Shelving Windows PC for good? Smart move?

[ddublu]

I have been a PC guy from the beginning but have been gradually moving to the Apple ecosystem. MBP for work and iPads/iPhones for communication. The only thing I use the desktop for is some pretty basic photo editing. Ironically, photo management on my MBP has really been the only struggle I've had with the OS change. Am I missing something or should I make the move and free up some serious space in my house?

 

[Frosties]

Yep, as a fellow ex-pc user I can say there is no difficulty moving your photo editing to the mac side. What windows program and mouse are you using; there is often a mac version available. For example Lightroom. Is it iPhoto that brings you down?

 

[ddublu]

Yep, as a fellow ex-pc user I can say there is no difficulty moving your photo editing to the mac side. What windows program and mouse are you using; there is often a mac version available. For example Lightroom. Is it iPhoto that brings you down?

I use Photoshop and yes, it's iPhoto that makes it difficult.

 

[JoeG4]

As a mac user that doesn't have any iDevices, I feel like that pulp fiction guy..

"Say ecosystem one more time..."

anyway, I'll totally agree with you. One thing I sorely miss on my Macs is the lack of libraries, because iPhoto is a royal piece of crap for managing pictures (and I've been using that since day one).

On the bright side, there's also Picasa. It's still not as good as windows' libraries feature, but it beats iPhoto.

 

[W1MRK]

I would agree on switching over to the mac for your photo needs. iPhoto is a terrible application in my opinion. I do almost all of my work on aperture and am very pleased with the results. Formerly I used Gimp on my old windows pc till 2010.

 

[ddublu]

I would agree on switching over to the mac for your photo needs. iPhoto is a terrible application in my opinion. I do almost all of my work on aperture and am very pleased with the results. Formerly I used Gimp on my old windows pc till 2010.

Aperture is good, huh? Not convoluted at all?

 

[chrono1081]

I personally love Aperture. I used to be a Lightroom user since beta but I switched to Aperture because I like the way the libraries are stored better and I like its workflow better although both programs will give you identical results.

 

[mikepro]

I have been a PC guy from the beginning but have been gradually moving to the Apple ecosystem. MBP for work and iPads/iPhones for communication. The only thing I use the desktop for is some pretty basic photo editing. Ironically, photo management on my MBP has really been the only struggle I've had with the OS change. Am I missing something or should I make the move and free up some serious space in my house?

I was like you once. I would shelf it. If you feel you ever need windows, you can install it on your Mac as a virtual machine in Parallels (what I use) or VMware Fusion. When I made the switch, I setup bootcamp on my Mac. Found I almost never booted in to windows, so converted my bootcmap partition into a virtual machine. Now I can easily run Windows on my Mac if I need to... but I've since found that I really never need to, and have actually moved the virtual machine onto an external drive to free up more disk space.

Also, like you, one of the hardest things I had with was photo management. I used to use folder for all my organization, and Picasa or Photoshop Elements organizer. (I also never used iTunes, and organized my music in my own folders. Similar to the control I had over my photos). I continued with Picasa when I moved to the mac, and it worked well for me. However, I eventually decided to "give this iPhoto thing a try." It imported all of my folder structure and Picasa stuff, and created Events for all of the folders.

What I found was that I really needed to let go of my need to control everything, like where the photos were on the disk. Once you do this and accept the iPhoto philosophy, you may find that you can live with it, and in fact, if you are anything like me, you may come to like it much better than the old way of doing things. It took me a while, but once I "got" how iPhoto works and wants to do things, it really became a better tool for me. I can sure as heck find a picture in my iPhoto library waaay faster than I could before, when everything was stored in folders. And, I can avoid having multiple copies of the same photo in different places.

I've actually upgraded to Aperture since I got my DSLR. It's similar to iPhoto, but it actually gives you more control in the sense it lets you easily have multiple libraries, vaults, and referenced files. So, if you still need the type A personality control, it could be a better fit for you. But, I suggest, since you already have it, you give iPhoto an honest chance, and try to do things it's way for a bit, and see if that method of organization doesn't grow on you. It sure did on me.

 

[ddublu]

I was like you once. I would shelf it. If you feel you ever need windows, you can install it on your Mac as a virtual machine in Parallels (what I use) or VMware Fusion. When I made the switch, I setup bootcamp on my Mac. Found I almost never booted in to windows, so converted my bootcmap partition into a virtual machine. Now I can easily run Windows on my Mac if I need to... but I've since found that I really never need to, and have actually moved the virtual machine onto an external drive to free up more disk space.

Also, like you, one of the hardest things I had with was photo management. I used to use folder for all my organization, and Picasa or Photoshop Elements organizer. (I also never used iTunes, and organized my music in my own folders. Similar to the control I had over my photos). I continued with Picasa when I moved to the mac, and it worked well for me. However, I eventually decided to "give this iPhoto thing a try." It imported all of my folder structure and Picasa stuff, and created Events for all of the folders.

