For those who hate iPhoto

[madmaxmedia]

The best photo browsing program that I found after almost 3 months of searching and trying different things is "Xee":

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19978

Xee looks interesting. But can you view a thumbnail gallery of images? It seems like you can only view 1 photo at a time.

Give PicturePopPro a shot- you might really like it! It's easy to cycle through your photos with right arrow, and EXIF info pops up with the 'i' key.

 

[mfacey]

I think iphoto is a good program overall. A lot of the quirks mentioned in the previous posts bother me too though. A lack of a better alternative is keeping me from switching to something else though!

What I'd really like is a mac verison of Picasa. I really is a well organised and well built program. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Google is developing a mac version. Fingers crossed it will be good!

In the mean time I'm hoping iLife 07 will be a major step forwards.

 

[lardin]

Xee looks nice, but can u explain why it beats Phoenixslides? thanks.

The best photo browsing program that I found after almost 3 months of searching and trying different things is "Xee":

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19978

Having used IrfanView on Windows and being an advanced hobby photographer myself, I really hated the way iPhoto forces me to work. First of all, when I browse my pictures, I dont want to start a program whatsoever that can do fancy things with pictures. I want a preview-like thing, but Apple preview cant browse a whole folder by pressing the right arrow key (a completely incomprehensible limitation).

I tried PhoenixSlides, ViewIt, GraphicConverter and a couple of others, but Xee is almost what I want. However it's still missing a good EXIF data integration. I'd like to be able to display selected EXIF tags directly in the photo window, the way it can be done in IrfanView. I dont need an ugly big extra window giving me ALL 200 EXIF tags, I just want aperture, ISO and shutter speed, and displayed right on my image.

I'm really surprised that it's so hard to get a decent, lightweight, configurable photo browser for advanced photographers on the Mac. I thought there are so many graphics and photo professionals working on macs...

 

[Nym]

IMO iPhoto is lacking a lot of features, it tries to be like iTunes but makes a mess of your folder organization.

The thing is, OS X is still organized by folders so yes, I use them and sometimes it's easier for me to navigate to my pictures folder and have sub-folders inside organized the way I want (because a computer should do what I want and not the opposite) than opening iPhoto.
Using iPhoto I would always go nuts with that Roll 45, Roll 23, this is hideous and for someone who likes browsing folders the old-school way it's just a PITA. I've already sent a mail to the picasa team congratulating them for their work on Picasa 2 and the only think that made me sad was that Picasa was a Windows only app, I hope that changes in the near future, why? this is what I think Picasa has that iPhoto has NOT:

It lets you organize your folder structure.

You control the folders, it lets you select which folders Picasa should look pictures up automatically every time you start the app, the ones it should only re-check only when you tell it to, the ones that he should check only once and the ones he should never import anything from.

It lets you Hide Folders and make that hidden sections Password protected (huge feature).

It doesn't force me date conventions since the "albums" I see in Picasa are exactly the folders I have on my Pictures folder and it's sub-folders if I wish, and if you move one Picture from one "album" to the other it moves the image in the disk too, hence photo "Organizer".

When you edit an image, instead of creating a duplicate inside of Roll 35 it just creates the copy in the same folder that the original is, in most cases it simply adds "1" to the picture name, for instance: dog.jpg - save as a copy - it saves as "dog1.jpg", but the edited imagine can be easily found in the same place.

And these are just some things that I like about Picasa, I'm sure some people have different likings.

My point is: not everything Apple does is perfect, when I think something it's poorly done I have the liberty to say it and IMO Picasa is far superior compared to iPhoto, the same way I think OS X is far superior compared to Windows.
Maybe in iLife 07 we'll see an iPhoto refresh and I'll change my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I thought that the attacks on people that DON'T like iPhoto were completely unnecessary, after all, we all have different tastes.

 

[twomiracles]

I think I'd really like iPhoto...if it worked.

I have 13000+ photos and about that many additional files. I didn't plan to put all the additional ones in a library, but I did plan to use it to catalog some. I started having issues when I first got the Mac and tried to import all my photos from an external hard drive. I got lots of advice and did lots of things including reinstalling the OS, reformatting the hard drive to the Mac OS Extended format and getting iPhoto Buddy so that my libraries wouldn't be huge. Now one of my libraries has dashed white outlines instead of thumbnails. I've tried to rebuild them thumbnail cache, no help. If I click on a white dashed line, I do see a photo and I see the filmstrip above it. But when I go back to the thumbnails, there are still white dashed lines.

