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Is it just the PC in me talking or is mac really that frusterating?

B

ben1257sb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 18, 2011
23
0
Just switched over to Mac a week ago and have never been more frustrated.

Someone told me how amazing aperture was so I downloaded it and put all my pictures in the aperture album. My question is,
Why on earth am I not allowed to view the pictures without aperture? I can't seem to see the folder or location where my photos are. when I click on Aperture library, aperture opens.

Sometimes I just want to browse my pics in their folders but this stupid layout doesn't even let me do that. I mean how am I supposed to upload any of these to Craigslist?

Please help me, I am extremely frustrated right now.
 
If you want to upload photos, your photo library is available in the sidebar of the Open dialog box.
 
when I go to upload in craigslist, I navigate to the Aperture library but my photos are not stored like they used to be stored. Everything is in a mess of thousands of folders that are incredibly hard to navigate.

I must be doing something wrong because this is absurd how difficult this is.
 
ben1257sb said:
when I go to upload in craigslist, I navigate to the Aperture library but my photos are not stored like they used to be stored. Everything is in a mess of thousands of folders that are incredibly hard to navigate.

I must be doing something wrong because this is absurd how difficult this is.
Click to expand...

Don't navigate to the Aperture Library. The photos are in the sidebar of the dialog box. Sorry, but I'm not at my Mac or I'd post a screenshot.
 
Don't worry, you are only a week or so into the switch to the mac. I have worked for years in Windows (software development and system engineering) and knew the Windows platform inside and out. I had Macs off and on for a long time - but finally decided to make the switch full time, since I was so bored with the Windows platform.

Well let me tell you, even though I owned Macs before, making the switch completely (at this point I don't even boot camp or run windows vms), was quite difficult. My biggest obstacle to get over was using the finder - it just took me a while to accept that I wasn't on Windows anymore. I had prepped myself about a year before the switch by weaning myself off of Outlook and Microsoft office (though it is available on Mac anyway). I made the conscious effort to use Open Office, Thunderbird and Firefox - so that regardless of which platform I landed on - some of my apps would at least be exactly the same. On Lion, though, I find I am using Safari all the time now, due to the extra functionality they have added to it (I love the reading list, reader and full screen).

To cheat I moved my local drive into my dock and set it to display as a folder and view the content as a list. This gave me a start button like experience that helped me find some familiarity on day to day tasks. Also I tend to use the finder in column view which I find more windows like for some reason (plus I tend to really nest folders deep and I just have to single click on each level to get to them).

The problems you have with apps is a totally different story. I don't use aperture, so I am not sure about that - but anytime you switch to a different suite of applications it will take a little getting used to. Perhaps you can find some videos online, to see the workflow of others in the applications you use.

Don't worry, give it time you will get used to it, and then you will realize why you switched. Even with the difficulty of making the switch from Windows to Mac, at this point I would have an even more difficult going back.

Good luck and there will be plenty of people around to lend a hand and give you some support.
 
sorry for being noobish, but I have no idea what the dialog box is. Is that the Finder?

----------
OldMike said:
Don't worry, you are only a week or so into the switch to the mac. I have worked for years in Windows (software development and system engineering) and knew the Windows platform inside and out. I had Macs off and on for a long time - but finally decided to make the switch full time, since I was so bored with the Windows platform.

Well let me tell you, even though I owned Macs before, making the switch completely (at this point I don't even boot camp or run windows vms), was quite difficult. My biggest obstacle to get over was using the finder - it just took me a while to accept that I wasn't on Windows anymore. I had prepped myself about a year before the switch by weaning myself off of Outlook and Microsoft office (though it is available on Mac anyway). I made the conscious effort to use Open Office, Thunderbird and Firefox - so that regardless of which platform I landed on - some of my apps would at least be exactly the same. On Lion, though, I find I am using Safari all the time now, due to the extra functionality they have added to it (I love the reading list, reader and full screen).

To cheat I moved my local drive into my dock and set it to display as a folder and view the content as a list. This gave me a start button like experience that helped me find some familiarity on day to day tasks. Also I tend to use the finder in column view which I find more windows like for some reason (plus I tend to really nest folders deep and I just have to single click on each level to get to them).

The problems you have with apps is a totally different story. I don't use aperture, so I am not sure about that - but anytime you switch to a different suite of applications it will take a little getting used to. Perhaps you can find some videos online, to see the workflow of others in the applications you use.

Don't worry, give it time you will get used to it, and then you will realize why you switched. Even with the difficulty of making the switch from Windows to Mac, at this point I would have an even more difficult going back.

