Series: App improvement discussion - App: iPhoto

[howard]

iPhoto is useless to me without album hierarchies

also it would be nice if they changed there file structure so you could leave the pics in the folders you want them in but i know that that is not going to happen.

also a speed boast, and instead of going to your iphoto library when it starts up have a screen that gives you options of what you want to view. I don't want it to load my whole library so all those pictures are immediately viewable. I know you can collapse the albums in album view but that doesn't look that great.


a agree with brap, hahaha the useless bar, thats so true i hate that thing

also like he said, view pictures fullscreen w/o using slideshow would be great

 

[aafuss1]

My Suggestions for iPhoto:

1. A folder management system that actually allows people to navigate through it in the Finder. I know that iPhoto is supposed to replace looking for photos in the Finder, but still - iTunes bothers to have a very nice folder system.
2. A search bar in the top right hand corner that allows searching names, keywords and comments. And they HAVE to change how Keywords are added/deleted - it is WAY too slow and complicated at the moment. Splitting them into groups of "People", "Place", "Occasion", etc. would help. And letting users create/modify their own groups. But having to go through that awful palette window when I have tons of Keywords is a serious pain.
BTW, I've heard the iPhoto library can be searched through Spotlight. Can anyone comfirm whether it can find photos by keywords or names?
3. As others have mentioned, give the titles I give to my photos back to their original file.
4. Improve the books! Create a gallery of clipart/objects that you can drag in. Things like beach balls, flowers, etc. to decorate the pages.
5. In slideshows, allow a stretch-to-screen for vertical photos, but don't do it for horizontal photos.
6. Sync the iPod Photo right in iPhoto! None of this iTunes Photo business for us Mac users. And allow Photos from the iPod Photo to be dragged right off of the 'Pod and into iPhoto without having to go into the harddrive. After all, as Steve said - no copyright issues.
7. Definitely add some more minor-editing stuff. Things like rotating and cropping the photo to be straight (ie: when things in the picture are slanted), and more filters. This is bridging into PhotoShop Elements territory I know, but it still wouldn't be enough to discourage me from purchasing Elements.
8. Allow photo slideshows to be saved as Quicktime movies and easily put on a .Mac homepage, ala iMovie.
9. Fix the bugs! Often when I crop photos/red-eye them, the changes don't show up, the photo just zooms out. I have to switch back to browse mode to see them. And it's not performance - I'm on a G5! And often when I click the triangle by Library to see the calendars, there's a blank spot below the "2004" calendar, with no icon and no name. When I tried deleting it, iPhoto crashed.
10. Burn CDs that Windows users without iPhoto can still easily navigate.

That's all I can think of at the moment - I like iPhoto a lot, but it is still far from perfect. I've submitted all of these to Apple before btw.

8. I use Microsoft Plus! Photo Story 3 and does photo slideshows in .wmv format. Very cool and fun to create. Perhaps Apple should look at creating a similar integrated program into iPhoto (using .mov) that supports the .wp3/.wp2 file format for easy sharing with PC users with Plus DME! , and a send slideshow to iMovie for furthering editing of movie slideshoes .

Panoramic stitching- on the PC MS Digital Image Pro and Suite 10 can intelligently stitch images, PhotoSuite also does that, just to name a few. It is a brilliant way to create unique images and popular with many photographers But not iPhoto-perhaps as a project option.

 

[chameeeleon]

Just for the record, can I hope you start iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, DVD Player, iCal, iChat, Safari, Quicktime and Mail/Address Book threads too? I'd love to see other's suggestions.

 

[Diatribe]

Just for the record, can I hope you start iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, DVD Player, iCal, iChat, Safari, Quicktime and Mail/Address Book threads too? I'd love to see other's suggestions.

Yes you can. I will start a new thread every monday now.

 

[Diatribe]

Feel free to continue this one if there are more suggestions.

Here is the new one.

 

[joed]

I personally don't reeally like iPhoto at the moment.

A while ago, I put together a design for some changes so if anyone is interested you can see it here

The main things are keep it consistant, like a camera or cd come up as a removeable device, like the iPod in iTunes. And it needs much better handling of keywords and searching generally.

 

[chameeeleon]

I sort of like your mockup - I agree that cameras (and the iPod Photo) should pop up in the source list ala iTunes, and I like your revised info panel (esp. the Keywords system). However, I must say I prefer the bottom portion of the current iPhoto - I'm a fan of the big, easy-to-make-out icons, and I don't think Homepage needs its own tab. Plus, if Apple revamped the Book designing to be Keynote-style, it would deserve its own tab. And as good of an idea that the search bar is, it should def. be put up in the top right corner, consistant with every other app (iCal aside).

 

[Quickslvr]

App improvement discussion - App: iPhoto

I really want the ability to export individual photo titles to iDVD. I spend a great deal of time adding titles to old family photos and creating slideshows in iPhoto. When exported to iDVD, the titles don't follow and there appears to be no automated way to move them into iDVD. At best, the photos can be pulled into iMovie, titles individually added again, and then exported to iDVD. Too much trouble when the information is obviously there in the first place!

 

[Col. Panic]

One feature on my Digital Camera (Pentax Optio S4i) that I haven't really used yet it the ability to add verbal comments to a picture as I am taking it. This seems like it would be very handy while on vacation so that I can remember exactly what I took a picture of.

The reason I haven't really used this feature is that iPhoto has no way of keeping the audio file with the image. So I guess my first suggestion would be to allow other files (audio, etc) to be associated with an image and tracked with that image inside of iPhoto.

I would like some way of syncing my iPhoto library at home with another computer via .Mac and iSync. I know the files sizes may be too much to transfer realistically in one session but if you set a limit of 10 MB or so per sync I think it would work fine. This way iPhoto would automatically load 10 MB of photos at a time on my .Mac account. Then my other computers would automatically download the images. When that was complete iPhoto would then load the next 10 MB. This process would work over as many days, weeks, or months that it needs in order to keep all the computers up to dat. The same can work with iTunes.

I would also like iPhoto to publish smart albums to my .Mac account. So when one of my smart albums (My Top Rated for instance) changes then it automatically updates my website. This way I don't have to keep creating new albums and have to manage my web site as much.

 

[Diatribe]

I would like some way of syncing my iPhoto library at home with another computer via .Mac and iSync.

I think it would make perfect sense if you could sync entire home folders. Not via .mac obviously but when in a network or via FW, etc.
Most people have more things than addresses and calendars that they want to sync between their macs.