-15_14-02-21.JPG". If you, like me, have various cameras (or your wife and kids have), and you want to distinguish between the ones you take and they take, you can also make the software add text at the end of the file, like "2012-08-15_14-02-21-iphone4s-charles.JPG". I don't even have to open the software to do this, because I previously make ad-hoc droplets that do this automatically (this has to be done 1 time within the software, and it creates an APP which you save to any location in your hard drive, or even the Google Drive folder so it's everywhere!).

I also use the Picasa software to upload my files to Picasaweb, for which I also have 80 GB. But I don't upload in full size, only 1600 px, as I already have the full sized images stored on the Google Drive, which can also be downloaded or shared from there, if you were to need the full size picture accessible from anywhere in the world with a browser. As a matter of fact, there are apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry to access your Picasaweb, so you actually can browse all of your photos from any device, as long as you are connected to the Internet.

And, I also use the Picasa software to manage all of my photos (make albums, prints, collages, email, etc.).

The only other software I use is XnViewMP to losslessly rotate some photos, because Picasa, iPhoto and others don't really rotate the actual photo, they change the "Orientation" EXIF data, which is readable by some OS and softwares, but not all. I do this AFTER I copied my photos to the Google Drive Folder, but you can do this before, too.

Regarding videos, I have an external 1 TB portable 2.5" HDD where I save them, as well as my photos, and I also have a 1 TB portable 2.5" HDD for backup of this, which I keep safely hidden somewhere inside my house, and I only use it to backup the other drive (never for anything else). It would be great to upload every video to Picasa, as it is free up to 15' each (enough for me), but it would just take ages to upload every one of them, so I'm not doing it.

Once a year I also save my photos to 8 GB Micro SD and keep those in a sealed Ziploc bag in a box with stationary (just in case I get mugged at my house and they steal all of the electronic stuff, and Google just so happens to lose my stuff or something).

Hope my case and experience helps.

bt22 said:

I can't get used to iPhoto either. I, like you, have tried it several times and I even upgraded to the new version for Photo Stream, but it still seems complicated. I want to move totally away from Window's, so I guess I have to get used to it. Perhaps with time I will grow to like it.

Click to expand...

I was the same until I really dived into one day and sort of persevered and now I find it quite nice. I agree though, the initial experience is not that good.

Also I personally think any image editing / storage program that Apple designed (iPhoto / Aperture) has been really buggy only until the last few months where their stability has improved immensely.

I now use Aperture and I was the exact same, I could not understand why people thought this was so good, it seemed illogical, buggy, badly laid out. And then one day I imported a massive batch of photos, started to find the organisational tools, started messing with enhancements and started to "get" how it works. Now I think it's great!

kfergiez said:

My problem is that I want to organize my photos not based on the parameters that iPhoto has set up.

Additionally, if I want to post pictures online, I don't want to have to set up an export, then delete the file after uploading... I just want to locate the picture, upload it and be done. Oh, and I don't want my photos taking up all of my disk space.

Click to expand...

Well, you cold always download Picasa. As far as I know know, it's free and allows you to set up the parameters for photo organization. You can also share easily with it.

But sharing in iPhoto is pretty easy too. All you have to do is select a photo and then click the "share" icon at the bottom of iPhoto and choose which account you want to send it to. Sure, it doesn't have every single site on there, but it's pretty good anyway. It's actually pretty simple and then you won't have to copy it to the desktop and then delete it afterwards.

And if you don't want photos taking up all of your disk space, get an external hard drive or use dropbox, or some other online free storage solution. Then un-select the box in iPhoto preferences that copies all photos to your library.

I prefer iPhoto to Aperture but one of the best things Apple did was allow those libraries to be shared both both applications.

On the Windows side, I really like Paint Shop Pro and how it managed my photo libraries on the file system how I liked it. What about using a Virtual Windows environment for your photos? Share the folder so your Mac applications have access to them.

I use Adobe Bridge. I was never a fan of iPhoto because of the way it managed things. I do occasionally use it when I want to sync photos with my iPhone. Adobe Bridge is a more powerful manager for my photos (plus works great with documents as well) plus works great with all my other Adobe products. But it is expensive. You pay for what you get. I would never discourage anyone from giving iPhoto a try as the comments on this post seem to go both ways. It is amazing what you can learn though with a little bit of searching on the net.

Manuals?

Hi there... I'm really new as well. I got recently the Mac and also just arrived from a long travel adventure and have thousands of pics.... so want to start using some good pic tool.... I still find it awkward but guess I need to get used to it.

Have to specific questions:

1. Does iPhoto duplicate the pics in the HD if I already had imported to Finder?

2. Is there any "Manual" available where I can follow step-by-step how to use it?

Thanks!

I have only 1200 pictures. They took about almost 9 Gb. Something is wrong here ?

The one time I tried to use iPhoto to make a simple slideshow out of images cropped from the net, I had fits because all the pictures couldn't scale properly and the slideshow turned out horrible, with only the centre half of my pictures showing and zooming out. The only upside is that photos I take is automatically sync'ed into iPhoto, but what's the use when I can't do anything meaningful on it?

In the end, I just copied the pictures over to powerpoint and it was done in minutes.

golf1410 said:

I have only 1200 pictures. They took about almost 9 Gb. Something is wrong here ?

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If 9 GB divided by 1200 = the approximate size in MB of each of your images, then nothing's wrong.

Here's an approximate calculation: 9,000,000,000 / 1200 = 7,500,000

7,500,000 is roughly 7.5 MB.

Check: 7.5 MB x 1200 = 9,000 MB = 9 GB

So if your images are around 7.5 MB each, you're fine.

No, it's not just you. It's a fashion nowadays to hate something Apple. Actually iPhoto is quite nice and quite powerful (for something you get for free) but there's always Finder for someone like you who's always freaked out about not seeing actual files.

iPhoto was great when invented, but nowadyas there are better solutions I think.

I prefer Picassa for my macintosh. On my iPad, iphoto serves me perfectly tough.

1. Does iPhoto duplicate the pics in the HD if I already had imported to Finder?

Click to expand...

When importing from Finder, you can choose to have the photos added to iPhoto's Library or not. See iPhoto Preferences>Advanced.

If you choose not to have them added and then subsequently delete the originals from Finder, iPhoto won't be able to display them. I'd add them to iPhoto and then delete them from Finder.

I like some of the features iPhoto offers, but some as just worthless. For example face recognition. I never ever use it. I only think it's funny to tag people.

The drawback for me is how much space it takes. When you have an 18 MP picture it's already big. Then, when you change something, it makes a copy. I like to "enhance" all my pictures. So that means my iPhoto library is twice the size it could be. All fine since I have 4 Terabyte, you would say. Well, it's not. I like to keep my pictures with me, wherever I go without taking all my hard drives with me. So 320 GB is not so much anymore. Especially since I've got other stuff filling up that space as well. So for me it takes too much space.

It also takes too much resources. It's slow. Now I have an SSD and it's still not that fast. I get the idea that with every iPhoto update you need a new mac to make sure it's as fast as it's supposed to be.

Lastly, I like to photoshop some of my pictures. But instead of being able to right click and to tell it to open in photoshop, I've either got to open photoshop and find the photo when I select import, or open photoshop and drag the photo to photoshop. Not so great when you want to make a panorama and you need 10 pictures to open in Photoshop at the same time(so I always open those straight from the SD Card instead of in iPhoto).

And then saving. Photoshop saves it in the original location. Which is in the library. Not an easy location. So when I accidentally forget to save it in a convenient place I takes me ages to find it back.