[Aric]

i just tried iPhoto lastnight for the first time since i just got my new puter and i must say, for my first impression, i do NOT like this app. why do they make it so hard to find the original jpg??? it's buried under so many subfolders named "5" or "10" or whatever it really gets confusing. renaming a pic in the library only changes the name in iphoto itself, but if you do a search in the finder for that name you can't find it anywhere cuz it wasn't renamed. ALSO, having a library screws me up, i mean it seems like it'd get overwhelming after a while, why does the pic have to still show up in the library once you put it in a album?

maybe i'm missing something here since i only played with it for bout an hour but i just thought it'd be a simplistic app but it seems like a cluttered mess so far. hopefully someone can convince me that it is a good program.

[TETENAL]

I don't particularly like iPhoto as well.

You're not supposed to find a photo in the Finder, but always use iPhoto to browse your pohtos. You can drag it out of iPhoto to the Desktop for example, and it will create a copy for you. You can also drag a photo from iPhoto to an application in the Dock.

[cpac]

Originally posted by Aric:
ALSO, having a library screws me up, i mean it seems like it'd get overwhelming after a while, why does the pic have to still show up in the library once you put it in a album?

Because just like with iTunes, your Library is everything - or at least everything on your computer.

As the first poster pointed out, you don't have to worry about the file structure behind iPhoto if you don't want to (but if you do - those numbers refer to dates - years, months, and days- that the photos were taken).

iPhoto is not too bad - but could be a lot better if it were a lot faster.

Bottom line though, is if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Go ahead and use the Finder and Image Capture if you prefer...

[zachs]

Well, if you're dragging photos from your Desktop into iPhoto, and you need the file...just keep the original.

If you're directly importing from a camera, you can just drag a photo or photos to the Desktop to create copies.

So it's not as if you can't get the photo into a file easily again.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by zachs:
Well, if you're dragging photos from your Desktop into iPhoto, and you need the file...just keep the original.

If you're directly importing from a camera, you can just drag a photo or photos to the Desktop to create copies.

So it's not as if you can't get the photo into a file easily again.

yep the simplest way to do anything with iPhoto is to just forget that a directory structure exists in the Finder AT ALL. It does get a bit slow with 100's of photos but that's the only real gripe anyone has with it.

[PurpleGiant]

Baseless Speculation: Are you an ex-Windows user? They always try and do things the hard way.

As the others said - you don't need to find the file in the Finder. Simply organize all your photos in iPhoto. If you want to play with the actual 'file' at some stage, just drag any photo to the desktop, and you have a copy of it.

If you want to edit the original in another program, iPhoto has a prefernce to make 'edit mode' your favourite app.

If you are trying to email it, iPhoto already has an email function that can reduce the size of the image if required.

There aren't many more reasons to want the original file in the finder are there?


(all that said though, it would be nice to simply have a 'show in finder' function like iTunes has)

[monkeybrain]

I must admit I hate it's whole file structure thing as well. Surely the image should be easy to find in the Finder as well? Why not just have iPhoto display folders by their name, I might not care when the photo was imported. It could be a lot better. However, I find performance good, fast to scan through lots of images.

Anyone know of good, free, alternatives that preserve the Finder folder hierarchy? There was gBrowser, but I don't think it's been updated in ages and is slow in comparison.

[monkeybrain]

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
Baseless Speculation: Are you an ex-Windows user? They always try and do things the hard way.

I think iPhoto itself is quite 'Windozy', the file structure seems 'un-Mac like' as it hides it from the user, and is certainly no comparison to iTunes (which has options on how to organise things).

