iPhoto 5 a disappointment

[LimitedEdition]

- It is noticeably slower on my G5 dual 2.0/NVidia 6800. When you try to scroll the thumbnail view it is very jerky and unresponsive.

- The old version had a clear mode selector at the bottom. You could see at a glance what mode you were in and it's context of all the other available modes. Inexplicably, this is gone. There is a "done" button now which is a pale substitute.

- Zooming in on a single photo is no where near as smooth.

- It crashed while I was editing the preferences.

I want the old version back, seriously.

 

[russed]

well i compleatly disagree. i am really impressed with iphoto 5. the editing adility is amazing and does everything the average person would want to do to make a photo that bit better. on my 12" pb the scrolling and zooming is equal if not better to version 4. have you tried reparing permission etc?

 

[iGary]

I like everything about it aside from one:

It does a lousy job rendering the RAW images from my 20D.

The RAW support was the main reason I purchased it.

Oh well. 😱

 

[Ambrose Chapel]

The old version had a clear mode selector at the bottom. You could see at a glance what mode you were in and it's context of all the other available modes. Inexplicably, this is gone. There is a "done" button now which is a pale substitute.

i agree with this. maybe it's just a matter of getting used to this new UI, but for now i don't like it.

 

[JDar]

Wandering somewhat off topic, but want to ask iGary -- do you use iPhoto 5 mainly for storage of photos in RAW format or is v5 that much more capable that you can do the necessary editing? I can imagine that displaying a RAW image would look fairly poor most of the time.

I'm still waiting to iPhoto 5 to arrive, but can't imagine being able to do much within iPhoto to a RAW image, while using iPhoto for storage then editing with PS or PSE sounds good. I've never been happy with any editing in iPhoto, much less tacking the RAW format. Is iPhoto going to morph into almost-photoshop, do you think?

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I'm still waiting on my copy (any day now) but I had also been slightly concerned about the new UI and was wondering from the iPhoto website screenshots how you would change between modes. I guess the slideshow editor, for example, kicks in automatically when you click on a slideshow. Although this may make it simpler, it does start to incorporate stealth tactics which is the biggest thing I hate about Windows XP (for example, I have no clue where the My Documents folder is on there... because many Windows explorer folders seem to defy hierarchy! Note this was never a problem with Windows 98.)

I will reserve judgement until I get my hands on it though, and my hopes are high for it delivering. The good things look to hopefully outweigh the bad. However, iPhoto isn't the only reason for my purchase - as I use GarageBand and iDVD quite a lot too.

 

[iGary]

Wandering somewhat off topic, but want to ask iGary -- do you use iPhoto 5 mainly for storage of photos in RAW format or is v5 that much more capable that you can do the necessary editing? I can imagine that displaying a RAW image would look fairly poor most of the time.

I'm still waiting to iPhoto 5 to arrive, but can't imagine being able to do much within iPhoto to a RAW image, while using iPhoto for storage then editing with PS or PSE sounds good. I've never been happy with any editing in iPhoto, much less tacking the RAW format. Is iPhoto going to morph into almost-photoshop, do you think?

At home, I mainly use iPhoto to catalog my shots (I have about 7,000), but when I am on the road, I use it in my iBook (since I got 5) to decide whether to re-shoot an area (I do a lot of aerial photography), and yes, I use iPhoto to view the shots and make minor modifications. Although not as powerful as Photoshop, it is much easier to browse (the thumbnails are larger than in Photoshop's file browser).

No setting white balance, chromatic abberation, etc...but what does one expect at the price.

It's a nice piece of software that I hope they continue to develop. I'm still looking for that "all in one" app.

 

[Fredstar]

iphoto 5 seems to be working much quicker for me, no waiting between photos and v quick loading. The slideshow (added transitions) and setting are great and it has worthwhile improvements imo.
But i am having a few issues, sometimes when i browse through individual photos the photo is kinda constrained to the left-bottom side of the panel but then when i browse photos most times it is centered. Seems like a bug to me, anyone else experiencing this?
No crashes yet, but idvd did seem to be loading a background rather slowly so i had to force quit. On the whole idvd seems faster and better optimized.

 

[asif786]

Hi,

I, too, am disappointed with iPhoto 5. The biggest disappointment for me is the fact that I have to save each slidehsow seperately - what's up with that? Before, it used to remember the slideshow settings for each album, but now in my source list theres the album + the slideshow. This is annoying me, big time..!

Also, I thought steve said they were going to have albums + sub albums? Am I just being daft or is there no option for sub-albums?

 

[yoda13]

Well, I like the new version considerably better. It is faster and I like the new editing features on my PB. I am sorry that everyone is not equally as happy.

 

[G4scott]

I'm just peeved that it doesn't recognize raw files from my Canon S50...

 

[G4scott]

Hi,

I, too, am disappointed with iPhoto 5. The biggest disappointment for me is the fact that I have to save each slidehsow seperately - what's up with that? Before, it used to remember the slideshow settings for each album, but now in my source list theres the album + the slideshow. This is annoying me, big time..!

Also, I thought steve said they were going to have albums + sub albums? Am I just being daft or is there no option for sub-albums?

You have to go to File> New Folder

 

[aswitcher]

I'm just peeved that it doesn't recognize raw files from my Canon S50...

Mmm...I'll have to test my s70 soon...


Overall I am impressed with iPhoto 5. Its going to make sorting through my recent European trip (4500+ photos) much easier with features like smart albumns, keywords, date selection etc plus the new photo correction tools like exposure, tilt, sharpen etc. So far its been great, if a little slow at times...

