[iPhoto] Frustrated new Mac user

Okay I just recently made "the switch." I dumped all my Windows machines and bought a totally loaded Mac Book Pro.

So far my experience has been frustrating more than anything. I'm making an honest effort but I just haven't come across much that impresses me. Not that osx sucks or anything, I was just expecting to be wow'ed. It's just kind of disappointing. About the only thing I've found that I like more about the Mac is time machine+time capsule combination (f'ing awesome!).

Anyway the one thing that is truly absolutely just frustrating the living h*ll out of me is iPhoto. Why does it seem that every application in OSX assumes you are an idiot and forces you to use their way to organize files?

I have thousands of photos which are already organized into folders and sub-folders. Why can't iPhoto just use the way I already have my photos organized!! It wants to create "events" and "albums" and all this other b*llcr*p! And then everything it imports, it copies to the "iPhoto library" essentially creating gigabyte upon gigabyte of wasted space (Yes, I know you can and I have disabled this in preferences). What is so hard about using my existing directory structure!!!!!! Argh. I have seen many people complaining about this on the internet but have yet to see a solution that satisfies me.

I used Picasa in Windows and this app was wonderful for viewing and organizing photos. Unfortunately they don't make it for Mac (yet). Can you recommend a similar app for Mac? Thanks!

Simple solution: dont use iPhoto

Keep them organized by year, folder, sub-folder, what have you, and browse them that way. iPhoto creates events, thats just how it work. Another problem you are having is expecting a Mac to work just like Windows. The faster you get over that mentality the better. I wasnt WOWED by Mac/OSX either. Took me a while to fully appreciate how much better it is. Youll get there eventually.

As far are making duplicates, there is a easy answer to that:

iphoto > preferences > advanced > uncheck "copy items to iphoto library"

That way it will just read from the current location.

fattywatkins said:

(Yes, I know you can and I have disabled this in preferences). What is so hard about using my existing directory structure!!!!!!

Click to expand...

edit - just re-read you post, must have skipped past this. Whats the issue here? If you have disabled it then its not creating "gigs upon gigs of wasted space." I fail to see the problem with this part.

edit - just re-read you post, must have skipped past this. Whats the issue here? If you have disabled it then its not creating "gigs upon gigs of wasted space." I fail to see the problem with this part.

Click to expand...

Oh I was just griping. I just think it is retarded. My hard drive was quickly filling up much faster than I expected and I didn't realize why until I did some looking around and saw how big my iPhoto library was.

And what do you mean just "browse them that way"? You mean in finder? As far as I can tell there is no way to simultaneously look at your folder tree and the photo thumbnails. Am I wrong?

Thanks for the reply.

I love almost everything about my Mac and OS X, but Apple had their head up their ***** when they released iPhoto. They should be embarrassed.

It works fine if you only have a few hundred photos, but you are correct, that they all get lumped into a single heap. And when you need to manage "gigabytes" of photos, in dozens of subfolders (using the PC terminology) you're screwed. They are impossible to organize. How Apple ever released a file management program that does not have an option to alphabetize it's "folders" boggles my mind.

I am a project manager by trade and I need to create folders with job site pics which I can find very easily on the fly in front of a client. Routing through 500 "events" which cannot be sorted other than by date looking for the client's event is totally unprofessional.

Someone is going to point out that you can create albums and attempt to hold it all together that way. The problem with this comes when you want to delete a photo. You can delete it from the album, but it doesn't delete from the event. You still have to route through the 500 events to delete the master.

(Normally, I'm very upbeat and positive about things, and I love seeing people (including myself) being helped to learn about their new Macs here, but my blood pressure skyrockets, when I see someone else dealing with the same stupid issue that made me nuts when I switched...

So, on a positive note, here are some possible solutions I came up with...

1. If you can get ahold of a copy of Apple's Aperture 2 (it's not free), you will find it to be more similar to what you are used to on a PC. You can create extensive trees of folders and subfolders WHICH CAN BE ALPHABETIZED and and easily negotiate through them and view them in an attractive way.

2. I've never used it, but I think I have heard that Adobe Lightroom (also not free) can be used for the same purpose.

3. If you like windows My Pictures file tree setup, then keep using it on the Mac. You don't need any photo organizing software at all. Copy everything out of your My Pictures into a folder on your Mac hard drive. You can easily navigate between folders using Finder and when you find the one you want, switch the view to coverflow. It's a very attractive way to view your photos.

