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pastusza · Sep 13, 2004, 02:57 PM

As much as I think iPhoto is an awesome application, it has some minor limitations for me. The two alternatives I have seen are iView Media Pro and Portfolio, both high end (and high priced) apps. What other options are there available for the Mac for people that want an alternative to iPhoto to organize their photo libraries?

Andy

ManOfSteal · Sep 13, 2004, 03:00 PM

What iPhoto limitations are you wanting to overcome with another product?

gperks · Sep 13, 2004, 03:51 PM

I don't know about the oroiginal poster's requirements.

For me, the single biggest addition iPhoto could have would be an "Import new" button that would be enabled when I plug my camera in. iPhoto has the lamest import mechanism. Image Capture is better but that requires using another application, and even it doesn't have a simple "Import new" button.

All I want it to do is suck out photos I have taken since the last time I imported. And don't delete anything off the camera (by default, at least).

mpmchugh · Sep 13, 2004, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by gperks:
All I want it to do is suck out photos I have taken since the last time I imported. And don't delete anything off the camera (by default, at least).

If you have previously imported pictures, iPhoto asks you what you want to to with them, either re-import or ignore.

Doesn't that do what you're talking about?

-mpm

pastusza · Sep 14, 2004, 03:58 PM

1. The ability to view EXIF data under (or beside) the thumbnails. I want the date and time I took a photo to be displayed with the thumbnail.

2. An Eject Memory Card/Camera button right in iPhoto

Now I know iView does #1, but it's also $199.00,which is a tad pricy for the home user.

Truepop · Sep 14, 2004, 10:18 PM

Originally posted by pastusza:
2. An Eject Memory Card/Camera button right in iPhoto

that would be useful.

bbales · Sep 15, 2004, 09:26 AM

Originally posted by mpmchugh:
If you have previously imported pictures, iPhoto asks you what you want to to with them, either re-import or ignore.

Doesn't that do what you're talking about?

-mpm

I don't know about him, but I think he's talking about the ability to choose. He doesn't want to have to decide whether to re-import, he just wants to be able to select certain ones -- say, the ones that hed knows he hasn't imported yet, but for whatever reason hasn't deleted off his camer -- and then just import those. I know that's what I would certainly like. Right now I'm using Image Capture (I think it is anyway) to do just that and then move them into iphoto. It's such an obvious feature I'm amazed Apple hasn't added it yet.

And I recently just decided I'd quit looking around for the perfect system and committed to iphoto. It doesn't mean I won't still look around though ...

gperks · Sep 15, 2004, 10:50 AM

The current iPhoto mechanism for Import New isn't good enough. I don't always delete the camera's photos, so I might have well over a hundred on there. (I have 1GB memory on the camera, so I keep photos on there until I've batched up enough to backup to CD - that way my photos are alway in two places, the camera & Mac, and later the Mac & CD).

Let's say there's 100 photos on the camera, already imported. I take another 20. iPhoto takes the time (f.o.r.e.v.e.r!) to import them all again, then asks me about duplicates. Image Capture is *much* faster - it grabs thumbnails of the photos but I still have to manually select the new ones to import.

I just want a button that will import the newest 20 and skip the 100 that were previously imported.

I don't need to select which of the new photos to import - just import all the new ones, and I will rate & trash the ones I don't want.

pastusza · Sep 21, 2004, 04:43 PM

Since no one has offered the names of any software, I will assume that there are no other options for photo import.

I managed to get the new Nikon software that they're touting as a replacement for NikonView. They were actually planning to sell it to other camera owners, according to some FAQ I read a while back.

The software is OK, but iPhoto is better.

I guess my next question is, is there a web site that list all available iPhoto plugins?

Andy

CatOne · Sep 21, 2004, 06:41 PM

Originally posted by pastusza:
Since no one has offered the names of any software, I will assume that there are no other options for photo import.

I managed to get the new Nikon software that they're touting as a replacement for NikonView. They were actually planning to sell it to other camera owners, according to some FAQ I read a while back.

The software is OK, but iPhoto is better.

I guess my next question is, is there a web site that list all available iPhoto plugins?

Andy

Oh there are some

Photo Mechanic:

http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html

(can do heavy lifting... there's a pro use case story on www.apple.com)

Light Box:

http://www.lightboxsoftware.com/

Photo Mechanic is great for importing lots of photos and organizing them... it's not as good at cataloging. It's great with batch modify and EXIF data, but it's on the expensive side. Not as sure with Light Box... I tinkered with it for 45 minutes and it crashed, but that was about 6 months ago.

I use iView Media Pro... not a super heavy user... but my catalog has about 10,000 photos in it in about 20 directories.