[Aric]

Originally posted by monkeybrain:
I think iPhoto itself is quite 'Windozy', the file structure seems 'un-Mac like' as it hides it from the user, and is certainly no comparison to iTunes (which has options on how to organise things).

cosign on that, i've never been a windows person but the way iphoto handles the files is unlike anything i've ever used on a mac and i've been on macs since the early 90's. i'm used to just working in photoshop so it's a habit of mine to have the originals at hand and easy to find (bad habit i guess?). i used to use image capture that came with my canon, to me that is a plain & simple app for organizing photos & avi's (from camera) so i thought iphoto would be similar.

anyway, i think i'm gonna make myself get used to it since i want to use the idvd and imovie and it seems like it's nicely integrated with those apps.

i do like the slide show though

[Wiskedjak]

I like iPhoto, but I think it gets clunkier and slower with every update. I'm considering migrating my photo collection over to my windows box and use Google's Picasa.

[the_glassman]

Originally posted by monkeybrain:
I must admit I hate it's whole file structure thing as well. Surely the image should be easy to find in the Finder as well? Why not just have iPhoto display folders by their name, I might not care when the photo was imported. It could be a lot better. However, I find performance good, fast to scan through lots of images.

Anyone know of good, free, alternatives that preserve the Finder folder hierarchy? There was gBrowser, but I don't think it's been updated in ages and is slow in comparison.

X2. The file structure has turned a backup of a few iPhoto backups a nightmare to bring to my current system. WTF was apple thinking with this?

[lavar78]

Originally posted by Wiskedjak:
I like iPhoto, but I think it gets clunkier and slower with every update.

You must be kidding. You aren't honestly claiming that iPhoto 4 is slower than iPhoto 2, are you?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally posted by lavar78:
You must be kidding. You aren't honestly claiming that iPhoto 4 is slower than iPhoto 2, are you?

On my 600 mhz iBook, yes

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by Wiskedjak:
On my 600 mhz iBook, yes

Definately not my experience, either. iPhoto has gotten faster with every upgrade.

[itai195]

I got tired of iPhoto and use iView now. Much speedier and gives you a lot more control.

[lavar78]

Hmm. FWIW, iPhoto 4 is noticeably faster on every computer I've used (iBook 500, 600, PowerBook 1.33 GHz, PowerMac 933).

[bookofjames]

just a suggestion - u can try iPhoto Buddy to split your libraries up so that its not too big.

I personally have tens of thousands of photos (i took 5k in a 2 week Israel trip alone), and I split them up into separate libraries of about a few thousand photos each so that performance doesn't suffer too much.

I love the extensions that you can install in iPhoto to export the specific sub-libraries directly to a web photo gallery or to HTML format for burning to a DVD backup.

[OAW]

Originally posted by AKcrab:
Definately not my experience, either. iPhoto has gotten faster with every upgrade.

Same here. iPhoto 4 had such a dramatic performance improvement that it is simply no longer an issue for me whatsoever.

OAW

[poocat]

but man, every time i use it that file structure thing drives me nuts.

it's completely unintuitive. it HIDES your files.
that's not organization. that's actually UN-useful.
it took my photos, which were named and organized by location/subject,
and put them into a hierarchy that i can't search!

iphoto would rock, if, strangely enough, it used your PICTURES folder that APPLE creates on your hard drive when you install. i can't understand why they wouldn't use their own structure. it's just like itunes not using MUSIC.

at least with itunes you can change it.

...

oh well.
the only thing i'd really like to sit down with steve and talk to him about.

poocat.

[Valarauko]

The thing about iPhoto is it seems not to be able to 'download' all your pictures from your digicam. Everytime I connect my camera and download new, there always something left while Canon's own image browser will download all without problem.

[OAW]

Originally posted by poocat:
but man, every time i use it that file structure thing drives me nuts.

it's completely unintuitive. it HIDES your files.
that's not organization. that's actually UN-useful.
it took my photos, which were named and organized by location/subject,
and put them into a hierarchy that i can't search!

iphoto would rock, if, strangely enough, it used your PICTURES folder that APPLE creates on your hard drive when you install. i can't understand why they wouldn't use their own structure. it's just like itunes not using MUSIC.

at least with itunes you can change it.

...

oh well.
the only thing i'd really like to sit down with steve and talk to him about.

poocat.

