Can I make iPhoto stop treating me like an idiot?

[motulist]

The menus don't appear each time you switch images, just when you enter full-screen mode. If that's enough to break your "mental flow," you've got bigger problems to deal with.

I know you're joking, but not everyone works the way you do, and for me that is a huge annoyance and it DOES break my mental flow, and it DOES severely limit the program's usefulness in many other ways as well. And I can assure you that I am not the only person who feels this way. I can cite several reason why this is not just a picayune issue.

1) A lot of times I'm scrolling through my library and I want to see an image in full screen just for a second to see the composition of the photo and then quickly move on to another image that I want to think about and all that crap that pops up "just for a second" DOES totally interfere with that sort of stream of consciousness thinking. This is art, anything that gets in the way of me and my art is a serious impediment.

2) A lot of times I am presenting images to friends, family or colleagues and I want to quickly present certain of my images to them. First impressions are paramount in shaping how a person perceives an image, and having anything overlaid or cropping my photo COMPLETELY destroys the sense of flow and composition that I worked so hard to achieve. And often I am showing images from very different parts of my library that I want to present to a particular person, so not only do I have to see the controls over my photo once "just for a second" but because they are far away from each other I can't just use the top area thumbnail scroll to get to the next image (and I wouldn't even be able to find things as easily there even if they were nearby) so I have to pop back to the browser and double click to see each individual picture and then I have to see the controls flashing on my screen time after time and ruining the first impression of every single image I present.

This is not just a pet peeve of mine, this is a very serious flaw in the program that severely limits its usefulness. This one flaw is more than major enough to prevent me from spending money on it, and the sad part is that there really is no excuse for not giving users the option. It is a feature available on just about every other image application on the planet. You just hit Apple-F. I am not asking it to do anything "professional," this feature is ubiquitous from the free-est of freeware all the way up to photoshop. So until they fix this problem I will continue to use graphicconverter and not put any money into iPhoto.

Thanks for your input everyone.

 

[zim]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

Without iLife 06, my suggestion is utterly ridiculous.

utterly, utterly, utterly... I don't know why but saying that word three times in a row makes me laugh

 

[michaelrjohnson]

So until they fix this problem I will continue to use graphicconverter and not put any money into iPhoto.

These two applications were not designed to do the same things. I can see where you'd have frustrations in this transition.

 

[motulist]

These two applications were not designed to do the same things. I can see where you'd have frustrations in this transition.

You're trying to evade the issue. In this example I am not using graphicconverter to do anything except browse my library of pictures and then choose certain ones to see full screen. I am using it EXACTLY the way iPhoto works, except there is no B.S. on the screen when I view full screen. I understand that you are a fan of iPhoto, but don't try and use a smokescreen to say that this is not a major flaw in executing EXACTLY what iPhoto is intended to do. You can still love iPhoto, but don't try and say that this isn't a flaw in the program's design.

All I'm talking about with graphicconverter is its image browser. Take a look at this screenshot, you browse the thumbnails and when you want to see one full screen you hit Apple-F. (forget about the rest of the stuff in the window, you can choose to not show that stuff) Graphicconverter is doing EXACTLY what iPhoto does, except iPhoto sullies my images with all kinds of on-screen crap instead of showing me what it's supposed to show me - MY PHOTOS!

http://www.lemkesoft.com/en/gcabout_browser.htm

 

[michaelrjohnson]

You're trying to evade the issue. In this example I am not using graphicconverter to do anything except browse my library of pictures and then choose certain ones to see full screen. I am using it EXACTLY the way iPhoto works, except there is no B.S. on the screen when I view full screen. I understand that you are a fan of iPhoto, but don't try and use a smokescreen to say that this is not a major flaw in executing EXACTLY what iPhoto is intended to do. You can still love iPhoto, but don't try and say that this isn't a flaw in the program's design.

a) Settle down.
b) I never claimed to love iPhoto. (In fact, I never gave it the time of day until v6) I used to manage my photos myself via a complex folder structure. It worked well, but with iPhoto v6, I found it finally had enough features that warranted my using it.
c) It's not considered a "major flaw" if it was left out of the program by design. iPhoto, by design, doesn't give you all the options to do everything. Perhaps in future versions of iPhoto there will be further development of the full-screen feature. Until then, don't buy it.

