My 1st Mac - Few Q's!

[Jakee]

Hi.. three days ago i got my 1st mac and so far im loving it!
but i have a few questions and could do with a little help.

1) viewing the jpeg icons.. is there a way to see the picture instead of just the little jpg icon? like in windows you could select view picture icon or w/e it was..
2) i wanna switch up some of the icons. so if i have a jpg file and i "get info", in the top left is just the jpg icon, and not the picture. is there a way to copy paste the picture then get info on the icon you want to change and paste to change it? or im i going about this all the wrong way lol
and 3) apart from iphoto is there any other good apps to sort photos?

thanks for any help in advance!

Jakee

 

[RiDE]

Welcome and Congrats on your Mac purchase.

1) Yes.... Click (highlight) the icon... press APPLE+J ... Then Check "Show icon preview"

2).. The above steps will allow you to view a thumbnail of the image as the icon... it will not change the look in the "Get info" though.... You can change ANY icons using a program called CandyBar (link & pic) below.

http://www.panic.com/candybar/



3) Nothing that I know of that would be better than iPhoto... What are you wanting to do???

 

[mac57]

Hi Jakee, welcome to Mac Forums!

To your questions:

1/ To see a preview of the picture as the icon, simply go to the View Options and select "Show Item Preview". Be careful to look at the setting at the very top of the dialog, which can be set to make this apply to just the single folder you are looking at, or all folders. Set it as you wish. Unfortunately, I am not at my Mac right now, so I can't tell you the exact wording of this.

2/ You are going about this exactly the right way. Do a Get Info, then click you mouse once inside the icon in the Get Info dialog that pops up. Use the CMD-C keystroke to copy the icon. Now do a Get Info on the file you want to paste the icon into. Click once on the icon in that Get Info dialog and use the CMD-V keystroke to paste the icon you just copied. Done!

3/ There are LOTS of good apps to sort photos... almost literally dozens. iPhoto is actually very good though. Since this is your first post, I am going to guess you are just new to Macs. Spend some time getting to know iPhoto before you decide to replace it with anything else.

By the way, ditto for Safari. It is a great browser. I would spend some time using it before you decide to replace it with anything else. In essence, I would recommend that you intentionally go for "full Mac immersion" for a few weeks, so that you can get used to "the Mac way of doing things" before you make any decisions about how else to do things.

Enjoy your Mac experience!

 

[Jakee]

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.

Jakee

 

[yogi]

It's an interesting phenomenon. It's typical of Windows users to, over time, automatically reject software that was developed and included with the OS. So many switch to WinAmp from WMP, so many prefer Nero for doing even the simplest burning jobs that Windows handles quite effortlessly.

It's that constant notion that "only third-party apps are good, because they aren't 'baby-software' " (as steve would put it).

 

[ToddG]

Interesting. As for OS X, I'd much rather use the built-in, Apple-produced applications whenever they meet my needs. Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, the built-in disc burning, etc. Heck, I'd even be happy to switch to iWork if not for the fact that I need Office compatibility for work.

 

[mikeyman]

Interesting. As for OS X, I'd much rather use the built-in, Apple-produced applications whenever they meet my needs. Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, the built-in disc burning, etc. Heck, I'd even be happy to switch to iWork if not for the fact that I need Office compatibility for work.

Doesnt everyone ahaha
its amazing how compatible mac applications are with the windows versions

 

[walkerj]

Interesting. As for OS X, I'd much rather use the built-in, Apple-produced applications whenever they meet my needs. Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, the built-in disc burning, etc. Heck, I'd even be happy to switch to iWork if not for the fact that I need Office compatibility for work.

The third party phenomenon is REALLY prevalent among Linux -> Mac switchers, since everything on Linux is pretty much 'third party'.

I used Thunderbird for mail for about a month after I got my first Mac before I finally said "Okay, let's give this Mail thing a shot." Learning that Mail does 'the right thing' when clicking links (opens new tab in Safari, just like I'd want it to do) and being able to use direct drag'n' drop pretty much condemned Thunderbird to /dev/null.

Now that I can take my Mac everywhere I go I don't really use third party stuff on other computers anymore.