I'll chime in and try to reiterate what others have tried to explain on numerous occasions when this "complaint" arises. The fact is that if you were truly using iPhoto as you claimed, then the file structure would not be driving you nuts. The file structure is driving you nuts because you are trying to use the Finder! Forget about the friggin' Finder already and all will be well in the world! Do you listen to your music with the preview capability in the Finder (it does allow you do do that BTW) or do you use iTunes? I'd venture to say it's the latter because iTunes is more suited to organizing and playing audio content than the "general purpose" Finder. The same principle is at work with iPhoto. It is more suited to organizing and viewing photo content than the Finder. There is absolutely no organizational scheme that the Finder can do that can't be accomplished in iPhoto via a combination of albums and/or film rolls. On second thought that's probably a bit of an overstatement since iPhoto doesn't currently support nested photo albums. I'm hoping we will see that feature soon.

Anyhoo, let me address why iPhoto has such a cryptic file structure:

1. It's designed to support the software. It's not made to be easy for the human. It's made to be easy for iPhoto. iPhoto is made to be easy for the human!

2. iPhoto does a lot for you. It creates and caches thumbnails. It preserves the original images. It maintains film rolls and photo albums. All this information needs to be stored somewhere. Even if the file structure were more intuitive to the user, it would still be "cluttered" with all the extra information that I just mentioned.

IMO, all iPhoto needs now is nested photo albums, the ability to import selected photos from a camera like Image Capture, and a more intuitive search feature (that can find photos by metadata other than Keywords) using the rounded text boxes like other Apple apps.

OAW

[bookofjames]

Originally posted by OAW:

Anyhoo, let me address why iPhoto has such a cryptic file structure:

1. It's designed to support the software. It's not made to be easy for the human. It's made to be easy for iPhoto. iPhoto is made to be easy for the human!

2. iPhoto does a lot for you. It creates and caches thumbnails. It preserves the original images. It maintains film rolls and photo albums. All this information needs to be stored somewhere. Even if the file structure were more intuitive to the user, it would still be "cluttered" with all the extra information that I just mentioned.

IMO, all iPhoto needs now is nested photo albums, the ability to import selected photos from a camera like Image Capture, and a more intuitive search feature (that can find photos by metadata other than Keywords) using the rounded text boxes like other Apple apps.

OAW

well said.
i'm also waiting for the nested albums.

that, and the ability to handle photos to the number of tens or hundreds of thousands. one can only dream...

[mhuie]

Picasa on the Windows platform is a lot better than iPhoto.

Im a recent switcher and always had the impression that Picasa was a ripoff of iPhoto. But now after trying to put my library into iPhoto, man, Picasa's speed and ease of use blows iPhoto away.

I never had to wait for Picasa to display a 5MP jpg, photos show up instantly and organizing photos is extremely fast. iPhoto takes a few seconds just to display a picture, plus the interface for Picasa is so much more intuitive.

I have about 1GB of photos and i'm wary of importing them into iPhoto.. I only have 80 images in my iPhoto library now and it takes about 10 seconds just to load the thumbnails!!

[nooon]

Hopefully they'll make an OS X-version of Picasa..

http://forums.picasa.com/viewtopic.php?t=2602

[JKT]

Personally, I like iPhoto very much. The integration with the other iApps and .Mac is invaluable to me. It has flaws, for sure but they are overridden by the benefits of using the app IMO. The worst flaws for me are the clumsy interface for assigning keywords and I'd prefer it if the names of the photos were also changed in the Finder (at the very least, the aliases for the images in albums should reflect what you called them in iPhoto) to make it easier to locate the image you want when using other applications. That is the biggest flaw of course - using images in other apps is more difficult than it should be. You have to always have iPhoto open to e.g. drag and drop an image to other apps to manipulate it, otherwise finding the one photo you do want using the Open dialogue in Graphic Converter or Photoshop or whatever becomes quite tricky. I hope that Tiger will introduce a means for ALL other apps to access iPhoto's Library (in much the way iMovie etc do). This would remove that issue altogether. I suspect that Spotlight might allow this without any further coding effort on the part of third party apps - what would be better of course, would be for Apple to re-write their Open/Save dialogues again, so that your iMovie, iPhoto, and iTunes libraries were accessible to all apps rather than just to each other.

