[DuckRacer1]

Why should I? What features are useful enough to warrant it's "clunkiness"? I'm considering to just move all my photos into regular folders since it's such a RAM hog (and counter-productive), but I don't want to regret this move.

[MindFad]

Do you want alternatives, or just users to pat you on the back and tell you iPhoto's gonna be OK? No one's forcing you or going to be distraught if you don't use iPhoto. It seems to work well enough for a lot of people. Works for me.

[gooser]

so what if it's clunky? so are lindsay lohan's legs. no reason to kick either one of them out of bed. just don't use them if you don't want to. god bless mary quant.

[skybolt]

If you move all of your folders, be prepared to never look back. iPhoto does not play well with having things mucked with in finder.

[DuckRacer1]

Originally Posted by MindFad 

Do you want alternatives, or just users to pat you on the back and tell you iPhoto's gonna be OK? No one's forcing you or going to be distraught if you don't use iPhoto. It seems to work well enough for a lot of people. Works for me.

Neither. I'm just wondering if there's any must-have features in iPhoto that will be making me want to switch back.

Originally Posted by gooser 

so what if it's clunky? so are lindsay lohan's legs. no reason to kick either one of them out of bed. just don't use them if you don't want to. god bless mary quant.

See above.

Originally Posted by skybolt 

If you move all of your folders, be prepared to never look back. iPhoto does not play well with having things mucked with in finder.

If I do so, I'd just be copying the photos to separate folders on the finder, so I wouldn't be deleting anything.

[ghporter]

It is my understanding that iPhoto simply catalogs the picture files you add to its library, unless you tell it to handle the pictures the way iTunes wants to handle all your songs (by copying everything to its own folders). So if you expressly tell iPhoto NOT to copy or move your picture files, what's the "switch back" issue?

[DuckRacer1]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

It is my understanding that iPhoto simply catalogs the picture files you add to its library, unless you tell it to handle the pictures the way iTunes wants to handle all your songs (by copying everything to its own folders). So if you expressly tell iPhoto NOT to copy or move your picture files, what's the "switch back" issue?

Right now, it copies everything to it's own folders. Like this:





Or is it supposed to do that?

[MichiganRich]

I can't believe that Picasa in Windows is SO much faster and 'better' for novice photo people than iPhoto is. I work at a photo studio, and have no use professionally for either, but I'm trying to get my 60+ year-old mom into digital photography, and iPhoto is a complete slug in comparison to Picasa. I've finally gotten her to see the light with OSX vs. Windows, and now Apple has let an essential iLife component slip to such a shameful state. iPhoto pisses me off.

[chrisdisregard]

I agree. Trying to show my dad how to use it (he has this problem with never hitting the "Delete" button on his new digital camera, so he's got more pictures in a couple months than I've kept all year) is a total pain. Personally I've got a fairly small library of photos on my hard drive, so it's relatively quick for me to use. However, as I add things I'm going to start looking for alternatives...which don't seem to be in large supply.

One interesting alternative that I saw (which came from a MacBreak video pod cast) was using automator to create an on-the-fly webpage with a folders contents (and I think it included subfolders too but I can't remember) It basically came up like a thumbnail gallery where you could click images to enlarge them. Not great for anything other than viewing, but it was still kind of interesting.

[holstien]

I bailed out and switched to Shoebox, which is at least consistently fast. (It seems to have stalled out development-wise recently... there are several bugs that need to be fixed that have gone ignored for far to long.)

If you have a bajillion photos, i would recommend some type of photo manager that lets you catagorize things as it saves sanity. If you take small numbers of photos, the self-organization system will be fine.

If you want to switch back, you can always Spotlight for *.jpg in your pictures folder and copy/move all your photos to a single location to be imported.

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by DuckRacer1 

Right now, it copies everything to it's own folders. Like this:

[snip]

[snip]

Or is it supposed to do that?

Just like everything that's done by Apple, there's a preference to turn that off in iPhoto '06.

Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing: Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library.

Turn it off, viola, it doesn't make it's own directories.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by DuckRacer1 

Neither. I'm just wondering if there's any must-have features in iPhoto that will be making me want to switch back.

Hmm lets see.... putting pictures in a folder offers you these features:
None

Using iPhoto gives you these:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/

You decide if those are "must have".

[pboparis]

Iphoto is convenient because it does every thing you want. And putting your pictures in a folder is silly if you have Iphoto

[legacyb4]

If you don't like the folder structure, simply sort and rename rolls by date; I use a xx.yy.zz (x =year, y= month, z= day) naming structure which sorts out beautifully in the Finder if you need to look at your directory structure.

Originally Posted by DuckRacer1 

Why should I? What features are useful enough to warrant it's "clunkiness"? I'm considering to just move all my photos into regular folders since it's such a RAM hog (and counter-productive), but I don't want to regret this move.

[mitchell_pgh]

smart folders are rather nice...