Newbie Mac user with a few questions

I don't know about iPhoto, as I don't use it.

snerkler said:

Thanks, will look at these links. I don't think quick look is quite what I was looking for. I'd like to open up one photo in a folder and then flick through the rest without having to open and close the preview.

Click to expand...

But if you use QuickLook, you can use the Arrow keys to browse the photos.
But if you want to use Preview, you have to select all the files in the folder and open them in Preview.

I may be in the minority, but I can't abide iPhoto. It's really slow with a big photo library (and I have 8gb RAM), and the way it creates a seperate library is really wasteful of disk space.

My suggestion: ditch it, delete the photo library it has created and install Picasa.

windowstomac said:

My suggestion: ditch it, delete the photo library it has created and install Picasa.

Click to expand...

What are your impressions of the mac version? I really liked the Windows version and have used it for years, but the version for Apple seems to leave me a little unsatisfied.

It's probably just me....

I don't really have a frame of reference as I didn't use it on Windows, but the Mac version does all I need it to - which is basically flicking through albums, importing, cropping, and exporting and watermarking for use on the Web.

snerkler said:

Is there a way I can open the preview up and then flick through each photo without having to open a preview for each?

Click to expand...

Select the files you want to see (CMD+A to select all) and double click

Select the files you want to see (CMD+A to select all) and double click

Click to expand...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was one thing I could easily do with Windows that I felt was lacking on the Mac.

You just have to be careful not to select video files too if there are some in the photo folder in question, otherwise HDD goes nuts and you end up with lots of Quicktime windows...

snerkler said:

I've got another query if I may. Some windows/apps don't have the maximise screen option (such as finder window). Whilst I can grab the edges to enlarge it this is not ideal. If there a way to add the maximise window option to all windows/apps?

Click to expand...

Do you mean the Full Screen option, as Finder has a maximise button, it is the green one on the top left?
Maybe try something like Window Tidy or Cinch?

snerkler said:

Firstly when I imported my photos from my hard drive to iPhoto it's organised them in some weird way and now my photos are all over the place, is there some way of importing the photos so that they are organised in the same way as they're stored on my hard drive?

Click to expand...

This is a common problem with many Windows users who come over to the Mac.

If you want to use iPhoto, and I recommend that you do, you have to divorce yourself from the physical storage of your pictures. iPhoto handles this for you. And simply put, there is no reason for you to care where or how your images are stored. (provided that you have proper backup procedures in place)

Forget about
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Jan\
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Feb\
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Mar\

I know that may be drastic thinking...

You are new to the Mac but hopefully you know what the Finder is...The Finder is sort of like Windows Explorer, it is your file manager on the Mac. It is a place you can view, find, organize files on your various disks.

The way I view it is this, iPhoto is the Finder for photos. IMO, for 99% of people in the world, iPhoto handles 95% of what they need to do with photos. Directly from iPhoto you can view, edit, organize into albums/events, create slideshows, share, print, and order online prints and books.

For me, the only thing iPhoto doesn't handle is when I need to upload to a site like Craigslist. When I need to do that, for 3-4 pics, I export the pics to my desktop and go forward. When done, I delete from my desktop.

iPhoto will move all your photos into a database, the iPhoto Library. It looks like one file on your system, but it is a Package. 99% of people will never need to look into that package. They simple use iPhoto as the front end to the database. And from iPhoto, they can do nearly everything that they need to do with their images.

Because you are moving in new you will need to spend some time to organize them into Events. This is a one time effort. Going forward, as you import from your camera the pics iPhoto will automatically create new Events, which are day-based. You can easily combine and split events.

iPhoto also allows organization of photos via Face detection, Geo tagging, manual folders and smart folders (like smart playlists in iTunes).

Using iPhoto gives you full integration with the Media Browser in other apps. For example I use iSale for ebay and it reads the iPhoto library directly for adding photos to auctions. No need to navigate the file system and look for "DSC10081.JPG".

