09-29-2008, 06:29 AM

What do you guys use to organize your pictures? I tried iPhoto and didn't like it. Just using the finder is ok but I dont like the way it always minimizes my thumbnails so that I can barley see the picture when Im scrolling through a folder, I realize you can manually increase the thumbnail size but its annoying when you have to do that for each and every folder. Ive read some reviews on photoshop elements and lightroom but they seem alittle overkill for what I want. I have about 1-2k pictures and Im just looking for something to better organize, tag and view them.

09-29-2008, 07:38 AM

Personally I use Picasa via Parallels (or Crossover) and hope everyday (probably in vain) that a Googler with a little time on their hands will port it over to OS X.

Adobe Bridge (that comes with Elements) is pretty good if a little 'heavy'
Finder with quicklook is good for a quick flick through images.

09-29-2008, 07:44 AM

at 1st I didn't like iPhoto very much because on my old PC I used to organised my pictures into chronological folders like (2008>January>Party)

but now I'm used to the way iPhoto organise pictures by Event and found it very convenient.
You can also tag your pictures and use smart albums features to sort automatically your pictures

How long have you been trying iPhoto, if you haven't tried it for a while maybe you just need to some time to get used to it.

09-29-2008, 07:53 AM

I'm in the middle of making the switch to Picassa to Light Room. Light Room might be a bit much for most people, but it seems to load up all my libraries super fast, and so far I'm finding it easy to select pictures for publishing/printing, etc. I like the way it automatically backs up my downloads from my memory card as its bringing it into my library. I usually have about 300 pic per month, so I'm getting up there in terms of volume.

09-29-2008, 09:32 AM

I used Picasa on windows to and liked it alot, Ive read some articles saying there going to port it over to macs soon, wishful thinking probly but I can still hope. As for iPhoto, yes I've tried the latest iPhoto but I just dont like it. I'd prefer to use something else, especially with all the horror stories ive heard. Im gonna give Adobe Elements 6 a try, the price seemed reasonable. Lightroom seemed alittle to heavy for what I needed and fairly expensive.
Id heard alot of good things about iView media pro too but I seen that microsoft bought them out and replaced it with expression studio or something. I havent had alot of good experiences with microsoft products so Im gonna stay away from that.

09-29-2008, 09:50 AM

finder and xee - does pretty much all i need (even for thousands of photos).

09-30-2008, 04:30 PM

Given that this MacUniverse is so graphics driven, I am dumbfounded by how unfriendly iPhoto is, and the general MacWorld is toward photos. It seems that if you don't want to do exactly what Mac wants with your pics, you are in trouble.
I can't stand iPhoto and its organization.

I want two folders - Personal and Work.
Within personal I want to have folders by year and then folders by "roll of film" I really don't need or want Events by day I used my camera... total overkill.

Within my Work folders, I want a Stock folder and then a folder for photos / images by web site I am working on, and folders for each client.

I find myself using finder and just keeping the org the way I want it. However, in this thread people have said that this can corrupt my files?

What gives? I can't move a file in Leopard and not have it corrupted? Am I the only one who thinks that Events (and Picassa does it the same way... I threw that in the old PC recycling bin a week after I got it several years ago) are silly and little help in organizing.

I need some help here, 'cause I don't see how to organize other than by hand.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/mac...gry-Tongue.png

09-30-2008, 04:57 PM

I'm with you on iPhoto - have a look at Adobe Bridge it will allow you to work the way you want.

What gives? I can't move a file in Leopard and not have it corrupted? Am I the only one who thinks that Events (and Picassa does it the same way... I threw that in the old PC recycling bin a week after I got it several years ago) are silly and little help in organizing.

Have to disagree there.
1. Leopard doesn't corrupt files - your confusing iPhotos fixed file structure with Leopards abilities
2. Picasa lists images by date or by the folder structure you create in anyway you like. It's just a single button to toggle between the two views! I have 30,000+ images in Picasa. Stored in multiple layers of folders, on differing partitions and disks..... all of my choosing.

10-01-2008, 08:06 AM

Not a big MS fan here but have to say Expressions Media 2 (the MS name for iView) is working out well for me and is the only thing in the price range I could find that I wanted.

10-01-2008, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by wkdavis

Given that this MacUniverse is so graphics driven, I am dumbfounded by how unfriendly iPhoto is, and the general MacWorld is toward photos. It seems that if you don't want to do exactly what Mac wants with your pics, you are in trouble.
I can't stand iPhoto and its organization.

I want two folders - Personal and Work.
Within personal I want to have folders by year and then folders by "roll of film" I really don't need or want Events by day I used my camera... total overkill.

Within my Work folders, I want a Stock folder and then a folder for photos / images by web site I am working on, and folders for each client.

This describes my situation exactly. iPhoto is built with some catchy eye candy to make it look cool in the Apple store showing the 10 stock photos that are preloaded on the machine. But in reality, for someone with 1000+ photos, or someone trying to use it for light business purposes, it's useless.

I use Aperture 2. It's overkill, but at least it lets you create a structure of sub-folders to organize your work. Aside from it's incompatibility with Time Machine, I'm happy with it.

10-01-2008, 09:42 AM

Not sure how "unfriendly" mac is toward pictures, iPhoto may be fine for people who don't use photos in a business way. I have to have all of mine (jpegs, pngs and psds) catalogued and keyworded. I also have to have a set of idiosyncratic folders. Events are meaningless in my world. iPhoto's maximum catalogue size is very small for me, even using iPhoto Buddy. Can't use Lightroom because it didn't handle pngs. At the end of the day, Expressions Media 2 was not a choice but the only one left standing. Happy to say, I like it. Cannot remember why Aperture wasn't right for me.

I am not really surprised iPhoto is so lightweight-- Windows doesn't come with a digital imaging system either. I bought all of mine in Windows. What I am surprised about is that there are virtually no mac programs. Not a professional so didn't want to spend more than a couple of hundred dollars. I had a dozen choices for that in Windows and only two in Leopard. One of which is unsupported and probably close to extinction.

10-01-2008, 07:25 PM

I think I can add this here.......How do you guys find duplicate photos but different titles to them? is there a program that can identify dupilicates?

10-01-2008, 07:30 PM

So happy to have you post! I feel like I have been talking to myself a lot here, lol! I actually asked that last week and ended up finding my own answer. It is a program called Compare Folders. It is not a full fledged Finder replacement but it does search and synchronise and compare. I am running it still in trial mode. I think you get nine or ten tries before you have to buy. So far, it has worked perfectly for me.

10-01-2008, 07:36 PM

Cool do you have a link for it?

10-01-2008, 07:45 PM

iNexus : Products : Compare Folders

There is also a very very cool program by Araxmis that a poster here pointed me to but it was way over the top for what I needed (and $199 vs. $29) so I didnt' even check it out.