06-07-2006, 12:04 AM

At Apple Store last week, got a jolt while working with brought-with-me CD with some of my photo files on it. CD folder contained many photos of family saved in Tif format.

On the Mac, folder opens up showing icons-only, along with descriptions. In other words, one has to READ the description to know what the photo is because all the icons are the same. What the.....?

In XP, each thumbnail in the folder is the picture itself with the description below. MUCH easier to scan and sort. Staff at Apple Store showed me how to highlight description and bring up individual thumbnails -- one at a time. NONE them seemed to understand why this would be a problem when dealing with thousands of pictures EACH ONE OF WHICH would have to be highlighted and opened up like that in order to be seen even as a thumbnail. I was really blown away by this.

I do, indeed, have thousands of these pix in my files!!!! The concept of READING the description of each and every thumbnail icon and bringing up each photo individually in order to determine what it is is seems totally nuts to me. Thumbnail images such as I am accustomed to from XP is inarguably superior. I'm thinking superior in terms of total deal-breaker if I'm considering switch-over to Mac.

Can't quite believe this. What am I missing? "Everybody knows" Mac's where its at for photos. Surely Mac-based photogs can't work with a system like this. How do they work? Gotta believe I'm overlooking something and/or mis-communicating with store staffers.

06-07-2006, 12:29 AM

After you put the disc in and you are looking at all the identical icons, go to View>Show View Options (or just press command-J, where command is the key with the apple on). Now check the "Show Icon Preview" box, you may also want to increase the icon size.

BUT, you shouldnt really be using the file browser for this, OS X comes with an iLife application called iPhoto which you can import all your photos into and organise in many wonderful ways.

06-07-2006, 12:52 AM

Professional photographers most likely also use Aperture (www.apple.com/aperture)

06-07-2006, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Aptmunich

Professional photographers most likely also use Aperture (www.apple.com/aperture)

Thanks for response. Poked around iLife and Aperture intro's this morning. I can see either/both handle the "problem" I described as do other photo-programs in XP platform. I'm thinking non-issue in-practice. Thinking I'm carrying the Windows mind-set everywhere I look.

06-07-2006, 11:39 AM

If you set the View Options to Columns , each file will show the preview instantly when you highlight it. Try it next time you go to the apple store.

06-07-2006, 11:47 AM

The reason it doesn't do this by default is that these thumbnails take a while to load. On XP you're usually waiting on those thumbnails to load, while on Mac (using Column view), you could already have thems sorted.

06-07-2006, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by surfwax95

The reason it doesn't do this by default is that these thumbnails take a while to load. On XP you're usually waiting on those thumbnails to load, while on Mac (using Column view), you could already have thems sorted.

This is incorrect. In XP on my machine (hp media center pc m490n; P4; 3.4) they come up almost instantly.

06-07-2006, 03:52 PM

The difference here is the thumbnail cache. In Windows you will find a file in each folder called thumbs.db, or something like that. It is the cache for all the thumbnails a and Windows just references the file if it is there. Hence, your experience after the first time into the folder is that the thumbnails just pop up instantly.

The Mac does the same thing. After your first time through a folder with "Show Icon Preview" checked in the View Options, the Mac has cached the thumbnails and will bring them back for you instantaneously. Like you, I have literally THOUSANDS of pictures in my collection (been using digital cameras for a LONG time) and I really appreciate this feature.

The one thing I can't figure out is where the Mac caches those thumbnails. It is not in the folder itself. I expected it to be in ~/Library/Caches, but unless it is in a really obscure place, I haven't been able to find it. I am going to have to go on a hunt and find it. I suspect that every image I have ever viewed is cached somewhere, and that cache is just growing and growing and growing... One day it will eat my hard drive!! :-)

06-07-2006, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by mac57

...the thumbnail cache.... The Mac does the same thing. After your first time through a folder with "Show Icon Preview" checked in the View Options, the Mac has cached the thumbnails and will bring them back for you instantaneously.

Thanks for this perspective. Makes me feel more comfortable, since I just ordered my iMac this morning. However, seems strange none of the people at the store seemed to know that.

06-07-2006, 04:16 PM

Originally Posted by asolo

Thanks for this perspective. Makes me feel more comfortable, since I just ordered my iMac this morning. However, seems strange none of the people at the store seemed to know that.

That bothers me as well that the Apple Store people did not even know to just click column view. I figured that out the first day I ever messed with OSX and pictures.

Anyway, hope you enjoy your iMac. If we can help in any way just ask.

06-07-2006, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

That bothers me as well that the Apple Store people did not even know to just click column view. I figured that out the first day I ever messed with OSX and pictures.

I may be misrepresenting and misreading. The store staffers did, indeed, know how to go to "column view". In that mode they showed me how to click on the listed picture and bring up a thumbnail However, what I was shown was a one-thumbnail-at-a-time procedure. If one is dealing with hundreds or thousands of pictures, it would be quite ridiculous to approach the picture-selection process by clicking on list names one-at-a-time to see a thumbnail. They also showed me how to click on groups of names and bring up groups of thumbnails. I thought that equally ridiculous compared with the obviously superior method of simply having the thumbnails and names come up together.

What I have been accustomed to in XP is to open a folder full of pictures (jpg or tif) and have the entire folder-full of pix display in thumbnails with their titles. When the Mac didn't do that and staff couldn't show me anything but "column-view" and its one-thumbnail-at-a-time procedure, I almost freaked.

06-07-2006, 04:59 PM

I must of somehow misread your message. That is what column view does. I would say that half my pics do show the thumbnail in the icon though. On my XP systems there are some pics that do not show a thumbnail in the icon also. I have run XP since it first came out and there are for sure some pics that do not show the thumbnail unless I click on them and open them.

I have found OSX about the same for me in that respect. I will do some looking around though and see if there is another way.

I keep all my pics in iPhoto and don't mess with them in the Finder much at all.

06-07-2006, 05:00 PM

Well, here's what I do if I have around 10-20 pictures to review.

Highlight all of them.
Hit Command+O.

On a Mac with respectable specs, this will take about 3 seconds and work beautifully.

06-07-2006, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by surfwax95

Well, here's what I do if I have around 10-20 pictures to review.

Highlight all of them.
Hit Command+O.

On a Mac with respectable specs, this will take about 3 seconds and work beautifully.

Tried it, works well. Took maybe 2-3 seconds on iMac G5 2.1Ghz.

When you get your iMac, give that a try. It displays every pic with a thumbnail. I think it will do what you want. It's free so give it a try. It's called CocoViewX.

http://www.stalkingwolf.net/software/cocoviewx/