Good luck and there will be plenty of people around to lend a hand and give you some support.
Click to expand...



then why is everything on MAC so hidden? Mac won't let me find the path to my files, mac won't let me find the deep details about my files and mac won't let me organize my files the way I want. It's so silly to me how ridiculous this is set up. Maybe I just don't know what I am doing. That's probably it.
 
ben1257sb said:
sorry for being noobish, but I have no idea what the dialog box is. Is that the Finder?
Click to expand...

When you hit the button to upload a file, a dialog box will open to allow you to choose the file. On the left side will be a sidebar that is similar to the sidebar available in Finder. One of the locations in the sidebar should be "photos" or something similar.

If that is not clear, I'll post a screenshot later.
 
Move back to windows then...
Macs are WAY easier to use! I don't understand your problem unless your just not getting it!
 
BaldiMac said:
When you hit the button to upload a file, a dialog box will open to allow you to choose the file. On the left side will be a sidebar that is similar to the sidebar available in Finder. One of the locations in the sidebar should be "photos" or something similar.

If that is not clear, I'll post a screenshot later.
Click to expand...

YES i know. But my photos are still in the Aperture library. They are nowhere else. If they are, Mac won't let me find them!
 
ben1257sb said:
YES i know. But my photos are still in the Aperture library. They are nowhere else. If they are, Mac won't let me find them!
Click to expand...

Find the photo you want in Aperture, click and drag it to the desktop. You can then upload it to craigslist from the desktop.
 
ben1257sb said:
YES i know. But my photos are still in the Aperture library. They are nowhere else. If they are, Mac won't let me find them!
Click to expand...

Why do they need to be somewhere else? Some things are just going to be different. If they weren't, there wouldn't be much point to switching! :)
 

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Maybe you could explain your work flow as to how you are getting your photos into Aperture. Are you importing the photos directly into Aperture from your camera? I am guessing so, and if so you probably chose to have Aperture Manage files, so they are being imported into your Aperture Library.

While Aperture is a great program, I can't help but wonder if a large part of the frustration you are experiencing is an inexperience with Aperture rather than with Mac or OSX. It isn't the easiest of programs to just jump right in and run with. But there are some ways to get your photos to where they are accessible if you need them for Craig's List.

One is to Export the files to your pictures directory. Choose the files you wish to Export. Hold down the command key while selecting to choose more than one. Select File -> Export and give a name to the files for sequential naming.

The other is that you can actually open the Aperture Library. To do this, right click on the Aperture Library, choose Show Package Contents. That will open up a folder structure. You will see one called Masters. Double click Master to open it. Inside Masters, you will see other folders that should be arranged by the names and structure you gave to your photos inside Aperture. Do a little rooting around and you should be able to find all your photos. Once you find the ones you are looking for, you can drag them into the Pictures folder and have them accessible from there.

I am trying to do this from memory on a computer that doesn't have Aperture installed. So I apologize in advance if my memory has failed me on the steps.

I hope that helps some as far as figuring out where your photos may have gone and how to get them to a place other than Aperture to find them.

IF you do really want to continue forward with Aperture, if your Mac is a recent purchase you could still talk to the Apple store about a One to One membership. They helped me a lot with Aperture when I first made the switch.

Like Mike, it took me awhile to adjust after many many years of Windows use, but honestly, now that I have adjusted I don't look back. I really enjoy my Apple products.
 
When I switched to Mac in 2006 I too found some things very frustrating. The key notion -- it seems to me now -- is that OS X wants you to do things through applications, not by yourself (let's disregard how Finder is indeed an application).

That's why OS X "hides" things (as it seems to you, and me). Some app knows where they are, and therefore it's not important for you to know. Makes sense, but maybe you don't want to work like that.

I use Lightroom and iPhoto, but I don't let either of them download my images from my camera.

I have a lot of drive space (who doesn't, these days?) so I create folders as needed, generally by year or month, and on a disk other than my system disk. In my case it has the clever name "D300 dumps," and that's what it has in it -- the image files (separated into JPG and Raw folders, if appropriate), as directly downloaded from the D300.

Only after that do I import the files into LR and/or iPhoto.

I don't do any name-changing in that folder, and if I manipulate the images with Photoshop, I store the manipulated images and PSD elsewhere. It's my archive.

Another person might laugh at my workflow, but for me it's effective because I can always easily get to a consistently-named and numbered set of images, all unaltered, using only Finder. It's also very easy for me to copy some or all of my images to my NAS or another drive -- anyplace. And this also gives me a backup, because LR is storing them in its own library.

Certainly I'm not saying that letting Aperture or another app entirely store and manage your images is in any way wrong. Of course it's not. It's workable, it's defensible, and it's the Apple Way.

