Will iPhoto suit my needs?

[udontno]

Hey guys.

I've got a MacBook Pro as well as a Canon t3 EOS camera headed to my house. It was quite the purchase week, needless to say.

I'd consider myself to be a newbie photographer, but not entirely. I've used several very expensive cameras at my high school. Pictures that I've taken have appeared in the yearbook, school newspaper, local newspaper, and presentations at the school. At home, I was using an awful point and shoot with Picasa to manage my pictures on my Windows XP laptop.

Now, with the nice upgrade to a much better camera and a much better computer, do you think iPhoto will be enough to manage my library? I routinely took thousands of pictures when shooting events for school. I just bought a 1TB external to store all of my documents, music, and pictures so I won't junk up the hard drive on my Mac. In the past, I've rarely edited images... I'll maybe fix some blemishes, sometimes mess around with the color, but never done anything too serious. Do you think iPhoto will suit my needs for managing my library? Will I be able to have photos stored on both the external and the internal hard drive... will iPhoto still play nice with that scenario? I'd like to keep some of the more recent shots on the computer when I'm actively working with them.

 

[Macman45]

Iphoto

Iphoto is pretty basic, but it's not a bad starting point, the step up from there would be Aperture which is around £59.00 from the app store. Best thing to do is see how you get on with iPhoto. If it does what you want, then no need to spend any more money.

If not, it's there when you want it.

 

[carlgo]

I went from iPhoto to A3 and would recommend iPhoto for most people, almost everyone actually. iPhoto has all of the basic adjustment features and if you actually need more you can get state of the art results with Elements, etc.

It is easy to drag an image into Elements, etc., work on it and bring it back.

Check out the tech supt sites for A3. It can be pretty daunting and I think really time-consuming for the average photographer.

 

[udontno]

I went from iPhoto to A3 and would recommend iPhoto for most people, almost everyone actually. iPhoto has all of the basic adjustment features and if you actually need more you can get state of the art results with Elements, etc.

It is easy to drag an image into Elements, etc., work on it and bring it back.

Check out the tech supt sites for A3. It can be pretty daunting and I think really time-consuming for the average photographer.

I've been looking at A3 and it seems like it would be a bit... complex for me. I'm hoping iPhoto will do the trick. I've always liked Picasa on Windows, so if iPhoto isn't doing the trick then maybe Picasa for Mac will. How do those two programs compare?

 

[jsfpa]

I've been looking at A3 and it seems like it would be a bit... complex for me. I'm hoping iPhoto will do the trick. I've always liked Picasa on Windows, so if iPhoto isn't doing the trick then maybe Picasa for Mac will. How do those two programs compare?

You can always start with iPhoto and if later you feel you need more then upgrade to Aperture. Your iPhoto library will easily import in to Aperture.

 

[Badrottie]

first learn iphoto first until you are mastered then A3 or LR.

 

[MonkeySee....]

Like you op, i used picasa for windows but moved on to iPhoto. Like for like there isn't much difference except iPhoto being a bit more polished and plays with the Mac well being an apple product of course.

You can do basic touch ups to remove blemishes and also remove red eye etc and iPhoto has a really nice feature for sending a few photos via email to family etc.

I can imagine it will get a slight redesign to work with iCloud also as it has nice intergration with MobileMe at the moment.

As far as Aperture goes its not as user friendly as iPhoto but it depends on what you want to get out of your photos.

 

[udontno]

Like you op, i used picasa for windows but moved on to iPhoto. Like for like there isn't much difference except iPhoto being a bit more polished and plays with the Mac well being an apple product of course.

You can do basic touch ups to remove blemishes and also remove red eye etc and iPhoto has a really nice feature for sending a few photos via email to family etc.

I can imagine it will get a slight redesign to work with iCloud also as it has nice intergration with MobileMe at the moment.

As far as Aperture goes its not as user friendly as iPhoto but it depends on what you want to get out of your photos.

Did you use Picasa Web Albums? I had several of my albums synced with Picasa Web Albums...I did find out that you can download a plugin or whatever so you can upload to Picasa Web from iPhoto.

 

[MonkeySee....]

Did you use Picasa Web Albums? I had several of my albums synced with Picasa Web Albums...I did find out that you can download a plugin or whatever so you can upload to Picasa Web from iPhoto.

I've heard that too and i did use Web albums when i had my PC but the whole feel of iPhoto and MobileMe was nicer.

You can also upload to Flickr and Facebook if i remember rightly.

 

[I AM THE MAN]

Hey guys.

I've got a MacBook Pro as well as a Canon t3 EOS camera headed to my house. It was quite the purchase week, needless to say.

I'd consider myself to be a newbie photographer, but not entirely. I've used several very expensive cameras at my high school. Pictures that I've taken have appeared in the yearbook, school newspaper, local newspaper, and presentations at the school. At home, I was using an awful point and shoot with Picasa to manage my pictures on my Windows XP laptop.

