It does? I keep getting "Drawing failed" when trying to load up mega large (30,000x10,000) JPEG and PNG images. OSX handles with ease.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
It's not great viewing photos in the Finder, is it?
- Thread starter Karvel
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It does? I keep getting "Drawing failed" when trying to load up mega large (30,000x10,000) JPEG and PNG images. OSX handles with ease.
I didn't look through this thread to see if someone already said it, but if they haven't, Phoenix Slides is a good way to look at photos while browsing by directory.
true, Finder sucks compared to Explorer, except for one thing: the sidebar... Finder actually has a useful sidebar, not a waste of space like on windows!
Two simple solutions for viewing pictures quickly...
Get Xee, I use it as my main image viewer (it's comparable to that image viewer thing on windows which can go to next / previous image)
Or use column view, that's also good if you only need to check the content before opening
Two simple solutions for viewing pictures quickly...
Get Xee, I use it as my main image viewer (it's comparable to that image viewer thing on windows which can go to next / previous image)
Or use column view, that's also good if you only need to check the content before opening
I bought a mac for my parents with the assumption that organizing and viewing photo's would be excellent on a mac (judging from the way osx is advertised as a creative OS)
What I found out is that OSX sucks bigtime compared to XP/Vista in terms of picture management. IPhoto is a bloated/slow/difficult to use program compared to Picasa on XP. The finder is also inferior to the explorer in XP/Vista.
It's time Apple does something about these issues, they are way way way behind on this aspect. I sure hope Leopard is better for viewing pictures, I have good hope because coverflow and quickview look amazing
What I found out is that OSX sucks bigtime compared to XP/Vista in terms of picture management. IPhoto is a bloated/slow/difficult to use program compared to Picasa on XP. The finder is also inferior to the explorer in XP/Vista.
It's time Apple does something about these issues, they are way way way behind on this aspect. I sure hope Leopard is better for viewing pictures, I have good hope because coverflow and quickview look amazing
...but i actually miss the side task thingy in windows where you can copy/move the selected file(s) to a folder directly instead of having to do the 'hover' thing all the way to the desired folder or to have two finder windows open to drag and drop. this is especially useful when i have files in multiple places that need to be moved to the same folder because the copy/move window stays on the previous folder. i love the mac but i agree that finder is the weakest link. (not terribly excited about cover flow either as some others have pointed out is limited usefulness). three cheers for aliases and the way os x handles them though!
Question about Xee (and Macosx in general)
I set the shortcuts to use arrow keys to: right key - next picture , and left key- previous picture in Xee.
Now when I use the shortcutkeys, how do I stop the Menubar at the top from flashing blue. i.e. the menubar like this
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/win32porting/art/menubar.jpg
It flashes blue because that is the behaviour when I use a Xee shortcut, just like it flashes if I copy and paste anything, in any app within MacOSX (its a visual aid i know).
How can I stop this because its quite irritating seeing it flash when I go through loads of pics.
I've explained it best i can lol, hope someone understands, thanks.
I set the shortcuts to use arrow keys to: right key - next picture , and left key- previous picture in Xee.
Now when I use the shortcutkeys, how do I stop the Menubar at the top from flashing blue. i.e. the menubar like this
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/win32porting/art/menubar.jpg
It flashes blue because that is the behaviour when I use a Xee shortcut, just like it flashes if I copy and paste anything, in any app within MacOSX (its a visual aid i know).
How can I stop this because its quite irritating seeing it flash when I go through loads of pics.
I've explained it best i can lol, hope someone understands, thanks.
Wow, I've never had a single problem viewing images in OS X. I either use the preview in Finder, or if I want a larger view I'll open all the images I want to see in Preview and I'm good to go. They open up in about a second and I can browse to my heart's content.
And I love iPhoto! In my opinion it's so much better than anything you can get on Windows.
Oh well, to each their own. I like the simplistic feel of Finder and never have problems with it. I hate how chunky Explorer is. *blech*
And I love iPhoto! In my opinion it's so much better than anything you can get on Windows.
Oh well, to each their own. I like the simplistic feel of Finder and never have problems with it. I hate how chunky Explorer is. *blech*
The Finder in Leopard is so much better, though. Coverflow and Quick Look are far better ways to preview images.