It is this kind of thing that is driving me crazy. I bought this to simplify my life, with iPhoto being one of the things I really wanted to use. I have told it not to import items into the file structure, I just want it to leave my file structure intact and catalog the items. A perfect situation...if only it would work.

Sorry for the rant, but since we're talking about iPhoto, I wanted to throw in my two cents!

 

[Nym]

Consider trying Aperture out, I think you can download the trial.

I feel your problems with iPhoto, you're not the only one.

 

[madmaxmedia]

I'm not a iPhoto superfan either, but just a couple of comments on your post.

You can actually keep your existing folder structure now, you can control this in iPhoto in the same way as in iTunes.

The roll thing is just 1 particular way of viewing your data, like say viewing your music by genre or year or whatever. It's quite easy in iPhoto to view photos from a certain year, month, date range, etc. You can also create your own albums and drop whatever photos you want into them. So a certain photo can be in more than 1 album (you can use aliases in OS X file structure, but I don't think that's as convenient.)

I agree that iPhoto should automatically add photos (based on your settings), as Picasa does. And I love that Picasa allows you to access your folder structure. Too bad Picasa isn't available on Mac (yet.)

I don't think iPhoto is the greatest thing, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be (if you take those corrections/additions into account.)

IMO iPhoto is lacking a lot of features, it tries to be like iTunes but makes a mess of your folder organization.

The thing is, OS X is still organized by folders so yes, I use them and sometimes it's easier for me to navigate to my pictures folder and have sub-folders inside organized the way I want (because a computer should do what I want and not the opposite) than opening iPhoto.
Using iPhoto I would always go nuts with that Roll 45, Roll 23, this is hideous and for someone who likes browsing folders the old-school way it's just a PITA. I've already sent a mail to the picasa team congratulating them for their work on Picasa 2 and the only think that made me sad was that Picasa was a Windows only app, I hope that changes in the near future, why? this is what I think Picasa has that iPhoto has NOT:

It lets you organize your folder structure.

You control the folders, it lets you select which folders Picasa should look pictures up automatically every time you start the app, the ones it should only re-check only when you tell it to, the ones that he should check only once and the ones he should never import anything from.

It lets you Hide Folders and make that hidden sections Password protected (huge feature).

It doesn't force me date conventions since the "albums" I see in Picasa are exactly the folders I have on my Pictures folder and it's sub-folders if I wish, and if you move one Picture from one "album" to the other it moves the image in the disk too, hence photo "Organizer".

When you edit an image, instead of creating a duplicate inside of Roll 35 it just creates the copy in the same folder that the original is, in most cases it simply adds "1" to the picture name, for instance: dog.jpg - save as a copy - it saves as "dog1.jpg", but the edited imagine can be easily found in the same place.

And these are just some things that I like about Picasa, I'm sure some people have different likings.

My point is: not everything Apple does is perfect, when I think something it's poorly done I have the liberty to say it and IMO Picasa is far superior compared to iPhoto, the same way I think OS X is far superior compared to Windows.
Maybe in iLife 07 we'll see an iPhoto refresh and I'll change my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I thought that the attacks on people that DON'T like iPhoto were completely unnecessary, after all, we all have different tastes.

 

[b0tt094]

I good program is one that lets the user choose how they want to look at pictures. Sometimes it is easier to look for folders, sometimes not.

Personally I think iPhoto is a pain. I've tried to use it a few times it and it just doesn't work the way I would like it to.

I friend turned me on to iVew Media Pro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/
and that is the program that I like do to it's cataloging abilities. So I can go through my photos and sort them how I like, referencing the photo many places but only one instance of the photo exists.

I really enjoy the iLife suite, but I would like it more if the built in media browser could pull pictures from folders instead of just what is in iPhoto.

I really like this, but does it have alike a histogram or anything, I dont like running pics through photoshop just to adjust the brightness contrast, tint historgram... etc

So does this include any photo editing parts or is just a cataloger

 

[Mhaddy]

I like iPhoto for the most part, but my biggest qualm with it is its speed. Most of the pictures that I take are 2-4MB in size and I just recently bought a digital SLR, so I'll probably have some 4-5MB shots. In viewing slideshows or just navigating through photos (12,000+), sometimes it can be a bit sluggish. Now I've got a 2GHz DC G5 Powermac with 1.5GB of RAM. Do you think the sluggish-ness is because of iPhoto and the size of my photos or because I need more RAM?

And how does the speed of Aperature / Lightbridge compare to iPhoto?