 

[yogi]

I have indulged in a lot of third-party apps recently though, for different reasons. O spent around $120 on new programs including:

NewsFire
OverFlow
Ecto
Skype Call Recorder
ChaChing
Yep (this is so cool I want to review it on my blog).

Yep is basically iPhoto for PDF Documents and basically speaks my philosophy of getting rid of paper. While I keep my hard copies, I like keeping my cupoboards and room so sqeaky clean like in IKEA designer catalogues, so imagine how many thousands of pages of paper you can store on a single iMac . It's really cool, though overpriced at $34 . www.yepthat.com

 

[eric]

i loved WMP on windows.
but i did use firefox, thunderbird, easy cd creator, ACDSee, etc, etc, etc

i still refuse to use iphoto. and i'm still on the fence with itunes - actually more like desperately clinging to the third party side while being lured over to itunes due to some of the shortcomings of those third party apps.

 

[Jakee]

hi eric,
what do use instead of iphoto?

 

[NanoBite]

... The more I use iPhoto the more I discover about it's capabilities vs my needs ... and the more I discover about iPhotos integration with Mac OS X - the more I want to keep using it [iPhoto that is!]

 

[eric]

i use a combination of things instead of iphoto. mainly finder and Xee.
this is a manual process though. you open folders manually on your camera, and copy/move files where you want to. i use the stock "pictures" folder, and created sub-directories for different sorts of photos (family, cars, etc). then i use xee as you would use the windows picture and fax viewer in xp. then for editing, there are a number of programs you can use (photoshop, photoshop elements, illustrator, gimp, chocoflop, etc).
personally i like the manual process, i like getting my hands dirty and not having another program superimpose it's will on my stuff. like the whole "roll" nonsense. i'm not using film anymore, why would i hold onto that anachronistic idea?

i've also used adobe bridge, which is pretty nice, and renamer4mac for mass file renaming.

 

[yogi]

I have to tell you, I'm a big advocate of folder-free structure, which is why I switched in the first place, because OS X had Spotlight and that marked it for me where Apple was headed. So I love apps that do the management for me, like iPhoto and iTunes. I never bother about actual files, unless I need to send them or put them on the internet Even then it's really simple, you just drag the item to the desktop and it creates a copy for you, without touching the internal database. That's why I also like Yep.

 

[eric]

well, then it's a good thing that OS X still allows the freedom to do things either way, and still do it pretty well, eh yogi?

 

[NanoBite]

I had a big problem with downloading photos from my digital camera to iPhoto as I'd toss some of them out but then next time I had photos to download, those trashed ones would re-appear in my iPhoto Library. It didn't seem like I had any control over NOT downloading them a second time. Also I didn't want to delete them from my compactflash card just yet.

Then I was pointed in the direction of Image Capture (Apps/Image Capture.app) by PowerBookG4, I think, and that is really what I was looking for with regards to managing my digital transfers.

I am admittedly a serious slow learner and I have just discovered that if you right-click on an image in iPhoto's Library, you can select to go directly to where it lies deep within the hierarchial file structure. For so long I wondered what had happened to my photos and where they were located exactly and any attempts to seek them out failed dismally due to iPhoto hiding my images like no other could. But not anymore ..... lol

 

[Jakee]

Thanks Eric, Xee is just what im looking for!

 

[RiDE]

I have indulged in a lot of third-party apps recently though, for different reasons. O spent around $120 on new programs including:

NewsFire
OverFlow
Ecto
Skype Call Recorder
ChaChing
Yep (this is so cool I want to review it on my blog).

Yep is basically iPhoto for PDF Documents and basically speaks my philosophy of getting rid of paper. While I keep my hard copies, I like keeping my cupoboards and room so sqeaky clean like in IKEA designer catalogues, so imagine how many thousands of pages of paper you can store on a single iMac . It's really cool, though overpriced at $34 . www.yepthat.com

Thanks Yogi (+REP). Yep looks awesome (though I agree... a bit pricy). How long does the trial last??? I see you can "download now", but I can't find anywhere on the site that tells how long the trial is.

Thanks again!

 

[johntalin]

It is not Apple, but I am very happy with HP Imaging Software. I use it, because I have an HP camera. It is free to anyone.

http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/free/software/index.html