 

[asif786]

hmm, okay I take back what I siad about iPhoto now 🙂

After using the keyword feature and the new interface for a while, I love it!

Althought the 'New folder' thing could've been a bit easier to find.. (button) <p.s. thanks G4Scott for the tip>

Probably just takes a little getting used to..Glad I like it now tho!

/asif

 

[stcanard]

Does iPhoto allow you to use roll title a criteria in smart folders yet?

That is my biggest complaint about iPhoto 4. (Well that, and numerous bugs in the smart folder queries, but those get better with each release so I'm not too worried about that).

Also is the sharpen an unsharp mask, or is it just a sharpen?

 

[MacSA]

Found this on macosxhints

To quickly get back to Thumbnail view in iPhoto when in edit mode, just double-click your photo! This saves a trip to the new "Done" button.

 

[LimitedEdition]

Found this on macosxhints

To quickly get back to Thumbnail view in iPhoto when in edit mode, just double-click your photo! This saves a trip to the new "Done" button.

That's a good tip, thanks.

 

[abhishekit]

Does iPhoto allow you to use roll title a criteria in smart folders yet?

That is my biggest complaint about iPhoto 4. (Well that, and numerous bugs in the smart folder queries, but those get better with each release so I'm not too worried about that).

Also is the sharpen an unsharp mask, or is it just a sharpen?

Yes, you can use roll title as a criteria for smart folders.
Don't know what is the difference between sharpen and unsharp mask. But i noticed that if you sharpen a picture and save the changes, it still would save the original copy. So the changes are not permanent.

It doesn't feel a lot faster than iPhoto 4(which was not slow either) on my 1.33 GHz pb but that may be because I don't have a huge library.

One feature I really like is the calendar view.
Another cool thing is the 'straighten' effect in adjustment.
Another good thing is that now you can eject the camera from the iPhoto side bar like iTunes.
And yah, sub album feature is nice. But its somewhat difficult to figure out. I tried making a sub album from an album, and there seem to be no way to do that. So then I made a new folder. And then made two separate albums(from the original album) and put those two in that folder. Is this teh way to do it? I am not sure.

cheers

 

[Lacero]

iPhoto runs fast on my dual G5. It actually feels faster and smoother than iPhoto 4. The only complaint is the crashing in Photo book mode. I have not used it with RAW, but anyone serious enough to use RAW uses Photoshop to process them.

 

[jacg]

General iLife feedback

The whole suite has made my Powerbook (1.25 GHz) feel like a new computer (except Garageband which performs the same).

iPhoto is much faster, slowing only to save changes after editing. Making books is a joke though due to unstability. Hope they fix this quick. (rest of the suite seems really stable)

iDVD 5 will be very popular with iDVD users. It's gained a lot of really valuable features. I love the feedback when its burning a disc (or writing a disc image, without a hack!). Burned my first widescreen content last night.

iMovie (5.01) is much improved but its odd how one or two features have left the main interface (eg speed). I'm not sure if this will make it easier or harder for beginners. I suppose it's a bit more consistent now.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

The whole suite has made my Powerbook (1.25 GHz) feel like a new computer (except Garageband which performs the same).

iPhoto is much faster, slowing only to save changes after editing. Making books is a joke though due to unstability. Hope they fix this quick. (rest of the suite seems really stable)

The saving could get annoying. And it seems unnecessary. It's just like the Nintendo 64. When it was first released, games saved immediately, but all later games had "Please wait..saving" screens that lasted about 5 seconds.

iDVD 5 will be very popular with iDVD users. It's gained a lot of really valuable features. I love the feedback when its burning a disc (or writing a disc image, without a hack!). Burned my first widescreen content last night.

Strangely, feedback while burning is something they actually took out in the transition from iDVD 3 to 4. Glad it's back. My copy is arriving tomorrow so I'll be able to check that out then.

 

[mslifkin]

iPhoto runs fast on my dual G5. It actually feels faster and smoother than iPhoto 4. The only complaint is the crashing in Photo book mode. I have not used it with RAW, but anyone serious enough to use RAW uses Photoshop to process them.

That's interesting, as I'm seeing the exact opposite. iPhoto runs fine on my two PowerBooks and my PowerMac G4. It's an absolute slug on my dual G5. I don't understand it. I've tried deleting the preference file, repairing permissions, sacrificing a small goat, nothing worked. (Anyone interested in a slightly used small goat?) I've got 3230 images (all JPEGs) which shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully Apple will release an update soon, as this is getting old real quick.

Regards,
Marc

 

[kwajaln]

i am really impressed with iphoto 5. the editing adility is amazing and does everything the average person would want to do to make a photo that bit better.

For the slightly above average user, would you say that iPhoto 5 could make Photoshop Elements 3.0 an unecessary purchase? I am referring to photo editing capabilities.

 

[Lacero]

The new adjustment layers is much better than the limited controls of iPhoto 4. Perhaps with the intro of Tiger and an update to iPhoto, we could see some dramatic speed improvements.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

For the slightly above average user, would you say that iPhoto 5 could make Photoshop Elements 3.0 an unecessary purchase? I am referring to photo editing capabilities.

I think part of that depends on what you are going to use it for. I can't say for iPhoto yet (mine arrives tomorrow) but I use Photoshop Elements (version 2) not for photo editing but mainly for creating other things like custom birthday cards, A4 posters, DVD case designs and such like. I couldn't use iPhoto for things like that for example. In other words, Photoshop Elements is a useful purchase anyway, aside from its photo editing abilities.