Software better than iPhoto?

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Anyone have any suggestions for a software opposite of iPhoto?

My needs are to upload pictures (Doing this with mostly scanned and digital family pictures of which I have thousands) and organize them. iPhoto just seems to make everything so complicated and its a pain to find them on the computer through finder. Not only do I want them organized in the program, but also in the folders so I can easily find the pictures through the folders (which iPhoto makes impossible).

Any suggestions? Willing to pay. Thanks
 
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Google Picasa
 
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I second Picasa - just started using it and it meets my needs.
 
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I'm afraid that your options are extremely limited if you want the software to be free. Picassa was already mentioned and the only thing available which is free for now.

If you're willing to pay, depending on what you want out of photo managing software, there are a slew of options out there. If you're not a pro, and want to go a level higher than iPhoto, you might check out Aperture. There's a free 30 day trial up on the Apple website right now.

I personally use Adobe's Lightroom 2 (soon to be 3 with major new features) but downloaded the Aperture trial just for kicks to see if it has made any new leaps since the first time I tried it (and didn't like it).

While there are a lot of new features (they note 200) I still don't like it nearly as much as Lightroom for several reasons. The most important reason being: it's an insane resource hog when it comes to importing and processing photos.

The other day I went to import almost half of my photo library (about 8k photos) which consisted solely of RAW files. Long story short, I could not do a single other thing while the importing and processing was going on. It took up more than 160% of my cpu cycles and more than half my physical RAM. It wasn't so much the importing, but the processing which I think consists of creating thumbnails for all the photos. And this is an absolutely necessary thing for it to do. It was also processing faces for its face recognition, but I wound up turning that feature off, and yet it sill ate up all of my MacBook Pro's resources.

Lightroom has never been this way under any circumstances. Outside of that, however, I think the GUI is very nice and clean, easy to navigate and is very intuitive. BTW, Lightroom also has a free trial for its beta 3 version.

Try both, but also try and get an understanding of how each of them works because the workflow is totally different for each. I use Lightroom in a fashion which allows me to utilize folders exactly as they are in Finder, as well as by keywords, full metadata (automatically shows dates in a different pane) and by collections. So I get the best of everything. I'm not sure if Aperture does folders as they're seen in Finder, but it might.

Outside of these, I really like Photo Mechanic, but it's not free either.

Google will also yield results under "photo management OS X"

Doug
 
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Aperture has a decent nested folder organizing system, but it's overkill if all your using it for is to sort photos. Unfortunately, it also stores all your photos in a single Library package which is ridiculous.

I actually went back to the old fashioned way we used to do it on PC. Create a My Pictures folder. Make as many subfolders however you want and stick them all in there. Apple tried to reinvent the wheel with iPhoto and it bombed.
 

CrimsonRequiem


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I just downloaded the trial version, and I was not pleased that you have to update your photo library which can't be used by Aperture 2. >_>"
 
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I just downloaded the trial version, and I was not pleased that you have to update your photo library which can't be used by Aperture 2. >_>"

Correct, it creates an Aperture Library, which is essentially a duplicate of the iPhoto Library.
 
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As it happens, this helps me too! I've just been trying Aperture 3 and found its picture processing features very useful. But, like everyone else, I don't like being locked into a photo library like iPhoto's - so, I'll probably try Lightroom to check out the features. I also use Picassa, but its processing capabilities are very limited, and I have Elements 8.0 for more detailed work.
 
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As it happens, this helps me too! I've just been trying Aperture 3 and found its picture processing features very useful. But, like everyone else, I don't like being locked into a photo library like iPhoto's - so, I'll probably try Lightroom to check out the features. I also use Picassa, but its processing capabilities are very limited, and I have Elements 8.0 for more detailed work.

I have never used Elements before. What does it not do that you need it to ? I really think that if you can afford Lightroom, you'll love it. Be aware though, version 3 is going to look a bit different than the current version 2, so you might want to hold off on purchasing it until 3 is out. If you're in school, or know someone who is, or if you're an educator, there's a great website which will grant you half or more off the price. Registering is a bit of a pain, but well worth it. Lightroom 2 is now 99$ with free shipping. The only catch is, your school has to be participating, and you have to prove you work or go to that school. (Email an ID photo)

It's :

Search results for Lightroom 2 at Academic Superstore

Even at full price, LR is worth its weight in gold. It is becoming so powerful, editing wise, that many people don't even bother using Photo Shop anymore. Of course it doesn't have the full range of plugins that Photo Shop does, but if you're not heavy handed with the post processing, (I'm talking major crazy S) then Lightroom can do everything you'd need. (though it could use better CA correction) I'd say that Photo Shop is an Lightroom Plugin..

Doug
 

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