I. Love. You.
I knew this thread was going to solve one my gripes about OS X! Only n-1 to go (n is still large though)!!!
It's about who writes the file viewers actualy
The whole issue of picture management in the finder basically comes down to thumbnail view and "quick-preview" type features. While people are correct that these features are to be found in Explorer on Windows, this was far from always the case. For many years, (at least up to win95 if not further), the only way to get this feature was to use an add-on like ACDcee (sp?), so it's fairly typical of Windows in general that MS would copy this and put it right in the Explorer shell.
The way this is done is to write dozens and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of file interpretors that can read all the different formats and create that thumbnail you see "on the fly." No one can possibly do this for all file types of course, there are just too many, but all the big picture and document ones are fairly straightforward.
OS-X, like MS Windows, had *always* had the ability to display thumbnail views and quick previews if the program that created the file saves such information within itself (like Photoshop), or if the program provides one of these file level interpreters. Being a Unix system however, the default on OS-X (and rightly so), is that such file level interpreters should really be written by the people that write the program in the first place.
My solution for this problem is that since most of my graphic work is in PhotoShop, all I do in the Finder is dump the pics in a folder and set that folder to display icons at 128 x 128. Voila! I get thumbnails, but only because PhotoShop is creating them for me. You also get previews in column view this way.
With Leopard, Apple has simply stopped waiting for other vendors to provide these tools and written file interpreters themselves. Thus with Leopard, we will get the whole "quickview" thing anyway and everyone will forget in about ten minutes that this was ever an issue.
I am just responding to this one point of yours because other folks have made it time and again on this list and while some of your other points are good, this one is (kindof) not IMO.
The whole issue of picture management in the finder basically comes down to thumbnail view and "quick-preview" type features. While people are correct that these features are to be found in Explorer on Windows, this was far from always the case. For many years, (at least up to win95 if not further), the only way to get this feature was to use an add-on like ACDcee (sp?), so it's fairly typical of Windows in general that MS would copy this and put it right in the Explorer shell.
The way this is done is to write dozens and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of file interpretors that can read all the different formats and create that thumbnail you see "on the fly." No one can possibly do this for all file types of course, there are just too many, but all the big picture and document ones are fairly straightforward.
OS-X, like MS Windows, had *always* had the ability to display thumbnail views and quick previews if the program that created the file saves such information within itself (like Photoshop), or if the program provides one of these file level interpreters. Being a Unix system however, the default on OS-X (and rightly so), is that such file level interpreters should really be written by the people that write the program in the first place.
My solution for this problem is that since most of my graphic work is in PhotoShop, all I do in the Finder is dump the pics in a folder and set that folder to display icons at 128 x 128. Voila! I get thumbnails, but only because PhotoShop is creating them for me. You also get previews in column view this way.
With Leopard, Apple has simply stopped waiting for other vendors to provide these tools and written file interpreters themselves. Thus with Leopard, we will get the whole "quickview" thing anyway and everyone will forget in about ten minutes that this was ever an issue.
But my point was that the whole method of changing the icon size in the Finder so as to get large thumnails (View->Show View Options, choose "This Window Only" and hike the icon size to the highest setting) is slightly less intuitive than how Windows XP deals with it (and presumably also Windows Vista), in that they are able to "recognise" whether a folder consists of mostly photos and thus display that folder in Windows Explorer with large thumbnails, bypassing any need for manual intervention in the window's "Icon size". As has been said before, everytime I want to view some images I don't want to necessarily add and view them into iPhoto.
This is so one man's rant. Slide shows, column view, Preview, iPhoto. How many different ways do you need? Oh, and FYI, try Quickimage. This is a free Contextual Menu that is better than anything Windows.
For people like me and the OP who don't use iPhoto, our main gripes are this:
1. No "Photo Thumbnail" view in Finder. Windows would delegate 80% of the folder space to a large thumbnail of the photo so that you wouldn't really have to open the photo to see it properly. The bottom 20% was delegated to a horizonal scrollbar with small thumbnails of all the photos in order. You could browse through them using buttons on the screen, the arrow keys on your keyboard, or the mousewheel on your mouse.
2. Preview cannot "Go To Next Picture In Folder" with a simple keystroke. First, you have to select all the photos you want to view, and then open them in Preview, and then click on them individually in the slide-out sidebar. This is a multi-step, clunky interface.
