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What Do You Use for Photo Management

What Do You Use for Photo Management?

  • Total voters
    72
  • Poll closed .
J

Jony Mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
393
7
Pittsburgh, PA
I was using iPhoto '09 when I got my mac, and upgraded to iPhoto '11 back in November. It seems a lot slower..ugh. I was wonder what everyone uses to store or "manage" their photos.

I am thinking of downgrading to iPhoto '09 but wanted to get some ideas for better photo management.
 
iPhoto 11 unfortunately. I'm tempted to buy Aperture, just to have a stable, workable program for my photos.
 
iPhoto '09 would take one or two seconds to open on a 2009 MacBook. iPhoto '11 takes 5 - 10 seconds. Scrolling through photos seem to be choppy as well.
 
roadbloc said:
iPhoto 11 unfortunately. I'm tempted to buy Aperture, just to have a stable, workable program for my photos.
Click to expand...

I have Aperture 3..I noticed that ran slow as well with my 10GB library. I read most people recommended having 4GB of RAM. Right now, I only have 2GB, so maybe that has something to do with it.
 
jbosi said:
I have Aperture 3..I noticed that ran slow as well with my 10GB library. I read most people recommended having 4GB of RAM. Right now, I only have 2GB, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Click to expand...
I have 2GB as well. Maybe it's time to max out my Macbook.

Or maybe even treat myself to a new iMac.... ooff... I'm so tempted but I have rent and a child to pay for.
 
You missed lightroom and I believe that one for the most part is the market leader.
 
Lightroom is very comparable to Aperture. but Lightroom is cross-platform, which means it has a huge user base. i just started shooting RAW and am looking at digital developing software. my fiancee has a PC laptop so Lightroom has the advantage for me.
 
Recently purchased Aperature 3.

Before that I had this convoluted system of folders and copies of folders for backups.

Wife wasn't happy about the software purchase for some reason, as she thought the old system was fine.. since it was my problem and not hers.
 
jbosi said:
Why is lightroom so great?
Click to expand...

Because it seems to run effortlessly and fast, supports dual screens, and offers an even greater variety of pro-level editing tools than anything from APple (iPhoto or Apperture). And it is a great cataloger! Having said that, I sometimes still use those nifty card, email and book templates in iPhoto. I used to run iPhoto 09 more, till i accidentally upgraded to 11, when I realized that more was taken away with this so called "upgrade" then given back (a glorified iPad look, without a true full screen view, and with editing panes taking a third of the screen real estate). Having said all of the above, for some unique situations, nothing beats Photoshop, but thats for serious editing only, and I dont use the Bridge. (and for anyone in doubt, more RAM will improve things)
 
Last edited:
I could be 100% wrong on what I am about to say but then I again I could right.

1) Is iPhoto 11 a 64-bit application vs 32-bit iPhoto 11. If so it could be RAM hog.

2) Does iPhoto 11 have Faces and iPhoto 9 not have Faces? If so, and even if not so, is "Faces" checked as an option. I know this is the case for Aperture 3 vs 2. Having Faces checked means that the program will scan all images searching for a face and this takes time. This was one of the reasons for very slow performance in Aperture 3.

I'm not an expert in tis area and never used iPhoto. Switched to Mac about a year ago and used Photoshop and Bridge exclusively and just purchased Aperture 3. No speed problems but then again I have Faces not checked in Preferences and also have 8Gb RAM and an Arrandale CPU.
 
Vantage Point said:
I could be 100% wrong on what I am about to say but then I again I could right.

1) Is iPhoto 11 a 64-bit application vs 32-bit iPhoto 11. If so it could be RAM hog.

2) Does iPhoto 11 have Faces and iPhoto 9 not have Faces? If so, and even if not so, is "Faces" checked as an option. I know this is the case for Aperture 3 vs 2. Having Faces checked means that the program will scan all images searching for a face and this takes time. This was one of the reasons for very slow performance in Aperture 3.

I'm not an expert in tis area and never used iPhoto. Switched to Mac about a year ago and used Photoshop and Bridge exclusively and just purchased Aperture 3. No speed problems but then again I have Faces not checked in Preferences and also have 8Gb RAM and an Arrandale CPU.
Click to expand...