Tip for finding files in the Finder if you don't want to launch iPhoto:

Use Keywords and assign them to your images. Create Smart Albums on the basis of those Keywords. Now when you want to find an image in the Finder, instead of trying to locate it in the esoteric date structure of the actual library, navigate to the ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Albums/<name of smart folder> folder and find the alias to the image that is in there (it's this alias that I wish iPhoto would re-title with that assigned to it by you). Highlight it and command-R to show the original.

Wrt to the last poster... there has to be something wrong somewhere with your iPhoto. Once it has finished launching (which takes about ten seconds to load the library... perhaps that's what you meant), the interface is pretty snappy for me and there are little to no delays displaying large 5MP images on my PB with near-identical specs to yours. Thumbnails take no time at all to display... FWIW, I have 2200 images in my library.

[wataru]

Originally posted by poocat:
but man, every time i use it that file structure thing drives me nuts.

So don't use the file structure.

[cpac]

So wishes for iPhoto 5:

(1) more speed (yes it's improved steadily, but come now... Maybe core image or other improvements will make this possible in Tiger?)

(2) nested albums

(3) some sort of keyword assigning interface that doesn't suck (the current one is clunky enough to keep me from categorizing my photos...

(4) Spotlight integration so that you can search by keyword/metadata from anywhere, not just from within iPhoto

(5) more speed.

[tuqqer]

I agree: I'm another who stopped using iPhoto because of its file management. While I understand that it works for some, it never did for me. I always ended up with mutliple copies of each picture.

Once I discovered the new Browser feature in Photoshop, I deleted iPhoto.

[poocat]

Ok. First, thanks for all the responses. See, though, there are a few things that aren't addressed. You all sound like Steve. Which... may be a good thing, as you're using his platform.

Picassa kicks iPhoto's little butt. It's faster, more intuitive, and doesn't opaque any of your operating system.

I hear that you can export your files again. That's cool. It would be useful though, if it actually let you do something without using the file structure. Follow me now. You want to put a photo on your site. It's on your camera. You're using iPhoto and ftp. You now go through the following steps:

1. Plug in camera.
2. Wait for iPhoto... wait... wait. Ok. It's open. Everyone knows that delay is real.
3. Import. Via usb. Wait. Wait. Wait. No selection of what you want, so you're waiting for all the photos to be downloaded. Wait. Ok. Done.
4. Find the photo you want. Two seconds.
5. Export it. Box pops up. Where to? Well, it's going into the ftp app, so lets say... the desktop. Easy to find, right?
6. Launch ftp program.
7. Select photo, hit tranfer. Sweet. Photo on site!
8. Close ftp client. Close iphoto. Delete useless photo from desktop.

Ok. Now, if somehow I've missed something intuitive... let me know. But if anyone needs to have the flaws explained, let's start with this:

In this system I export INTO the very file system you're telling me not to use. I then have to FIND the photo in the filesystem with my ftp program. Sure, it's on the desktop, so it's easy, but the fact that at the end i have to go delete my exported photo...

Seriously, this is not meant to be a facetious post. Is this not the process you go though? Am I missing something? Wouldn't at least a "reveal in finder" button be useful? Let alone a file structure that was transparent, like, perhaps, the Photo folder, already on my hard drive, that could then have dated folders in it, or folders that iPhoto kept organized by subject/metadata to match my organization in the program?

You are telling me to never use the Finder? What if I want to give my friend on a pc the last roll I just shot? Should I really wait until iPhoto imports and then exports the whole thing just so I can select them again, in the Finder, and send them to him?

I think the fact that the finder displays icons and plays music is AWESOME. There are so many times when I am looking for a track in the Finder and i appreciate the play feature. True, it's not how I listen to music, but that doesn't make it useless, or make me want to forget that I don't need iTunes to use my music.

This is meant as a serious discussion. If I have not been clear, or if there is something I'm missing, please, please, let me know.

poocat.