Now, with the nice upgrade to a much better camera and a much better computer, do you think iPhoto will be enough to manage my library? I routinely took thousands of pictures when shooting events for school. I just bought a 1TB external to store all of my documents, music, and pictures so I won't junk up the hard drive on my Mac. In the past, I've rarely edited images... I'll maybe fix some blemishes, sometimes mess around with the color, but never done anything too serious. Do you think iPhoto will suit my needs for managing my library? Will I be able to have photos stored on both the external and the internal hard drive... will iPhoto still play nice with that scenario? I'd like to keep some of the more recent shots on the computer when I'm actively working with them.

I purchased my T3 recently too...I love it.

I prefer Photoshop over iPhoto for editing. iPhoto as mentioned above is pretty basic and I'm sure you'll outgrow it really quick.

 

[Mrswagswag]

I had iPhoto for three years and it's really basic. Try light room 3 it's the best. They have a free 30 day trail. Once you try it you'll never go back!

 

[cupcakes2000]

Aperture is harder to learn than iphoto, but it's not at all that complicated. The hardest thing to learn is to not get carried away on the slider. It is very Simply laid out, and is very quick and easy way to get rid of most things.
It also is waaaay more powerful than iphoto. I would without a doubt drop the money on Aperture to make the absolute best out of your two new purposes.

Fyi my work flow is RAW into Image Capture first to not import the obvious rubbish.
Then I import into iphoto, Which I use as a sort of master library for everything i shoot.
From there Import the keepers in to Aperture. Aperture then is free from 'snapshots' and only contains my best work.
I can then 'fix' almost anything I need to like 99%.
If it's getting too crazy, then it's into photoshop. This is also made simple. You right click then export to photoshop (or whatever programme), and when you have done whatever to it, just cmd-s and the changes are reflected straight away in you aperture library.
All of this is also totally non destructive.
When it comes to exporting Aperture also has much better options.

 

[Macaddums]

iPhoto is pretty basic, I've used photoshop extensively but I couldn't see spending another $600 to buy the Mac version, in fact that reason alone kept me from going Mac. Then I heard about the GNU project and the Free program called GIMP believe it or not all the power of photoshop is there, it's just grouped differently and takes a little time to get reorganized. I have GIMP on my Mac mini and my MB unibody. Bye bye windows!

 

[OreoCookie]

first learn iphoto first until you are mastered then A3 or LR.

---^--- This. ---^---

Learn the limitations of your current workflow, then you can articulate much better what you need or don't need. Aperture is much more complicated than iPhoto (by design), because with added possibilities comes added complexity.

 

[jkmags]

just an fyi, Amazon has Lightroom 3 on sale for 150 I believe (half off, not sure if something new is coming out), if you're a student you can get it for even less with the educational discount package.

 

[mtbdudex]

first learn iphoto first until you are mastered then A3 or LR.

---^--- This. ---^---

Learn the limitations of your current workflow, then you can articulate much better what you need or don't need. Aperture is much more complicated than iPhoto (by design), because with added possibilities comes added complexity.

---^--- This. ---^---

You will be on information overload learning your DSLR and new software, trust me, it happened to me 2 years ago and I'm sure many others here also experienced that.

For now, learn your camera and "exposure" there is so much to that word, a whole bookload! (many-many books actually)

Give yourself 3-4-5 months, and use iPhoto, its "free" and decently powerful.
Yes, it uploads to Picasa Web/facebook.

Then, after 4-5 months, look at your digital workflow and consider what/if you need more powerful organizing/and/or editing sofware and cross that bridge then.

Not now, walk before you run.

Have fun also, that's part of this thing called "Photography" also, lets not forget it.

 

[snberk103]

---^--- This. ---^---

You will be on information overload learning your DSLR and new software, trust me, it happened to me 2 years ago and I'm sure many others here also experienced that.

For now, learn your camera and "exposure" there is so much to that word, a whole bookload! (many-many books actually)

Give yourself 3-4-5 months, and use iPhoto, its "free" and decently powerful.
Yes, it uploads to Picasa Web/facebook.

Then, after 4-5 months, look at your digital workflow and consider what/if you need more powerful organizing/and/or editing sofware and cross that bridge then.

Not now, walk before you run.

Have fun also, that's part of this thing called "Photography" also, lets not forget it.

---^--- This. ---^---

I will also add.... iPhoto is designed to organize your photos, and it also does some editing. What I mean by this is.... Photoshop (or GIMP, or another editing package) and iPhoto (or Aperture or Lightroom) are for doing two different things and are supposed work hand in glove with each other.