You could copy them out of Aperture's library, as SDColorado suggests. For new images, just store them someplace you choose, and only then hand them off to Aperture.

If disk space is tight -- well, that's another matter.
 
You could have Aperture reference the files instead of importing them into the library. That way you can set up your folder structure like you want so you can access the files easily from within other apps.

And dont get frustrated. I switched to the Mac a couple of times before it stuck and now I love it. Just don't try and compare it to Windows because they are different from each other. If you want it to work like Windows I suggest staying with Windows.

Jason
 
ben1257sb

As Jason noted, you have two options with Aperture as to where files are stored. Managed - they're kept IN the Aperture Library file. Referenced - they're stored in a separate folder, and Aperture "points" to them when you work on them.

To learn more about how to use Aperture, go to iTunes and search for "find out how" - there's a video podcast series from Apple that has a whole tutorial series. Beyond that, ApertureExpert.com is a good site to bookmark. I also found the Personal Genius book on Aperture to be really helpful.

Working in an Apple environment does take a bit of getting used to, especially if you're a die-hard Windows user (I was). But be patient. Take some of the free workshops at the local Apple Store. Or, if you purchased the One to One service, utilize that to help "get over the hump".
 
ben1257sb said:
Just switched over to Mac a week ago and have never been more frustrated.

Someone told me how amazing aperture was so I downloaded it and put all my pictures in the aperture album. My question is,
Why on earth am I not allowed to view the pictures without aperture? I can't seem to see the folder or location where my photos are. when I click on Aperture library, aperture opens.

Sometimes I just want to browse my pics in their folders but this stupid layout doesn't even let me do that. I mean how am I supposed to upload any of these to Craigslist?

Please help me, I am extremely frustrated right now.
Click to expand...
You have two issues. One is the switch to Mac, and the other is learning Aperture. The switch to the Mac way of doing things is just a matter of time.

Re: Aperture.... To be blunt, you're using it wrong. Aperture is a Digital Asset Management system (similar to Lightroom). You are trying to use it like you used to manage your photos, instead of using like it was designed to be used.

Do some research, or get some help at an Apple store ... But if you take the time to learn it - I think you'll be happy. But it does need to be used as designed, otherwise you are going to put a hole in your desk from banging your head.

Luck
 
First off, your stated frustration has nothing to do with the Mac. Aperture's main competitor is Adobe Lightroom (which I use), and it would behave exactly the same way as what you described. These are tools designed for professional photography, and both use the same model of not altering the original images, but rather store corrections in a library so that your digital negatives are not damaged. Any direct editing on an image file is destructive, if you do otherwise. With Lightroom, if you want to use your edited images, you need to export them in the correct form. I believe that Aperture, on the Mac, does give you the ability to directly access them through the file dialog which means that the Mac environment is way more powerful in that regard than Windows. If you tried to do what you are describing in Windows with Lightroom, your only choice would be to export the images to some place in the file system, before you uploaded them to a service. That said, there are plugins for both tools to support direct publishing to places like Facebook and Flicker.

The image stuff aside, moving to a new OS is not a trivial matter. I switched about 3 years ago, and now I would never go back. It took me about 6 months to really get as comfortable with knowing how to do everything in OSX as I was with Windows. I recommend the book called "Switching to the Mac" by Pogue which is written from the Windows users perspective and answers nearly every "how do I?" question. While the Mac environment is frustrating now, I believe this is simply because your muscle memory is trained to Windows. For someone that's never used a computer before, going into the Windows or Mac environment, I honestly believe they'd pick up the Mac world much quicker.

And you also have the added benefit of not having security patches and virus/malware issues to deal with on a daily basis with OSX... patches come more like every month or two.
 
ben1257sb said:
Please help me, I am extremely frustrated right now.
Click to expand...

I had been a long time PC person. I started on a PC around 1982 and didn't switch to a Mac until 2007. It took me a good six months to a year to really start to understand, learn and use the OS. Once I did, I found it really quite inspiring. Sure there are some things that are just dumb; but those are far and few between. Having Unix as a core has been awesome, I find myself delving deeper and deeper into it. But the desktop is just well thought out.

Lion feels more like that transition from PC to Mac again. It's a big change from SnowLeopard to Lion, but I'm slowly getting it.

What I'm saying is that it takes time, sometimes a good amount of time to really get used to it. There are some great features of OSX, and of course some bad things, but overall the experience is much more pleasurable then Windows. I still have two Win7 machines at home and find them to be a hell of a lot more frustrating then Lion.

All I can say is take some time, and really give it a chance, because it really is a great OS. Not saying that Win7 isn't, but for day to day use, I find OSX just more user friendly.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words of inspiration. I truly appreciate all the help!
 
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