 

[madmaxmedia]

You should have more than enough RAM. Are you running the latest iPhoto? I think each version has become progressively faster.

I know older versions were definitely sluggish. I've been using a DSLR for a couple of years and have probably even more photos. I've been toying with trying the current iPhoto, but am concerned about performance.

I like iPhoto for the most part, but my biggest qualm with it is its speed. Most of the pictures that I take are 2-4MB in size and I just recently bought a digital SLR, so I'll probably have some 4-5MB shots. In viewing slideshows or just navigating through photos (12,000+), sometimes it can be a bit sluggish. Now I've got a 2GHz DC G5 Powermac with 1.5GB of RAM. Do you think the sluggish-ness is because of iPhoto and the size of my photos or because I need more RAM?

And how does the speed of Aperature / Lightbridge compare to iPhoto?

 

[DuckRacer1]

Why...?!? As in: Why the frell do you want to navigate the iPhoto library folder through the Finder in the first place...? That's what iPhoto is there for...

Hmm, maybe I want to edit some nature photos in Photoshop. Or maybe I want to upload my car photos to a Photobucket album. Or maybe I want to upload a specific photo to ImageShack so I can show one of my friends over IM that specific photo. Etc etc...

Get over your Windows habits and use the Mac the way it's intended or go back to Windows. Trying to make your Mac work as Windows is counter productive and a major potential source of frustration...

...And that's because you're either stuck with Apple's way or the high way. While Apple's way is excellent (and outclasses any alternatives) when it comes to almost anything out there (iTunes, iPod, OSX in general), but with iPhoto, you're SOL. Many apps integrate with the iPhoto library (ecto, Connect 360, RapidWeaver, Front Row, I could go on and on), and unfortunately, if you don't want to use iPhoto because of its major annoying quirks, you miss out on other things.

The only real "unique" things I like about iPhoto is full screen editing and the ability to order photo albums, etc. But the sad part is that I have no need for photo albums. And the editing doesn't have a crucial feature: resizing photos. Yes, I do realize you can export photos with a specific resolution, but who wants to fire up iPhoto and do that when someone asks you a photo of, say, a car you saw at an auction. Not me.

I think iPhoto is decent if you only use digital photos you've taken. If you decide to import forum avatars or wallpapers you found or other things, you're going to have a headache later on.

 

[gollum]

I think iPhoto is decent if you only use digital photos you've taken. If you decide to import forum avatars or wallpapers you found or other things, you're going to have a headache later on.

I found "iPhoto Library Manager" to be a big help keeping things seperate and organized.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Hmm, maybe I want to edit some nature photos in Photoshop. Or maybe I want to upload my car photos to a Photobucket album. Or maybe I want to upload a specific photo to ImageShack so I can show one of my friends over IM that specific photo. Etc etc...

Again, not saying iPhoto is perfect. But you can launch an external app from within iPhoto and edit a file.

It's also quite easy to find the exact location of any photo with the command 'Reveal in Finder'. It should also be possible to copy the file path to paste into say an online browser app, but I don't think there is a way right now.

Alternatively, if you have a couple of specific pics you can just drag them to your desktop, upload, then delete the files.

...And that's because you're either stuck with Apple's way or the high way. While Apple's way is excellent (and outclasses any alternatives) when it comes to almost anything out there (iTunes, iPod, OSX in general), but with iPhoto, you're SOL. Many apps integrate with the iPhoto library (ecto, Connect 360, RapidWeaver, Front Row, I could go on and on), and unfortunately, if you don't want to use iPhoto because of its major annoying quirks, you miss out on other things.

The only real "unique" things I like about iPhoto is full screen editing and the ability to order photo albums, etc. But the sad part is that I have no need for photo albums. And the editing doesn't have a crucial feature: resizing photos. Yes, I do realize you can export photos with a specific resolution, but who wants to fire up iPhoto and do that when someone asks you a photo of, say, a car you saw at an auction. Not me.

It's ridiculous for someone else to tell you to use iPhoto or go back to Windows. iPhoto is definitely not for everyone. Many of its features are designed to make general tasks easier. But if you already are able to do those tasks within the file system, yeah there's not that much of a point. Heck, if you've ever even used Photoshop before, you're probably outside the main market for iPhoto. That being said, iPhoto has more flexibility than some detractors seem to think (at least the current version, it's taken Apple awhile.)