[JKT]

Originally posted by poocat:
Ok. First, thanks for all the responses. See, though, there are a few things that aren't addressed. You all sound like Steve. Which... may be a good thing, as you're using his platform.

Picassa kicks iPhoto's little butt. It's faster, more intuitive, and doesn't opaque any of your operating system.

<snip>

Seriously, this is not meant to be a facetious post. Is this not the process you go though? Am I missing something? Wouldn't at least a "reveal in finder" button be useful? Let alone a file structure that was transparent, like, perhaps, the Photo folder, already on my hard drive, that could then have dated folders in it, or folders that iPhoto kept organized by subject/metadata to match my organization in the program?

The example you give is quite a big flaw in iPhoto - you should be able to pick and choose which photos (and films if you have them) are to be downloaded. That is a given and hopefully it will be addressed in the next release... it is stupid that it isn't here already as the backend to this import process in iPhoto is the application Image Capture which does let you do all that you want. If you switch from iPhoto to using Image Capture you will solve most of your issues by the sound of things and can bypass iPhoto and its file structure altogether. FWIW, though, iPhoto does produce folders that are organised as the albums are in the programme (~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Albums) - I already said that in my post above.

To switch from iPhoto to Image Capture, launch IC and one of its preferences is to use Image Capture (or nothing) in place of iPhoto when you attach your camera. This app lets you pick and choose what you want to download, where to, and to share those files.

Originally posted by poocat:
You are telling me to never use the Finder? What if I want to give my friend on a pc the last roll I just shot? Should I really wait until iPhoto imports and then exports the whole thing just so I can select them again, in the Finder, and send them to him?
<snip>
poocat.

Why would you export them again? iPhoto has an e-mail button right there in its interface and a "Last Roll" album.

Edit: A reveal in the Finder option would be a welcome addition, this is true.

Btw, launch iPhoto and select Provide iPhoto Feedback... from the iPhoto menu. Things don't change by magic

[Mithras]

Originally posted by poocat:
1. Plug in camera.
2. Wait for iPhoto... wait... wait. Ok. It's open. Everyone knows that delay is real.
3. Import. Via usb. Wait. Wait. Wait. No selection of what you want, so you're waiting for all the photos to be downloaded. Wait. Ok. Done.
4. Find the photo you want. Two seconds.

These parts are the same with any app, on any OS. Except for the choosing photos bit, which I agree should be possible. I'm pretty sure Apple's Image Capture lets you choose.

5. Export it. Box pops up. Where to? Well, it's going into the ftp app, so lets say... the desktop. Easy to find, right?
6. Launch ftp program.
7. Select photo, hit tranfer. Sweet. Photo on site!
8. Close ftp client. Close iphoto. Delete useless photo from desktop.

You can always drag-and-drop the photo straight out of iPhoto, either onto the Desktop, or onto an app in the Dock.

As for using the Finder:
The iTunes folder structure is confusing until you've properly tagged your mp3s. Likewise, the iPhoto folder structure is confusing until you properly dated and organized your photos. Once properly dated, I find that the folder structure is very easy:

* To find photos from a particular Album:
- Home:Pictures:iPhoto Library:Albums
- then open the correct album folder
- tada, aliases pointing to all of the photos! Was that so hard?
(select all, then command-R to reveal originals if you want)

* To find photos from a particular time:
- Home:Pictures:iPhoto Library
- then open the folders by Year:Month:Day
Again, very sensible once you understand what's going on!

I admit, this is much easier if you have a camera that saves date tags as you take the photos. But you can always edit the dates from within iPhoto, and the images will be put in the proper place.

[JKT]

Originally posted by poocat:
2. Wait for iPhoto... wait... wait. Ok. It's open. Everyone knows that delay is real.

FWIW, this is only true the first time you launch it (as it is for all OS X apps). Subsequent re-launches in the same login session are significantly faster (there may still be a delay, but it will be much less than previously).

Mithras makes a good point about drag and drop to other apps. I'd like to add that you can simply copy/paste the images between apps as well. No need to "export" to the desktop at all.