I have 60,000 images in my iPhoto library. My son is 11 and daugher is 8. Every pic of them is in there. It is a joy to be able to see every pic in Events, or use Faces to see the kids grow over time. I've created probably 100 slideshows and DVDs of our photos over the years.

iPhoto has some quirks, some complain about the speed and the inefficiency of how it is storing the photos. I have 3TBs of storage connected to my iMac and honestly could care less about that. For me, the ease of use, and power more than make up for those quirks.

My final analogy is to the iPhone and it's Photos app. No iPhone user knows where those pictures are physically stored on their phone, and guess what? They don't care. It just works.

I second sigamy's suggestions regarding iPhoto. iPhoto is designed to be a complete workflow. Not everyone likes it admittedly, though I did when I used it (my needs evolved - and needed something that iPhoto does, but more so).

My suggestion is to set iPhoto up with a 'managed' library (vs 'referenced'). This way, iPhoto sucks all your images into it's library... and then hides if from you. This is a good thing, because it makes it harder for you to mangle the database. What most people (who are having problems with iPhoto) don't fully appreciate is that iPhoto is not an editing application, it is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) application - with editing capabilities. As a DAM application it keeps a complex database about each one of your photos, and what you've done to them. When you muck about with the photos outside of iPhoto you are mucking up the database.

The other thing to keep in mind is that iPhoto edits your images non-destructively. That is to say... iPhoto never actually changes the original image (it's never cropped, rotated, lightened, etc) - it merely keeps notes of what it did in the database. Remember the database? This is the database we are trying not to muck up. So...you can easily keep multiple copies of an image (one for email, one for the website, one for printing 8x10, and the original) without needing extra disk space. iPhoto merely keeps notes.

So, let iPhoto do its thing the way it was intended. If you import in a systematic way, you can duplicate your existing folder structure using Albums and Folders. Pop all of these into a single folder called "The Old Way". This lets you find the images in the way you are used to while you get iPhoto up and running.

Because the better way to organize our images is with Keywords, and Smart Albums. Instead of trying to remember what year and month you visited Montreal.... you simply search on Montreal. If you just want to see images of your Uncle Bernard in La Chine, you simply search on Bernard and La Chine - and you will find images from each of the 3 years you were there.

You can put an image into any number of albums... you are not actually copying it the image... merely letting the database know that you would like to see that image whenever you open that album. It takes a mind-shift to move from the "I want to physically put my hands on my photos" mentality to the "Let the database keep things sorted for me" way of thinking.

In this way, you would use iPhoto to browse your images - and not Finder. If you still insist on using Finder, then I would suggest not bothering with iPhoto... you will get frustrated with iPhoto because it will never work well.

You absolutely need to make sure you are getting good backups of the iPhoto database. Personally, I found the database robust - but it is the weak link. If you ever need to recover your images in a disaster scenario, the photos are still in the library and you can get at them.... they're just "hidden" from you in everyday use.

UPDATE: (after seeing Mal's post):

sigamy said:

...
For me, the only thing iPhoto doesn't handle is when I need to upload to a site like Craigslist. When I need to do that, for 3-4 pics, I export the pics to my desktop and go forward. When done, I delete from my desktop.
...

Click to expand...

I do something similar - except I have a folder called Temp Holding on the Desktop. I dump all of the documents, photos that need temporarily (like uploading into MacRumours) into this folder. That way I can keep them off the Desktop... it's messy enough as it is... and I can reuse them later. Every once in a while I will sort the Temp Holding folder by date and delete the old stuff. It's just a variation of what sigamy's method

sigamy said:

This is a common problem with many Windows users who come over to the Mac.

If you want to use iPhoto, and I recommend that you do, you have to divorce yourself from the physical storage of your pictures. iPhoto handles this for you. And simply put, there is no reason for you to care where or how your images are stored. (provided that you have proper backup procedures in place)

Forget about
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Jan\
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Feb\
C:\My Documents and Settings\My Pictures\2011\Mar\

I know that may be drastic thinking...

You are new to the Mac but hopefully you know what the Finder is...The Finder is sort of like Windows Explorer, it is your file manager on the Mac. It is a place you can view, find, organize files on your various disks.