The power of iPhoto is the use of keywords, plus albums, plus Smart Albums. Instead of creating and maintaining a complicated hierarchical folder structure, let iPhoto maintain the folders. As you import your images spend the time to keyword the images as they go in. Read up on keywording before you begin the project.

If/when you grow out of iPhoto the upgrade to Aperture is relatively painless. I don't know about the upgrade to Lightroom, so can't speak to that.

Good Luck

 

[udontno]

Just wanted to come back and post to update everyone... I've been quite the happy camper with iPhoto for the moment. I've been amazed by some of the features and it might be enough for what simple editing I do at the moment as well. I've already taken about 1,000 pictures with the camera and soon I will be curious as to how to move files over to the external hard drive. Actually, I'm already curious as to how to view and edit my files in iPhoto while leaving them on the external... I have some photos there.

I'm about to post a thread now about a blue ribbon that I just won in the county fair for one of my pictures, so be sure to keep your eyes open for that.

 

[danpass]

Just wanted to come back and post to update everyone... I've been quite the happy camper with iPhoto for the moment. I've been amazed by some of the features and it might be enough for what simple editing I do at the moment as well. I've already taken about 1,000 pictures with the camera and soon I will be curious as to how to move files over to the external hard drive. Actually, I'm already curious as to how to view and edit my files in iPhoto while leaving them on the external... I have some photos there.

I'm about to post a thread now about a blue ribbon that I just won in the county fair for one of my pictures, so be sure to keep your eyes open for that.

cool, congrats

 

[snberk103]

... Actually, I'm already curious as to how to view and edit my files in iPhoto while leaving them on the external... I have some photos there.

I'm about to post a thread now about a blue ribbon that I just won in the county fair for one of my pictures, so be sure to keep your eyes open for that.

Let me be the 2nd to congratulate you! Very nice.....

One of the features of iPhoto that is not apparent is the ability to easily point it at different libraries. When iPhoto is closed, click on the icon while holding the option/alt key (on the keyboard). You can create more than Library here, or point it at different one, etc etc. I wouldn't recommend more than one library at this point. It's useful for when you have personal and a work photos on the same system - for example, but the internal organization of iPhoto is sufficient for just about anything else. Read the Help pages on creating and moving libraries. They are quite helpful. The next thing to do is to set up a backup strategy. At a minimum you should have your photos in at least two spots at all times. Better if there is a 3rd copy stored off-site.

The most common loss of photos is due to a HDD gone bad. So, having a 2nd copy of the images on a 2nd HDD (not a 2nd partition on the same drive!) protects against the majority of losses. However, two HDDs in the same spot does not protect you from water spills, fires, theft, etc. The off-site copy can be little dated (eg. doesn't have the images from the past 2 weeks) but at least has the majority of the photos.

You can also backup to the Cloud. Lots of threads have already been written on backup strategies.... just search and read.

Congrats again....

 

[udontno]

I tend to have copies of my good photos in lots of locations, both online and here there and everywhere.

I will read about the multiple library management with iPhoto, definitely need to buy another external hard drive for backups of the hard drive I have.

Thanks for the congratulations guys!

 

[mtbdudex]

I tend to have copies of my good photos in lots of locations, both online and here there and everywhere.

I will read about the multiple library management with iPhoto, definitely need to buy another external hard drive for backups of the hard drive I have.

Thanks for the congratulations guys!

Congratulations!

Before posting online - for your protection:
-watermark your photo
-don't upload larger that 800pix wide 7 jpg quality

 

[udontno]

Congratulations!

Before posting online - for your protection:
-watermark your photo
-don't upload larger that 800pix wide 7 jpg quality

How do I watermark a photo? I've never watermarked them, so I don't know how to go about doing it...

Can I resize the pictures in iPhoto? How? Why shouldn't I upload them in whatever size they are in now... Sorry for so many questions, I'm just a noob.

 

[mtbdudex]

How do I watermark a photo? I've never watermarked them, so I don't know how to go about doing it...

Can I resize the pictures in iPhoto? How? Why shouldn't I upload them in whatever size they are in now... Sorry for so many questions, I'm just a noob.

There is a search function here, I typed "watermark", this is for items with it in the title and the photography forum.
https://forums.macrumors.com/search/?searchid=24177206

 

[snberk103]

How do I watermark a photo? I've never watermarked them, so I don't know how to go about doing it...

Can I resize the pictures in iPhoto? How? Why shouldn't I upload them in whatever size they are in now... Sorry for so many questions, I'm just a noob.

As posted above, the easiest way to get answers is to use the "Search" function.

What may not be easy to find the is the answer to "Why not post the full size images?" Simply because other people are going to copy the photo and start distributing it without your permission, without giving you credit, and certainly without sharing any of the money they may be able make from it. Small versions of a photo are not nearly as usable, so aren't pirated (as much).