[SAgent0068]

Originally posted by poocat:
1. Plug in camera.
2. Wait for iPhoto... wait... wait. Ok. It's open. Everyone knows that delay is real.
3. Import. Via usb. Wait. Wait. Wait. No selection of what you want, so you're waiting for all the photos to be downloaded. Wait. Ok. Done.
4. Find the photo you want. Two seconds.
5. Export it. Box pops up. Where to? Well, it's going into the ftp app, so lets say... the desktop. Easy to find, right?
6. Launch ftp program.
7. Select photo, hit tranfer. Sweet. Photo on site!
8. Close ftp client. Close iphoto. Delete useless photo from desktop.

Something of a shameless plug, but maybe you'd like myPhoto (automatic web sharing of your iPhoto Library--see my sig for link)? This way, it becomes steps 1-3, the end. If you want to transfer it to some other server rather than running your home machine as a web server, many users find setting up cron to run rsync once a day to be a pretty easy solution. I suppose you could also use an FTP client that has an automatic sync kind of thing to see what's changed between your folders. :shrugs:

Anywho, hope that helps some.

[SAgent0068]

Originally posted by Mithras:
* To find photos from a particular Album:
- Homeictures:iPhoto Library:Albums
- then open the correct album folder
- tada, aliases pointing to all of the photos! Was that so hard?
(select all, then command-R to reveal originals if you want)

* To find photos from a particular time:
- Homeictures:iPhoto Library
- then open the folders by Year:Monthay
Again, very sensible once you understand what's going on!

Unfortunately, the file structure/by album thing you mentioned isn't always true. *Sometimes* iPhoto makes these aliases while other times it does not. Some of my album folders have aliases and some are completely empty, so it's by no means something you can rely on.

[Cadaver]

I find iPhoto very responsive on my machine, even with 3.5GB of photos - though I will admit my (primary) machine isn't exactly a slowpoke (2.0GHz DPG5).

I've used Picassa on the PC as well, and find the applications quite similar. Picassa is a fine iPhoto replacement for PC users (and free as well). I'm not sure I can say that Picassa is any faster than iPhoto on my machine... but again, I've got a fast Mac.

As for the file structure of iPhoto, think of it like iTunes - you don't go digging around for the original MP3 or AAC file too often, either. I use iPhoto as my photo "browser" and either export a full-sized or scaled-down image as necessary.

I've also set up Photoshop CS as my editor in iPhoto. Double click, and bang - straight in to Photoshop CS. Make my edits, hit Save, and bang - right back into iPhoto, edits and all. I find it very easy, actually. Much better than going through nearly 3000 file names/ 48x48 pixel icons to find the right original.

Were I a Mac-to-PC switcher (which I wont be), I'd use Picassa. On the Mac, I find iPhoto good enough for me. For those who want more control, consider iView MediaPro 2.

[BuonRotto]

People, how else would you organize your iPhoto library? What names could it make up for the folder structure? It doesn't knnow that this roll is your vacation to Tahiti unless you go out of your way to say as much. They're photos, and the only textual info iPhoto has on these things when you import them from your camera is when they were taken, and some properties about the image settings. How can it divine anything more topical? Do you want iPhoto to ask you every time you import pictures for a folder name, or just assign folder numbers sequentially? At that point, you might as well just organize everything yourself, and the point of iPhoto is to help you organize and find everything from within the app!

I'm curious what the alternatives within iPhoto would be aside form the date hierarchy we have now. The only alternatives I can think of preculde even bothering with iPhoto.

[Aramas]

I bought a bicycle once. It was shiny and beautiful, but it turned out that the training wheels were welded on! I was horrified, but every time I mentioned it to other people with the same kind of bike, they called me stupid, or yelled "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!, Training wheels are good! You don't even notice them after a while. Stop looking at the training wheels!"

[poocat]

Awesome. That was exactly what I had hoped for, a lot of responses with useful thoughts. Thanks guys, it's threads like this that make me glad to a) have a mac and b) contribute here.

