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iPhoto flawed?

U

umdjb

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 27, 2006
220
0
Washington D.C.
Hey everyone!

In August I purchased a new (and first ever) Mac, a 12" PB. About six months ago I abandoned the PC and switched from being a lifelong PC/Windows user to an Apple advocate. However, I have found that many programs especially Apple created apps are not intuitive and "manageable" as I would like to believe, iPhoto being one of them. The main problem I have with iPhoto is the way it organizes the photos in the harddrive. Granted it is much easier and quicker to organize within the program, but the way it indexes them by date seems inconvenient? I would like to arrange my photos in my harddrive based on folders with subjects or categories, then have those folders correspond to my iPhoto setup. This is easily accomplished using Google's Picasa. Maybe because of my novice status to Apples I am not aware of a way around this problem, but I have consulted the Apple store technicians and was warned not to tamper with the original source of the photos.

Is there anyone out there that can emphatize with me? Even better, offer a solution to this problem. Any third party software for Macs that offer an alternative to iPhoto?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
 
You have two choices.

1. Use iPhoto the way it is "intended". That is, you don't ever look at how it's stored on the hard drive. If you need a photo from iPhoto somewhere else, drag it directly from iPhoto to where you want it.

2. Change the settings in iPhoto advanced settings so that it doesn't copy your files to its own library. Manage the files yourself.
 
Someone else will probably jump on here, and give you a better answer, but..

-ya, don't mess with the location of the pics

-iPhoto organizes by year at the root directory, but iPhoto is designed so you don't have to go to your root folder...same as iTunes.

You do it all in the program itself. So, you organize pics with photolists, (like playlists) and you can e-mail pics directly out of iPhoto (set up the Mail app to work with whatever e-mail you prefer) you can burn to a blank DVD or Cd out of iPhoto. You can rename pics in it, and if you really want access to the pic itself, just drag it out of iPhoto to the desktop.

:)
 
iPhoto made me mad at first too, but just forget your Windows ways. How the files are structured underneath the program doesn't matter. When you need a copy of an image, you just click and drag it out of the application, and it will make a copy where you put it (usually the desktop). When you're done with it, delete it. It will still be in your iPhoto library.

It's easier, but it's different.
 
I have it setup so that my photographs are categorized in separate directories outside of the iphoto one. example: "2006-04-28 Vacation in Florida" I drag the folders to iphoto individually and it "copies" the files to the iphoto directory (it actually just creates alias like objects in the iphoto library directory) that way my custom file structure stays in tact and I can easily manage it myself.

They need to port Picasa over to the mac, much better/faster than iphoto IMO.
 
gekko513 said:
2. Change the settings in iPhoto advanced settings so that it doesn't copy your files to its own library. Manage the files yourself.
Click to expand...

This is the thing you want. Turn the "copy photos to iPhoto library folder when adding to library" checkbox off. Organize your photos however you'd like, then drag them into iPhoto. Of course, you want want to use iPhoto to transfer pictures from your camera because it'll still organize those photos for you. Instead use Image Capture (or some other program, whatever you like) to import them, then organize them manually then add them to iPhoto.

To be honest, I can't figure out why people are so set on organizing their pictures and music by hand with folders. It seems so tedious and annoying to me, with very little benefit. I guess I can understand a little with iPhoto, but iTunes especially confuses me, as it does the most logical thing I can think of when organizing music (Artist/Album/Song.aac).
 
mduser63 said:
This is the thing you want. Turn the "copy photos to iPhoto library folder when adding to library" checkbox off.
Click to expand...
Where is that option?
 
The thing that gets annoying to me is when I need to upload a photo to Flickr. It brings up the box to select the file so then I have to find the photo number and folder within iPhoto so I know which file I'm uploading.
 
buffalo said:
The thing that gets annoying to me is when I need to upload a photo to Flickr. It brings up the box to select the file so then I have to find the photo number and folder within iPhoto so I know which file I'm uploading.
Click to expand...
Just drag the photo you want to upload from iPhoto to the Desktop first.

Edit: You can also drag a picture from iPhoto to the upload dialog in Safari and it will select the correct file for you. (You must drag to the pop-up bar as in the screen shot and not to the file area below it.)
flickr.jpg
 
umdjb said:
Is there anyone out there that can emphatize with me?
Click to expand...

I can totally empathize with you. It bothers me as well, but i'm getting used to it. In Windows, I was always hesitant to open up another application (more than 2 or 3 apps open usually meant a massive slowdown). I've learned not to fear this on my mac :) . iPhoto's organization really is very intuitive, as long as you ignore its finder organization.
 
Windows beats OS X in viewing pics?

Windows allows you to get a full sized preview of a picture when sifting through thumbnails of the picture in the when viewing the folder. Meanwhile, you can get a preview of the picture in Apple when going through the hard drive, but the size is not big enough unless you are viewing the pictures through a program. Does anyone know a solution to this? There has to be a way to do it similar to windows. I know it offers a preview of the pic or movie but it is not big enough. I would like a bigger version as I am going through my pictures on the hard drive.

Thanks!
 
umdjb: The short answer is no.

Windows and OS X has different approaches to image handling.

OS X's Finder has limited image organising features and leaves the organising to a separate application: iPhoto. If you look at iPhoto as a Windows Explorer for photos, it's really the same, only better.

Windows builds some image organising features, like larger previews, into Windows Explorer, but doesn't really offer an application for organising, editing, sharing and creating things with your pictures.

You can't get OS X to act like Windows in all respects. If you want to switch OS you must be prepared to change some habits. It's just the way it is.
 
howesey said:
Where is that option?
Click to expand...

In the Advanced tab of iPhoto Preferences. (see screenshot) I've got it checked, because I hate manually managing my photos, but if you want to use your own folder structure, you should uncheck this box.
 

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gekko513 said:
Just drag the photo you want to upload from iPhoto to the Desktop first.

Edit: You can also drag a picture from iPhoto to the upload dialog in Safari and it will select the correct file for you. (You must drag to the pop-up bar as in the screen shot and not to the file area below it.)
Click to expand...


Whoa! :eek:


I've been uing macs for years and I did not know that... Thanks :)


I'm such a newb :eek:
 
This management process used to annoy me at first, in both iTunes and iPhoto. Now, however... I think it's great. I used to spend a great deal of time organizing my music and photos in Windows, but all that stopped with iLife. It's something I learned to appreciate, rather than fight with. :)
 
buffalo said:
The thing that gets annoying to me is when I need to upload a photo to Flickr. It brings up the box to select the file so then I have to find the photo number and folder within iPhoto so I know which file I'm uploading.
Click to expand...

Why don't you use one of the free flickr apps available for os x?

iPhoto Plugin:
http://connectedflow.com/flickrexport/

Flickr Stream/Uploader:
http://kula.jp/software/1001/

And there's always the standalone uploader from flickr themselves:
http://flickr.com/tools/
 
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