I am trying to convince my daughter go switch to Mac. One of her biggest concerns is the transfer of all her photos from Picasa into iphoto. Most of her Picasa photos have been "captioned" with a description of what is in the photo. Will iphoto be able to read in the caption data for each photo into the comments section of iPhoto?? If not, she won't let me switch her.
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captions transfer from Picasa to iPhoto?
- Thread starter newmacuser13
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Get Picasa Captions
Sorry, haven't looked at this forum for awhile, and can't seem to reply to pm.
Here is a link to download the XCode project I use to create this Apple Studio program.
Here is a link to download just the application.
Caution, this is the application I used to transfer several thousand Picasa captions into iPhoto. It worked just fine for me, but that is all the testing I have done. Use at your own risk, and be sure to have adequate backups.
It is easy to use, and has a couple of options, and a trial run option. First launch iPhoto, then launch Get Picasa Captions. Select one or more photos, then click the Get Picasa Captions button. It will process the selected photos and display results as it goes. Start by selecting just a few photos to make sure you are getting the desired results. You don't have to relaunch the program to try a new selection/option.
If you have problems, post them here and I will try to follow this thread.
Sorry, haven't looked at this forum for awhile, and can't seem to reply to pm.
Here is a link to download the XCode project I use to create this Apple Studio program.
Here is a link to download just the application.
Caution, this is the application I used to transfer several thousand Picasa captions into iPhoto. It worked just fine for me, but that is all the testing I have done. Use at your own risk, and be sure to have adequate backups.
It is easy to use, and has a couple of options, and a trial run option. First launch iPhoto, then launch Get Picasa Captions. Select one or more photos, then click the Get Picasa Captions button. It will process the selected photos and display results as it goes. Start by selecting just a few photos to make sure you are getting the desired results. You don't have to relaunch the program to try a new selection/option.
If you have problems, post them here and I will try to follow this thread.
Importing Picasa Photos
By the way, importing Picasa photos takes a little planning. First, be sure to go through Picasa and save all your edits. This will create an Original subfolder that will eventually have to be ignored on import, or deleted once in iPhoto.
Use the iPhoto import feature, and all the Picasa folders will end up as events in iPhoto. If you have a folder structure in Picasa, it will be flattened on import.
Events in iPhoto are organized by the dates of the photos in each event. The best way to get started organizing your events in iPhoto is to first go through the imported events and get reasonable dates on all photos. There is a Batch change feature in iPhoto that is very helpful for this purpose. Once all photos have good dates on them, just start combining events and moving photos between events to get stuff the way you like it.
Any work you have done on Picasa albums will have to be redone in iPhoto. i Photo Keywords are a good alternative approach.
By the way, importing Picasa photos takes a little planning. First, be sure to go through Picasa and save all your edits. This will create an Original subfolder that will eventually have to be ignored on import, or deleted once in iPhoto.
Use the iPhoto import feature, and all the Picasa folders will end up as events in iPhoto. If you have a folder structure in Picasa, it will be flattened on import.
Events in iPhoto are organized by the dates of the photos in each event. The best way to get started organizing your events in iPhoto is to first go through the imported events and get reasonable dates on all photos. There is a Batch change feature in iPhoto that is very helpful for this purpose. Once all photos have good dates on them, just start combining events and moving photos between events to get stuff the way you like it.
Any work you have done on Picasa albums will have to be redone in iPhoto. i Photo Keywords are a good alternative approach.
Thanks! I will give this a try. Bummer that organizational work is hard to transfer - I have everything organized by albums in Picasa, and the original import folders I view as just memory card dumps. Perhaps if I 'export' all my albums to a temporary location instead of saving all changes?
I was also thinking about looking at your XCode project to see if transferring Picasa's "starred" attribute to a 5 star rating in iPhoto might be feasible, but if you have insight on that before I look it'd be much appreciated. Again, thanks - I too have thousands of pics I'd like to keep the captions for!
I was also thinking about looking at your XCode project to see if transferring Picasa's "starred" attribute to a 5 star rating in iPhoto might be feasible, but if you have insight on that before I look it'd be much appreciated. Again, thanks - I too have thousands of pics I'd like to keep the captions for!
The folder to event import is not that bad. Once you get used to events, it actually makes a lot more sense. Go ahead and do a trial import to see what it is like. You have to save your edits in Picasa first, since iPhoto doesn't know about them. If you want to go the export route, you pretty much have to do one export for each folder. Could be time consuming.
As far as modifying the XCode project, it may not be too much help. I got lucky with iPhoto since the Picasa Caption field is one of the few JPG data fields that are accessible. Originally, I thought I would have to use Graphic Converter to get the captions.
As far as modifying the XCode project, it may not be too much help. I got lucky with iPhoto since the Picasa Caption field is one of the few JPG data fields that are accessible. Originally, I thought I would have to use Graphic Converter to get the captions.
Oh, I love the events way of doing things, part of the reason I'm switching... but a ton of the work I've done in Picasa is represented by the culling of shots to make the albums the "good" ones. So going from the folders directly loses that... I'll look into how I might automate the export w/a macro or something.
Ok, good to know... I may take a look for interest sake - so cool moving to Mac+XCode compared to Win+VisStudio
Thanks again for your help!
I missed your use of albums vs folders. In that case, you can export your albums for import to iPhoto. Each album will become an event. You could then select all photos in the event and create an iPhoto album. Once that is done, you could then start reorganizing your events and still preserve your albums.
Alternatively, you could modify to xcode project (or create another project) to assign a keyword to all selected photos. You could then use the iPhoto smart albums to select all photos with the assigned keyword.
Alternatively, you could modify to xcode project (or create another project) to assign a keyword to all selected photos. You could then use the iPhoto smart albums to select all photos with the assigned keyword.
program
RVRoadie,
your link to the application you wrote has expired/doesn't work anymore. I have not seen any other way for me to be able to transfer captions from Picasa to iPhoto apart from your solution.. please could you post the app up again?
Thanks!!
RVRoadie,
your link to the application you wrote has expired/doesn't work anymore. I have not seen any other way for me to be able to transfer captions from Picasa to iPhoto apart from your solution.. please could you post the app up again?
Thanks!!