I've learned a lot about iPhoto in the last few hours. I still have some problems, and I still think, overall, that Picassa is both easier to use and more flexible. Both of which make me sad. But... perhaps.

I used to use Image Capture. Loved it. But wanted to be able to view a lot of photos at the same time without relying on Preview, which really slows down (for me) with the drawer open. Never have understood why iPhoto seemed less flexible than Image Capture.

SAgent0068 makes a good point in that iPhoto, at least for me, does not seem to be consistent in it's file naming system.

Mithras and JKT, thanks a lot for your really informative responses, I hadn't realized you could drag and drop to another application, and I continually forget about the "Email" button in iPhoto.

Speaking of that little tray (which irritates me to no end, since I don't have dot Mac and can't customize it) what does the "Homepage" button do? Does it work with anything non-dot Mac? Because for me it seems to do... nothing. I would love, love love that little tray if I could customize it (to work with an ftp client, or, say, Flickr).

And last, never fear. The summation of my thoughts in this thread will be sent to Apple. The only sad thing is that they don't seem to listen (fast enough ).

Thanks again.

poocat.

[bookofjames]

Originally posted by JKT:
Wrt to the last poster... there has to be something wrong somewhere with your iPhoto. Once it has finished launching (which takes about ten seconds to load the library... perhaps that's what you meant), the interface is pretty snappy for me and there are little to no delays displaying large 5MP images on my PB with near-identical specs to yours. Thumbnails take no time at all to display... FWIW, I have 2200 images in my library.

2200 is fine, still bearable. but i have in the amount of tens of thousands (reaching hundred K), so I split the libraries up.

the performance of iPhoto seems to suffer in 2 areas:
1. startup
- loading up a library with 4k+ photos is excruciatingly long.

2. thumbnail -> image view
- when u double click on a thumbnail and go to image view there is a slight delay if u have a big library.

that being said, i am still impressed with iPhoto's ability to scale so many images (thousands) at such amazing speeds.

[bookofjames]

Originally posted by wataru:
So don't use the file structure.

well said.

[bookofjames]

Originally posted by SAgent0068:
Something of a shameless plug, but maybe you'd like myPhoto (automatic web sharing of your iPhoto Library--see my sig for link)? This way, it becomes steps 1-3, the end. If you want to transfer it to some other server rather than running your home machine as a web server, many users find setting up cron to run rsync once a day to be a pretty easy solution. I suppose you could also use an FTP client that has an automatic sync kind of thing to see what's changed between your folders. :shrugs:

Anywho, hope that helps some.

yes, there are plenty of plug ins for iphoto that you can install so that you can export your photos direct from iphoto to the website - no need to drag to desktop or to use finder at all. just let iphoto connect to the web server and upload to the correct location.

a few examples:

export to website
export to Gallery
export to HTML
scale and email pictures direct from iPhoto
burn to toast

also for a previous post where someone had problems with multiple copies of the same image, u can try iPhoto Diet


versiontracker is your friend.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Aramas:
I bought a bicycle once. It was shiny and beautiful, but it turned out that the training wheels were welded on! I was horrified, but every time I mentioned it to other people with the same kind of bike, they called me stupid, or yelled "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!, Training wheels are good! You don't even notice them after a while. Stop looking at the training wheels!"

So quit using the bike with training wheels and go buy one made by a different company (or must one company supply all your bicycles?)

[JKT]

Originally posted by poocat:
Mithras and JKT, thanks a lot for your really informative responses, I hadn't realized you could drag and drop to another application, and I continually forget about the "Email" button in iPhoto.

Speaking of that little tray (which irritates me to no end, since I don't have dot Mac and can't customize it) what does the "Homepage" button do? Does it work with anything non-dot Mac? Because for me it seems to do... nothing. I would love, love love that little tray if I could customize it (to work with an ftp client, or, say, Flickr).

Drag and drop (or copy/paste) to any app from any other app is integral to the way the Mac works. This isn't limited to iPhoto.