I'll give you an example. My father-in-law actually now emails people digital photos. Sounds like the simplest, most basic task in the world, right? Not for people who don't use computers too much, and are too busy or otherwise disinclined to learn the ins and outs of where photos are dumped when he plugs in his camera, resizing images for email, and figuring what files and how to send them via email. iPhoto is primarily for people like him, but over the years has gradually become a better tool for more experienced users as well.

It wouldn't even be a stretch for me to imagine him making a 'Ken Burns' type photo montage with his favorite music, and burn a DVD of it, with about 5 minutes of instruction from me. I think that's pretty impressive.

I think iPhoto is decent if you only use digital photos you've taken. If you decide to import forum avatars or wallpapers you found or other things, you're going to have a headache later on.

Hence the name 'iPHOTO' . It's for managing photos, not for graphics files in general. Although I think it would be fine for managing wallpapers, as you could tag or rate them in different ways, etc. Just depends on what you really want to do with the images.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Are you guys kidding? How can one not like iPhoto. Its one of the best apps on the Mac. I even hope that they don't change it too much in iPhoto08

 

[cliffrouse11bas]

There needs to be a command like in Itunes to show duplicated files. I have switched Mac's 4 times and my Iphoto library is so screwed up. I have thumbnails in their and about 4 to 5 of the same pictures all within the Iphoto Library. I am a switcher about 3 years ago, and still can't figure this thing out. I am trying to use Iphoto Diet to get rid of the thumbnails and the duplicates, but so far not been so sucessful.

 

[Velo-Guy]

iPhoto actually crashed my hard drive. Yes, after 5 hours with ACP product specialist I had to do a archive reinstall. Why? Because I had moved some folders around on my hard drive that were connected to my iPhoto and it got its panties in a wad, corrupted my catalog and files address etc. So, I trashed iPhoto......what a sye and how good did that feel after messin with it for days. Now I'm ripping all of my photos back onto a cleaned computer without iPhoto on it and life is good. Never again shall such crap like iPhoto be blessed on my computer. Thanks to you all in here I'm currently viewing my photos with Phoenix Slides and LOVIN IT! and editing and tweaking with the software that came with my Canon 30D.
Thats all I have to say about iPhoto.....buh bye!

 

[vapour]

I photo is dreadful.

I worse than hate iphoto.

What kind of condescending "make it easier for the user" crap is this?

All I want to do is take the pictures in my camera flash-RAM folder and transfer them to a folder on my hard drive.

Don't make it harder than that.

 

[theanimala]

I worse than hate iphoto.

What kind of condescending "make it easier for the user" crap is this?

All I want to do is take the pictures in my camera flash-RAM folder and transfer them to a folder on my hard drive.

Don't make it harder than that.

Wow, digging up an old thread batman! But I do agree. i have multiple machines in my house, and I really manage my photo's from my Window's machines where I can just keep regular file/folder structures, but I do import into iPhoto for the wife to look at pics as well as Time Machine. Between that I have three copies of my photo's before I take into account my online backup at BackBlaze. That being said, I'm glad I'm not the only one disappointed in iPhoto.

 

[ftaok]

I worse than hate iphoto.

What kind of condescending "make it easier for the user" crap is this?

All I want to do is take the pictures in my camera flash-RAM folder and transfer them to a folder on my hard drive.

Don't make it harder than that.

If that's truly all you want to do, then use Image Capture instead of iPhoto.

You will, however, lose any library management features that iPhoto facilitates (which you seemingly wouldn't mind) plus the ability to easily edit and touch up photos.

You might want to look at Picasa for Mac. It's a little more flexible in terms of file structure, plus you get basic editing tools.

 

[revolooshon]

iPhoto is a counter-intuitive P.O.S

just wanted to contribute my whinge after losing all gallery contents because i sent stuff in stoopid events to trash - WTF BITCH???????????

it's great how they alert you that that will happen - BASTARDS

and ****** all that hidden BS

love apple but iPhoto is a counter-intuitive P.O.S

folders and files and drag and drop - prolly it's all too simple for them too understand

 

[snberk103]

just wanted to contribute my whinge after losing all gallery contents because i sent stuff in stoopid events to trash - WTF BITCH???????????

it's great how they alert you that that will happen - BASTARDS

and ****** all that hidden BS

love apple but iPhoto is a counter-intuitive P.O.S

folders and files and drag and drop - prolly it's all too simple for them too understand

Sorry for your loss.

Before you do anything else with the computer... anything.