3. We don't use iPhoto because we don't want to assign something as simple as photos to a CPU-intensive, memory-intensive program that handles it for us. We have no use for photo editing, tagging, etc. Albums? Folders are fine for us. We transfer from our USB digicam, and we're done. That's it. No hassle. In fact, I've even eschewed the use of the default "Pictures" folder as Apple and some other companies deem it necessary to put their programs pictures ("AIM Buddy Icons" ayone?) in there.
Hopefully Apple will integrate these simple things into Leopard. Especially #2, as it seems #1 will be achieved by CoverFlow, which is far from ideal, really. It's just a gimmick.
1. No "Photo Thumbnail" view in Finder. Windows would delegate 80% of the folder space to a large thumbnail of the photo so that you wouldn't really have to open the photo to see it properly. The bottom 20% was delegated to a horizonal scrollbar with small thumbnails of all the photos in order. You could browse through them using buttons on the screen, the arrow keys on your keyboard, or the mousewheel on your mouse.
2. Preview cannot "Go To Next Picture In Folder" with a simple keystroke. First, you have to select all the photos you want to view, and then open them in Preview, and then click on them individually in the slide-out sidebar. This is a multi-step, clunky interface.
3. We don't use iPhoto because we don't want to assign something as simple as photos to a CPU-intensive, memory-intensive program that handles it for us. We have no use for photo editing, tagging, etc. Albums? Folders are fine for us. We transfer from our USB digicam, and we're done. That's it. No hassle. In fact, I've even eschewed the use of the default "Pictures" folder as Apple and some other companies deem it necessary to put their programs pictures ("AIM Buddy Icons" ayone?) in there.
Hopefully Apple will integrate these simple things into Leopard. Especially #2, as it seems #1 will be achieved by CoverFlow, which is far from ideal, really. It's just a gimmick.
Waiting for Coverflow
I have the same complaint about OSX.. as a designer, I should be able to see large image previews in my folders, without opening them. I think Coverflow will take care of what I want. Coverflow is the best of the list view, and windows' filmstrip view
I have the same complaint about OSX.. as a designer, I should be able to see large image previews in my folders, without opening them. I think Coverflow will take care of what I want. Coverflow is the best of the list view, and windows' filmstrip view
Multi-Step? Sure, but we're talking seconds here. Clunky? I disagree.
The 80% / 20% thing in Windows actually annoys me to no end. I prefer having a small preview in Finder or having the option to open the photos in Preview.
It's funny how such small things like this can annoy different people in different ways.
I use Xee too. It's not quite as good as Irfanview on the PC, but for free, it's pretty awesome. Leopard is better, but still not much. Thumbnail view, increasing the size to the max, is alright and Coverflow will help, but nothing beats Irfanview IMO.
I got this program called JustLooking that is really great for images. While it's not a preview thing, you have to open the file in the program, once you're in it you can browse through all the photos in the same folder with arrows... so it makes it a lot easier than Preview to look through a selection of photos without going into iPhoto. I also like how closing the window exits the program, that makes it a bit more like you're previewing rather than opening a program. I use it exclusively over Preview now.
I've always wondered why we couldn't have a scale slider (like in iPhoto) at the bottom of Finder windows.
Guys and girls,
The method for selecting multiple items in the Finder is perfectly logical. Shift-down adds the next file to the bottom of the *range* already selected. Shift-up adds the next file at the top of the *range* already selected. As others have mentioned, use command to select, or deselect, individual files.
And, also as mentioned, use column view in the Finder to simply scroll through your folder contents while viewing a perfectly usable preview of each image/sound/pdf/whatever. Easy. Fast. You change the size of the preview by changing the width of the preview pane. As with most things Mac, the solution is so simple that people overlook it.
Enjoy.
The method for selecting multiple items in the Finder is perfectly logical. Shift-down adds the next file to the bottom of the *range* already selected. Shift-up adds the next file at the top of the *range* already selected. As others have mentioned, use command to select, or deselect, individual files.
And, also as mentioned, use column view in the Finder to simply scroll through your folder contents while viewing a perfectly usable preview of each image/sound/pdf/whatever. Easy. Fast. You change the size of the preview by changing the width of the preview pane. As with most things Mac, the solution is so simple that people overlook it.
Enjoy.