Aside from my little rant above about iPhoto, I love OS X. Tell us what else is disappointing you, and perhaps we can help.

OS X will not revolutionize the way you use the computer. It's beauty is in it's stability. How many times has your Mac locked up and forced you to Ctrl-Alt-Delete since you got it?

Also, this stability has another advantage. When you get a new PC, it runs great at first, but what happens to it over the next couple years? It gradually bogs down until it is unusuable. The internet slowly eats away at the OS (not literally, but it seems that way) until it no longer functions properly. You could reinstall Windows and start fresh, but most people seem to just prefer to buy a new PC. It's acceptable in the PC community to feel like you have to "upgrade" to a new PC every couple years, because your old one gets so slow that you can no longer stand to use it.

Do a search on ebay for older Macs, and you will be amazed at how they hold their value. The reason is because a couple years from now, your Mac will still function as well as it does today. OS X doesn't start to degenerate as soon as you hook it up to a modem.

Another vote for Aperture 2, and since we have that figured out, yup Leopard is just another OS, like linux or ubuntu or red hat. One thing to be wowed by is the lack of viruses and need for A/V software lol. Anyway if you didn't have any problems with windows than a Mac shouldn't be a big leap for you, although I'm sure it'll grow on you overtime, hope you enjoy it and as eveyone else said... DO NOT USE iPhoto, it's good for small amounts of family photos and making cards and calenders and what not, but not for your needs.

fattywatkins said:

And what do you mean just "browse them that way"? You mean in finder? As far as I can tell there is no way to simultaneously look at your folder tree and the photo thumbnails. Am I wrong?

Click to expand...

Open a folder containing some photos with Finder and experiment with a couple different ways of viewing them. Across the top of Finder about a 3rd of the way over are 4 different boxes. These boxes change your views.

The first is thumbnails. Right click in the finder and select "Show View Options". You will then be able to adjust the size of the thumbnails.

The second is a list view. Not real pretty, but select a photo by file name and then press the space bar. You'll see a preview of your selection. With this preview open, move to another photo using the arrow keys. The preview changes with you selection.

The third is a tree view. This takes a little getting used to as it is a little different from the PC, but it will help you navigate subfolders once you get used to it. The space bar also works here.

The fourth is coverflow. It's the coolest of all and self explanatory once you play around with it.

As mentioned, column view (3rd one) or coverflow will allow you to browse folder trees and see a small shot of whats in each folder.

Yep that was my gripe about itunes... When I went to find duplicates (some of them were misnamed, same name, different sizes, misspelt etc) it drove me nuts... One day I transferred them over to my PC and edited them there (this was when I used tiger). Now with 5.2, I went into parallels and did a search for MP3s and realized that I could do it that way rather than figure out networking my PC and mac. Maybe this is an option you might try...

...and another vote for Aperture 2. My photo collection is fairly modest - about 5,000 photos spanning six years - but was highly organized on my PC. I managed to create a huge iPhoto 'blob' as you did before switching to Aperture.

If you do make the switch, there's a couple of things that helped me...
1. Watch the training videos before jumping in, they'll help.
2. Experiment with a small subset of your photos first, to get things how you want. (Even Aperture will 'import' to it's own library if you let it). Once you're comfortable that you've got it working how you want, go for it.

One thing to remember though is that one of the beauties of the Mac is integration between various applications. If you do decide to do things your own way, you might lose a little bit of that convenience. (Worth it in some cases though).

fattywatkins said:

I used Picasa in Windows and this app was wonderful for viewing and organizing photos. Unfortunately they don't make it for Mac (yet). Can you recommend a similar app for Mac? Thanks!

Click to expand...

picasa for Mac:
http://picasa.google.com/web/mac_tools.html

i'm still struggling with iPhoto also... good luck.

MissMurder said:

picasa for Mac:
http://picasa.google.com/web/mac_tools.html

i'm still struggling with iPhoto also... good luck.

Click to expand...

I believe this is a little different. As I understand it, Picasa for Windows is a full blown self contained application like iPhoto (but better). This is an application to assist in the uploading of photos to a Picasa web account (similar to the photo sharing that can be done with a .mac account).