Read up on iPhoto - the recovery may be simple. First, iPhoto does not put things into the Mac Trash initially... it has its own Trash. I've not had to use it, but I believe it is very easy to 'unTrash' photos at this point. This is a safety feature built into iPhoto for user errors.

Second... if you have already emptied the iPhoto Trash I believe they are moved to the Mac Trash. If you haven't emptied the Mac Trash yet, the photos can still be recovered. This is another safety feature to thwart unrecoverable user errors.

Third ... if you have deleted photos from Events, emptied the iPhoto Trash, emptied the Mac Trash, you can still recover the images from your backup. Time Machine especially makes it easy to recover from user errors.

If you don't have a backup, then.... the images are toast, gone, pining for fjords, buried, dead as a parrot.

And you would have had to deliberately bypass 3 safety features explicitly put in place to prevent the complete loss of images. At which point, my sympathy is a bit diminished. Sorry.

 

[bobsax]

9 or 10?

are you guys on 8 or 9? it's a bit confusing because v8 was called iPhoto 09
I looked into getting v9 but I didn't see any real improvements that interested me.
I think it was iMovie when it went to 09 was actually dumbed down.
okay I guess they go by 09 and 11

 

[skinny*k]

revolooshon said:
“love apple but iPhoto is a counter-intuitive P.O.S
folders and files and drag and drop - prolly it's all too simple for them too understand“

I fully agree with the first sentence quoted, but the second one is just too funny, in an ironic way; Apple took the lead in drag and drop. One of Apple’s greatest innovations (at least I thought so), as far as user control of the way apps worked, was OpenDoc, and it seems that they have forgotten about that, too. Ironically funny, but sad, too.

I imagine that there is some Gang of Experts in Cupertino that concluded that “THIS is a better way, and we will impose it on our customers!”
I bought the first iPod, and upgrded until the video one (5th gen?), and then iTunes got to be such a hassle that I quit using it, and the iPod. Then (silly me), I bought the first iPad; no drag and drop over wire or wifi—had to play games in iTunes… I gave it to my daughter—she’s happy with it, so I’m happy, but I will never buy another.


I hadn’t seen this thread before the recent activity, but I found the Moderator’s immoderate comments something more than annoying; “Get over your Windows habits and use the Mac the way it's intended…” Windows habits? Really??? *sarcasm* Oh yea, I remember how MacPaint forced me to jump thru hoops, and played games with my file system, and made me have multiple copies, and… *end sarcasm* … that was before Windows...

“stop complaining about iPhoto not being able to accomodate [sic] your ‘Windows’ ways. That is highly annoying.”
If Pages or Numbers imposed this kind of BS on me, I wouldn’t use them, either, and if Apple allowed me to use iPhoto more like an app than a database, I’d go back to buying the whole suite (my sincere thanks to Apple, though, for breaking it up). I find it highly annoying that you call the way apps and basic computer filesystems have operated and been used from the beginning (long before Windows or the Mac OSs)—and as MOST Apple apps STILL do—”Windows ways;” pure ignorance, IMO.

“Stop complaining…” No, thanks anyway; if I buy something, and it doesn’t work the way I think that it should, I will complain, and I reject your obnoxious effort to silence complaints. I find the apparent sophistry of your back-handed ad-hom to be annoying, too; I have run other OSs on my computers, but NEVER Windows—I have no “Windows ways.”

I’m sure that its true that “iPhoto works very well for thousands of people just the way it is,” but I don’t imagine that one of those people would be unhappy if given the choice to manage their own files, or to run iPhoto like a regular app; if you like it the way it is, leave the prefs alone. This garbage reminds me more of Apple’s cumbersome and annoying “Font DA Mover” than any other Apple innovation, and that kludge was only a workaround for a limitation of the OS that Apple fixed in System 6.? or System 7.

Who chooses moderators? Shouldn’t they be moderate people? Is this guy still around?

 

[johnnnw]

Why is there no default Mac app that just browses photos from the finder? When you double click a photo thats in a folder it just opens that photo in preview and doesn't let you click left to the next picture in the folder...

Pretty dumb.

iPhoto barely handles folders unless you drag them into the left panel

It doesn't make sense that like in Windows you can just click any photo and click left to go to the next one

 

[allan.nyholm]

Why is there no default Mac app that just browses photos from the finder? When you double click a photo thats in a folder it just opens that photo in preview and doesn't let you click left to the next picture in the folder...

Try selecting all photos in the current directory/folder by CMD+A and then press the spacebar. Now you can cycle through your photos with your arrow keys without opening Preview.