What I found was that I really needed to let go of my need to control everything, like where the photos were on the disk. Once you do this and accept the iPhoto philosophy, you may find that you can live with it, and in fact, if you are anything like me, you may come to like it much better than the old way of doing things. It took me a while, but once I "got" how iPhoto works and wants to do things, it really became a better tool for me. I can sure as heck find a picture in my iPhoto library waaay faster than I could before, when everything was stored in folders. And, I can avoid having multiple copies of the same photo in different places.

I've actually upgraded to Aperture since I got my DSLR. It's similar to iPhoto, but it actually gives you more control in the sense it lets you easily have multiple libraries, vaults, and referenced files. So, if you still need the type A personality control, it could be a better fit for you. But, I suggest, since you already have it, you give iPhoto an honest chance, and try to do things it's way for a bit, and see if that method of organization doesn't grow on you. It sure did on me.

Sounds like you know me... lol. I do have control issues and the windows file system has made me very stringent in how I handle files on my computers. I will be using an external HD for my files from the past (close to 300k) but want to be able to edit photos I take moving forward. My DSLR use had died down dramatically since I started using iPhones...Now that I am using the 5, it's even better. That said, I wont be uploading tons of files for manipulation but still want some ability to do so if I wish. Thanks for the input.

 

[windowstomac]

As someone else has said - all you need is a VM (Parallels or VMWare) and you have the comfort of knowing Windows is there when you need it.

I too struggled with photo file management when I first switched to Mac, missing the simplicity of the Picture and Fax viewer in Windows that allows you to flick through all the pics in a folder.

I quickly disposed of iPhoto (hate it) and now use Picasa for everything - after a learning curve I got used to it.

 

[jrs22]

I recently bought a cMBP and dithered about iPhoto for a while. I already had all my old photos on an external HD. When I imported them into iPhoto I didn't check the preferences first and all the photos seemed to be grouped in a non-intuitive fashion. So I downloaded Picasa and imported the photos again in the traditional folder structure that I was accustomed to. Then I read more about iPhoto and saw some postings here about just living with the Mac OSX way of handling files before rejecting the Mac way. So I imported the photos into iPhoto AGAIN, but with the event set at the day photos were taken. Now it will be easy to create albums, because most days all the photos relate to one album subject.

Since I'm still having trouble letting go, after 28 years with PCs, I then exported the photos to an extra external HD with each event as a separate folder. It's crazy, but I wanted a second backup of photos anyway, in addition to Time Machine, and now I have flexibility if I change programs.

I'm in between cameras now, but when my new one arrives, soon, I may find that I'm dissatisfied with the iPhoto tools, in which case I'll be in the market for a more sophisticated app.

 

[ChrisA]

I use Photoshop and yes, it's iPhoto that makes it difficult.

Adobe will allow you to move your Photoshop license from the PC to the Mac for a nominal fee. It's not expensive.

However for tiny edits like crops and color balance adjustments PS is over kill and I can't see what problem you'd have with iPhoto. For anything more than that iPhoto is just not the tool. It is more for organization, not editing. In fact inside "Preferences" yo can set the "photo editor app" Many people set this to "Photoshop" then when you double click a photo in iPhoto, Photoshop comes up, you do your edits and quit and the edits go nto iPhoto. So you can used both.

 

[ChrisA]

Aperture is good, huh? Not convoluted at all?

Of course it will seem "convoluted" at first because you don't know anything about it. It goes MUCH faster after you learn the keyboard shortcuts.

You also have to learn how it stores images. Aperture is no-destructive. That means your raw files are never changed. Aperture stores your edit commands and the raw file then EVERY time you look at the image it-reapplies yur changes. This means that years later you can un-do a crop.

In aperture a "project" is a self-contained unit that holds the images files and the edits and the metadata. You can move projects between computers. Most people store one shoot or one asignment per project but you decide.

Then un top of this you can make ANY number of folders, smart folders, books, light tables and each of these can mix photos from many projects if you like. The files physically live inside the projects and are stored only once but one photoo can be inside 10 foldrs at one if you like.

It works well, for example you have a photo of Mary take in Tokyo. So you can place that in both the "mary" and the "tokyo" folder. but the files live in the "Toko May trip" project.

It might seem convoluted but once you understand the concepts it is simple.

Likewise soe beginners thing Photoshop's "layers" are complex. There are correction layers for teeth whitening and mask layers and pretty soon every images has 15 layers. It is simple once you understand but hard for beginners. Both programs are for pros.

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As someone else has said - all you need is a VM (Parallels or VMWare) and you have the comfort of knowing Windows is there when you need it.

I too struggled with photo file management when I first switched to Mac, missing the simplicity of the Picture and Fax viewer in Windows that allows you to flick through all the pics in a folder.

Finder will do exactly that. and Aperture will too. But do you really want to flip through 24,000 images? Better to select the set you want first.

DOn't bother with Windows on the Mac. Just get the Mac Version of Photoshop. It costs like $15 or so to move it.