Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I hate iphoto

G

gear02

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 18, 2004
80
0
I love my pbook. I really do. The only problem I have with it is iPhoto. Its tagging system is lagging, it's hard to manipulate photos, and heck, windows does a much better job at viewing them. On my windows machine, I like photoshop album, and I 'm thinking about trying picasa. However, i love the fact that I can carry my pictures with me without breaking my back.

Are there better alternatives to iPhoto, or am I just stuck?
 
i hate it too. .. haha sorry i dont have any alternatives but im reeeeeally looking forward to some major updates in ilife next year. ...
 
If you don't like iPhoto you don't have to use it.. it's really that simple. What are you using it for anyway?
 
Wait a minute though, doesn't it automatically tag images and just slow down the system regardless of weather or not you're using iPhoto?
 
iPhoto works wonderfully for me, it is a little slow, but it organizes well, and I usually don't manipulate my photos too far beyond croping and rotating.
 
Chaszmyr said:
If you don't like iPhoto you don't have to use it.. it's really that simple. What are you using it for anyway?
Click to expand...

well...i'm not, at least not often :) I would like to see major updates to ilife as well.

I tried using it to manage my photos (i.e. organize), but I found it to be feature-barren.
 
I've had few problems with iPhoto, until today when 1/2 my library decided to become corrupt. :(
 
The reason I never use iPhoto is the ridiculous (imho) way/places it saves my pics!

Instead I just put my pictures wherever I want them and use photoshop (for browsing and manipulating) and graphic converter (for browsing and slideshows). Works great for me.

A

ps I also absolutely hate preview!! Practically the only app that makes my pb freeze... and it's generally slow as ****. Weird apple can't do better than that.
 
I for one like iPhoto. I have over 13,000 photos from my D70... (really big picutres). Take off drop shadows, that helps. Also what system are you using... I am using a 15" pb @ 1.5ghz w/ 768mb of ram.
 
gear02 said:
what's better?
Click to expand...

Extensis Portfolio 7 is a superb app but it's $200, so might be a bit pricey for your needs.

You can download a 30-day trial version from extensis.com.
 
IPHOTO is KEWL

Instead of using it for pictures only, I print books and make better presentations that I now use iphoto over power point. When smeone wants a book, short story, and a picture book I have made..I turn on iphoto and print the book and it's on demand. Now thats kewl!

Last slide presentation I did was on iphoto and with music (over 4,000 songs in itunes) enabled me to select a song for that crowd. It was great and if you don't like it..you can write your own programs using java script.

I love iphoto and having photoshop makes it even better. :)
 
joshuawaire said:
I've had few problems with iPhoto, until today when 1/2 my library decided to become corrupt. :(
Click to expand...

really, only half? mine one time decided it didnt like ANY of my album, except for one or two pictures. iPhoto has been stable for the past few months, but it still lacks a lot of organizational skills (at the rate im going im going to have 200 photo albums. . . cant i have sub folders/albums?!?!
 
Graphic converter works well for me, just store pics in nested folders and use the browser to view and move, it edits well, and runs a surprisingly good slideshow.

You can rename/edit/delete/move files directly from the browser, plus you don't get that annoying "only 1 library" business that you get with iPhoto.

Plus it's free with Panther.
 
I have to agree about Graphic Converter. It is fantastic!
The version that comes free with Panther is a bit old (and for me, it had problems handling large numbers of pics in a folder).
The latest version is v5.3 and well worth the shareware fee.
 
iPhoto with iPhoto Library Manager (see versiontracker) have worked for me. i have 5 libraries for 3 years of pictures. (one for each year then two for two long trips i took that i'd like to separate out.)

overall, about 6 GB of pictures and i can access any one of them easily with the combination of two apps.

if you want to use photoshop to edit, you can set photoshop as the default editor in iPhoto... (not that anyone would read it, but...) iPhoto could use a simple summary of its features. i think a lot of people don't know all the features of iPhoto and just dismisses it. if you want to give iPhoto an honest chance, read the missing manual by david pogue.

one great feature of iPhoto is that since photo names aren't modified at the finder level, i can have multiple pictures within iPhoto with identical names. if i take 5 pictures of the same thing, i don't have to name them as name1, name2, name3 and so on. i can just "name" all of them the same.
 
if you have a ton of images I would second the use of Extensis Portfolio - very robust digital asset management software. you can also view all your Illustrator and other image files with it. Pricey but worth it.
 
until they make some changes my alternative is storing my pictures in folders and viewing them with a pogram Slides! which you can find on version tracker
 
I personally like iPhoto a great deal but I don't use it exclusively, and I'm not using it on a Powerbook or iBook. I usually import photos using Nikon software since I often shoot in RAW mode instead of JPG. I tweak some things (like exposure, contrast, etc.) where needed, then I export to JPG for use in other apps (like Painter, GraphicConverter, iPhoto, etc.)

Where iPhoto really shines is when it comes to sharing photos. Exporting web presentation of the photos is incredibly easy in iPhoto. If I want to share the photos I bring them into iPhoto after I'm done tweaking/converting them, add comments and export to web. If I'm shooting something I know I'll need to export (like a family gathering) I'll usually shoot JPG pictures and go straight to iPhoto.
 
My wife only used Windows and didn't like my Mac when I first got it. She always said that our next PC would have to be Windows so she can use it. It was iPhoto that she first started using with our digital camera and soon thanks to it she finally 'got' the Mac. Thankfully this epiphany happened just a couple of weeks before the iBook died and I was able to get an iMac.

We only use it for our family snaps and I can't say I've ever had any real problems with it. I can see it wouldn’t be the choice of professional photographers etc. but I guess that’s not who it’s aimed at.
 
IMHO

I've been using iphoto since it was introduced. It seems to me that the speed it is directly proportional to the machine running it. I have a 400 Mhz Powerbook. With ~2000 photos, iphoto is definitely no speed demon on it. On my G5 though, with plenty of RAM, it's very swift.

To me, iphoto does what it is intended to do. It lets you view photos easily, with a few little features for very simple editing. If you want more than that, then iphoto is not for you.

Also, this may be a stupid way of doing things, but I always make copies of pictures and organize them in seperate folders before I import them into iphoto. So the hierarchy of organization of iphoto doesn't bother me. Iphoto is not where my database of pictures is stored.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back