The Homepage button is hardwired to .Mac and it allows you to easily create .Mac style homepages directly from iPhoto without the need to go to the .Mac website (and is the dog's bollocks 'cos of it):



I don't think you can use it to publish elsewhere (Apple *should* allow you to do this, but they want to plug .Mac as much as possible, which isn't particularly good for many people).

[step]

not an iphoto fan.
boy i wish caffine software hadn't folded- curator was great!
i hate that iphoto only changes the indexed name of a file, not the original, so you can't use finder find.
and how come you have to fudge about with smart folders just to do a simple name search?
i guess esentially it's just not ment for me is it

[Toyin]

Originally posted by poocat:


Speaking of that little tray (which irritates me to no end, since I don't have dot Mac and can't customize it) what does the "Homepage" button do? Does it work with anything non-dot Mac? Because for me it seems to do... nothing. I would love, love love that little tray if I could customize it (to work with an ftp client, or, say, Flickr).

poocat.

You can always create an album of the pictures that you want to place on a website. Select the entire album and then choose to export them as a webpage (in the export options). This has limited customization but it does create a basic slide show with thumbnails.

I too was upset with the lack of control iPhoto gives you, but eventually gave in and let iPhoto organize all my photos. Just like iTunes (which I fought tooth and nail in the beginning), I found that it was much easier in the long run to use iPhoto. I do think that better options upon import, improved keyword and labeling options, and nested albums are a must for the next release. If Apple chooses to hook into core-image, speed issues will be a thing of the past.

[poocat]

Speed... only if you have a really new mac.

Options... iPhoto has the fewest of any of the apps.

Vs iTunes... iTunes makes using the Finder to find your music both intuitive and easy. Especially if you set it to use your "Music" folder rather than "iTunes music" as it is set to by default.

Man... every time I think I like iPhoto, I realize ten things I wish it did.

Here's to hoping. And I'm not, by any means, a pro/power user, or a professional photographer, or anything like that.

So... I thought I was the target market.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by poocat:
Vs iTunes... iTunes makes using the Finder to find your music both intuitive and easy. Especially if you set it to use your "Music" folder rather than "iTunes music" as it is set to by default.

I still don't understand this complaint. Like BuonRotto said, iPhoto does it (1) the only way that makes sense and (2) in a way that's as comparable to iTunes as it gets. Instead of Artist/Album/Song, you have Year/Month/Day. Outside of a "Reveal in Finder" command, what else do you want?

[JKT]

Originally posted by lavar78:
I still don't understand this complaint. Like BuonRotto said, iPhoto does it (1) the only way that makes sense and (2) in a way that's as comparable to iTunes as it gets. Instead of Artist/Album/Song, you have Year/Month/Day. Outside of a "Reveal in Finder" command, what else do you want?

I think everyone has to admit, it would be much better if iPhoto renamed the file in the Finder to correspond to the one you give it in the actual application. I can't see how anyone can disagree with this! Personally, I have no problems with the Y/M/D file structure at all until you are tying to find a particular image from your iPhoto library within the Open dialogue of another app. Then it becomes a nightmare. You have to use workarounds like having iPhoto open, or manually finding the image in the Finder and drag dropping it to your app. While that is not onerous, it needn't (and shouldn't) be that way.

[PurpleGiant]

Originally posted by JKT:
I think everyone has to admit, it would be much better if iPhoto renamed the file in the Finder to correspond to the one you give it in the actual application.

Assuming you mean changing the finder (file) name, to the 'title' you give it in iPhoto - what happens if you give two photos the same caption? (quick example)

[JKT]

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
Assuming you mean changing the finder (file) name, to the 'title' you give it in iPhoto - what happens if you give two photos the same caption? (quick example)

Good point, but it wouldn't take much for iPhoto to put up a warning and a suggestion. E.g. "You have already called a photo in this roll XYZ, would you like to call it XYZ 2 instead ?"

Alternatively, rather than completely renaming the file in the Finder, it could simply append your title to the current unique identifier (e.g. change it from "DSC03040.JPG" to "My Holiday Pic - DSC03040.JPG")... hardly rocket science.