The way I view it is this, iPhoto is the Finder for photos. IMO, for 99% of people in the world, iPhoto handles 95% of what they need to do with photos. Directly from iPhoto you can view, edit, organize into albums/events, create slideshows, share, print, and order online prints and books.

Click to expand...

This is great advice I wish more people understood. When you try to manage your photos manually, you deprive yourself of most of the benefits of iPhoto, and just make things harder. This is a great summary of how it's meant to work.

For me, the only thing iPhoto doesn't handle is when I need to upload to a site like Craigslist. When I need to do that, for 3-4 pics, I export the pics to my desktop and go forward. When done, I delete from my desktop.

Click to expand...

This part, btw, is unnecessary. When you click the button to choose a photo in Craigslist, scroll down in the sidebar on the left and you'll see Photos listed, which will allow you to directly access the contents of your iPhoto and/or Aperture libraries.

jW

snerkler said:

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify I don't order my photos/folders by date, I organise them as such things like Holidays and then within that they'll be folders such as "Sharm El Sheik" containing photos from (you guessed it) Sharm el Sheik etc etc.

Click to expand...

I think you'll love iPhoto's Events-based organization method.

snerkler said:

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify I don't order my photos/folders by date, I organise them as such things like Holidays and then within that they'll be folders such as "Sharm El Sheik" containing photos from (you guessed it) Sharm el Sheik etc etc.

I guess I need to spend some more time with it and learn it's structure and how to organise within iphoto.

Click to expand...

On it's own, iPhoto will organize your photos by date, more or less, using it's "Events". So finding by date is easy, with no work on your side.

As an example of how you use Smart Albums and Keywords.

You keyword a photo (or a set of photos) with 'Egypt', 'Sinai', and 'Sharm el Sheik' - and if you were there for a holiday or an event - 'Wedding', and 'Jane' (your friend who got married).

Now you set up some Smart Albums. At the basic level, you would set up a Smart Album to show you all images that have the keyword 'Egypt'. Another one for 'Sinai', etc. You could group all of these Smart Albums into a single folder called "Travel".

Some work at the beginning to get it set up. However, when it's done you can open the Smart Album 'Egypt' and see every photo that is tagged with 'Egypt', which will in this case also show the 'Sinai', 'Sharm el Sheik',etc., plus any other towns in the Sinai you tagged. Or you could just look at the 'Sharm el Sheik' Smart Album. You don't need to set up Smart Albums... you can just search on a keyword tag. So you don't need a Smart Album for each town, as long as you tagged the images with the town name you can find them. You can also set up a Smart Album to show you just pictures of your friend 'Jane in Egypt'. The thing about Smart Albums is that they update on the fly. So if you take more photos of Jane at St Catherine's Monastery, as long as you tag the images with 'Egypt' and 'Jane' they will automatically appear in your 'Jane in Egypt' Smart Album.

That is the real power of a DAM .... if you work out your keywords and Smart Albums photos can appear in several locations. You will never have to decide if you want this photo to go with all of the photos of Jane, or your photos of Egypt, or your photos of the wedding. It can appear in each place. And you don't need to make copies... it is the same photo in each place. So if you find the photo in your Jane Smart Album, and crop out the unsightly camel dung pile in the background... the fixed version appears in each location.

Normal Albums hold whatever images you put in them. So you can use the Smart Albums to browse for photos, and drag the images you like to a normal Album. The photos are still in the Smart Album... but they appear as well in the normal Album. Essentially, Smart Albums are permanent searches that update themselves as you add images or add keywords.

snerkler said:

Well I've had another 'play' with iPhoto and figured out how to organise and add folders etc. Got it working how I want it, thanks for all the help.

Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll have more. The digital photography forum is full of helpful people too. Feel free to ask away.

snerkler said:

Another question I have now is about web browsing ...
Cheers.

Click to expand...

That one.... I'll let someone else answer. I haven't played with the font settings... perhaps someone else knows better. However, I will say that websites can specify what font to use. If your system has that font, it will use it. If your system doesn't have that font then it will substitute something else. Perhaps your new Mac has different fonts than you are used to.

Luck.