I completely understand your point, and I get that you dont' want any "crap" on the screen at any time. If you are not using solely iPhoto to manage your library, and you have Tiger, the Slideshow contextual menu option would be your best (no application needed).

 

[erickg]

You're trying to evade the issue. In this example I am not using graphicconverter to do anything except browse my library of pictures and then choose certain ones to see full screen. I am using it EXACTLY the way iPhoto works, except there is no B.S. on the screen when I view full screen. I understand that you are a fan of iPhoto, but don't try and use a smokescreen to say that this is not a major flaw in executing EXACTLY what iPhoto is intended to do. You can still love iPhoto, but don't try and say that this isn't a flaw in the program's design.

I must say, I disagree with you completely. While iPhoto still has room for improvement, I would hardly call this a flaw. If you are so adamant about showing your "art" to your friends and family and your "art" is located in different parts of your library, why not create an album and show them a slideshow of the exact photos you want? Or tag the photos you'll want to show off and make a smart album. If you want a quicker solution (but I imagine you wouldn't need it, since, when regarding art one should take the time and effort to make a nice presentation without all those BS overlays), you can use the built in features in Tiger (i.e. right-/control-click the photo(s) you want to view and click slideshow) or open the files in Preview and use shift-command F to view them in a slideshow.

There are differences between there being flaws in a program (which there arguably are in iPhoto, or at least aspects upon which improvements can be made) and a program lacking the specific feature you and a handful of other people must have. iPhoto is a mass-market program that does pretty much exactly what it was designed to do and does it better than any other program in its class imho.

 

[zim]

I know you're joking, but not everyone works the way you do, and for me that is a huge annoyance and it DOES break my mental flow, and it DOES severely limit the program's usefulness in many other ways as well. And I can assure you that I am not the only person who feels this way. I can cite several reason why this is not just a picayune issue.

1) A lot of times I'm scrolling through my library and I want to see an image in full screen just for a second to see the composition of the photo and then quickly move on to another image that I want to think about and all that crap that pops up "just for a second" DOES totally interfere with that sort of stream of consciousness thinking. This is art, anything that gets in the way of me and my art is a serious impediment.

2) A lot of times I am presenting images to friends, family or colleagues and I want to quickly present certain of my images to them. First impressions are paramount in shaping how a person perceives an image, and having anything overlaid or cropping my photo COMPLETELY destroys the sense of flow and composition that I worked so hard to achieve. And often I am showing images from very different parts of my library that I want to present to a particular person, so not only do I have to see the controls over my photo once "just for a second" but because they are far away from each other I can't just use the top area thumbnail scroll to get to the next image (and I wouldn't even be able to find things as easily there even if they were nearby) so I have to pop back to the browser and double click to see each individual picture and then I have to see the controls flashing on my screen time after time and ruining the first impression of every single image I present.

This is not just a pet peeve of mine, this is a very serious flaw in the program that severely limits its usefulness. This one flaw is more than major enough to prevent me from spending money on it, and the sad part is that there really is no excuse for not giving users the option. It is a feature available on just about every other image application on the planet. You just hit Apple-F. I am not asking it to do anything "professional," this feature is ubiquitous from the free-est of freeware all the way up to photoshop. So until they fix this problem I will continue to use graphicconverter and not put any money into iPhoto.

Thanks for your input everyone.

I am confused because you had said that this was just a hobby but now you are starting to sound like a serious photographer... I personally don't feel that my "mental flow" is in any way disturbed by the changing into full screen in iPhoto. I guess in iPhoto's defense, the reason why we see the hints of the top and bottom controls is because the mode is intended for editing and proofing but can also be used for full screen views. If you were only working in full screen mode then it might not bother you as much.

Maybe you need to look into more higher end applications like Aperture or Adobe's Light Room (correct me on that title please). I think for what iPhoto does it is good, sure it could be improved but what software couldn't be. I guess my point here is that there are other options out there and if iPhoto isn't satisfying you then look else where, I named the two top apps for photo work and I know that there are more. You could also try and build a photo viewer using possibly Quartz Composer and some apple scripts then you would only have yourself t get frustrated with.

Also, where in photoShop can you do multi image previews in full screen? Yes it can do full screen but multiple previews? and even when doing full screen you still have to tab out of your pallets.

 

[radiantm3]

Maybe you need to look into more higher end applications like Aperture or Adobe's Light Room (correct me on that title please).

Or maybe switch to windows. Explorer does exactly what he wants.