I just checked (I run latest updates of software):
iPhoto 11 is NOT 64-bit.
Adobe PS5, and Lightroom 3.3 are both 64-bit.

ANd BTW: choices in the Poll are strange: I store my pictures in dated folders on HD, and then export needed folders in to the software that I will work with on them, and in export I specify not to "move" originals, but copy them instead for software's needs elsewhere. I know this creates a double-up as most modern editing software does not touch the originals, rather saves the editing instructions to file, but still. This way I always have the originals intact, eventhough I may have doubles or triple copies in iPhoto and LRs catalogues.
 
Last edited:
jbosi said:
Why is lightroom so great?
Click to expand...

DenisK said:
Because it seems to run effortlessly and fast, supports dual screens, and offers an even greater variety of pro-level editing tools than anything from APple (iPhoto or Apperture). And it is a great cataloger! Having said that, I sometimes still use those nifty card, email and book templates in iPhoto. I used to run iPhoto 09 more, till i accidentally upgraded to 11, when I realized that more was taken away with this so called "upgrade" then given back (a glorified iPad look, without a true full screen view, and with editing panes taking a third of the screen real estate). Having said all of the above, for some unique situations, nothing beats Photoshop, but thats for serious editing only, and I dont use the Bridge. (and for anyone in doubt, more RAM will improve things)
Click to expand...
^^^This is why.

Lightroom is better on system resources, then aperture and its editing functions are generally a bit head then aperture. I also think LightRoom's rendering of RAW images is a bit better, but this seems subjective only because recent tests have shown that both handle it almost identically.

I also think aperture makes some images overly soft when working on them. I read a thread here about how images are too soft after using the straightening tool.

Over all, Aperture and Lightroom are very close feature wise, but adobe has a much better track record for image editing and updating its products. Aperture goes for long stretches of time between edits and that can be a frustrating thing.
 
I'm not sure what to do really. When I ran Windows I just stored them in a folder structure by Year .. Month .. Date.

When I bought my Mac I went to iPhoto. I tried using Aperture 3 for a while but it seemed slow. As I mentioned, probably due to my MacBook only having 2GB of RAM. I upgraded to iPhoto 11 because it was 1.) new & 2.) looked awesome, however now it just seems slower.

I have Photoshop, but I dont even use it..so I'm not sure if it is worth going back to iLife '09...and trying to find a good way to get my photos organized.
 
Aperture 3. Love that software.

And I agree with others. Lightroom should be listed, and it is a truly excellent program. It is better than Aperture in a number of ways. I've toyed around with the idea of switching a few times. I'll probably wait until Aperture 4 is described.
 
When i created this, I didnt even think of Lightroom. I put Other in the options..it would be nice if there is a way to create a poll, and if no option exists forum members can add their own choice.
 
open polls in forums are generally unwise. you'll get 5 votes for Armadillos before you know it. ;)

just a quick question: are you shooting RAW or JPEG? if you are shooting JPEG, then i would probably stick with iPhoto. faster than Aperture, good organization, and as you've said, you've got Photoshop if you need to do any more advanced editing. Plus nice integration with the rest of your mac/iLife. Aperture/Lightroom really come into play when you are dealing with a lot of RAW processing, imo.
 
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I shoot jpg only. I wonder if the photos on my MobileMe gallery cause a slowdown with iPhoto. Does anyone know if having galleries on MobileMe have performance issues with iPhoto. Does synching add size to the iPhoto database? I synch photos to my iPhone too. I wonder if that is making iPhoto bloat.
 
I'm trying something with my 12GB library to see if this speeds it up. Also, this would help you move back to iPhoto 09 if needed.

I moved my Photo Library database from my pictures folder to my desktop. Right Clicked on it, showed package contents. I dragged the "Masters" Folder out to my desktop.

Then I created a new iPhoto Library (iPhoto '11) and imported everything again. I'm wondering if something got screwy going from iPhoto '09 to iPhoto '11. Everything was still stored in events, there was a few I had to "Merge Events", and a handful I had to rename to a meaningful name. This was not painful at all.

Doing what I did with the Masters folder, will give you a directory with all your photos in it. You could import these back to iPhoto '09.

This took me about 15 minutes to import over 5,500 photos and movies. Hopefully this helps.
 
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