However, a google search does reveal hints of a full blown Picasa application for Mac being released later this year.

2 ways in Finder to display thumbnails of all the pics in a folder. This is 10.5 by the way.

fattywatkins said:

Okay I just recently made "the switch." I dumped all my Windows machines and bought a totally loaded Mac Book Pro.

So far my experience has been frustrating more than anything. I'm making an honest effort but I just haven't come across much that impresses me. Not that osx sucks or anything, I was just expecting to be wow'ed. It's just kind of disappointing. About the only thing I've found that I like more about the Mac is time machine+time capsule combination (f'ing awesome!).

Anyway the one thing that is truly absolutely just frustrating the living h*ll out of me is iPhoto. Why does it seem that every application in OSX assumes you are an idiot and forces you to use their way to organize files?

I have thousands of photos which are already organized into folders and sub-folders. Why can't iPhoto just use the way I already have my photos organized!! It wants to create "events" and "albums" and all this other b*llcr*p! And then everything it imports, it copies to the "iPhoto library" essentially creating gigabyte upon gigabyte of wasted space (Yes, I know you can and I have disabled this in preferences). What is so hard about using my existing directory structure!!!!!! Argh. I have seen many people complaining about this on the internet but have yet to see a solution that satisfies me.

I used Picasa in Windows and this app was wonderful for viewing and organizing photos. Unfortunately they don't make it for Mac (yet). Can you recommend a similar app for Mac? Thanks!

Click to expand...

You should think about purchasing Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. It comes with an awesome organizing tool called "Adobe Bridge". I think you'll be much happier with it.

As far as being unimpressed with your MBP, it is mainly you trying to make it work like a Windows machine that is holding you back. Trust me, I was the same way for about 1-2 weeks. Forget what you know about Windows and learn the Mac. You'll love it soon enough!

Thanks all for the input and suggestions. I've already tried most of what you have all recommended and none of these ways quite accomplish what I am looking for. For example, coverflow in finder is nice, but you can only see a couple thumbnails at a time. And then in icon view you're given a nice display of thumbnails but no directory tree to click on.

When it comes to computers, I am very organized and like an efficient interface. I get frustrated when I have to click half a dozen times when one or two clicks should suffice. To me the optimal layout for browsing photos consists of two vertical panes. One consisting of an expandable/collapsible directory tree, listing all folders and subfolders (so it only takes one click to move to any folder!) and the other pane containing a large layout of thumbnails. Neither finder nor iPhoto can do this (well you can sort of painstakingly manually do it in iPhoto but that would take a long time.)

I think I will end up trying aperture 2 or the Adobe app mentioned. Once again thanks for the input.

rob.h said:

One thing to remember though is that one of the beauties of the Mac is integration between various applications. If you do decide to do things your own way, you might lose a little bit of that convenience. (Worth it in some cases though).

Click to expand...

That was one of the things that drew me to OSX. It seemed like every app worked together seamlessly, but I don't like when programs bully me into doing things a certain way.

fattywatkins said:

When it comes to computers, I am very organized and like an efficient interface. I get frustrated when I have to click half a dozen times when one or two clicks should suffice. To me the optimal layout for browsing photos consists of two vertical panes. One consisting of an expandable/collapsible directory tree, listing all folders and subfolders (so it only takes one click to move to any folder!) and the other pane containing a large layout of thumbnails.

Click to expand...

See if this is what you are looking for. It's basically a OS X version of the Windows Explorer.

http://www.ragesw.com/products/explorer.html

Jay, that was almost exactly what I was going to suggest. It sounds like the OP is just frustrated with a)file structure and b)directory navigation.

Looks like Windows Explorer!

I like Macintosh Explorer, all it's missing is a Filmstrip option, but thumbnails with the tree on the left is handy.

Another possibility is iView MediaPro for organizing photographs. There is a Mac version, however the company was bought by Microsoft last year so can't say what the future holds for further versions.

I kinda had the same issue - looked at Lightroom and Aperture, but I realized that I was organized enough and my file system worked without the benefit of any of these "helpers". So, I don't use iPhoto, even been afraid to open it because it might want to "organize" my photos for me! I use the basic file structure and Adobe Bridge....
Susan