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Ralpho · Aug 31, 2009, 08:50 AM

This is frustrating. I start with an 8 megabyte .jpg, make a small change in iPhoto (such as straightening the image .1 degree) and suddenly it's a 2.7 megabyte image.

Can someone please explain this?

OreoCookie · Aug 31, 2009, 10:13 AM

Nothing is wrong: iPhoto uses its own quality setting to save the pdf. Unless you work with a 20+ megapixel, there is no reason why you should work with a 8 MB jpg to begin with. There is really no advantage to using such a large jpg.

Uisce · Aug 31, 2009, 12:27 PM

Imo its a big problem if you want to do high-quality prints. iPhoto is not designed for post-processing as well as it could be.

One thing you may want to try is under Advanced in Preferences - if you take RAW pics, you can save as high-res tiffs. You can also set iPhoto to use an external editor like Photoshop, which will preserve file sizes.

mduell · Aug 31, 2009, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by Ralpho

This is frustrating. I start with an 8 megabyte .jpg, make a small change in iPhoto (such as straightening the image .1 degree) and suddenly it's a 2.7 megabyte image.

Can someone please explain this?

Massive quality reduction.

Ralpho · Aug 31, 2009, 07:36 PM

Thanks for your input, guys.

I've been processing my sports pictures by editing the RAW files in aperture, then converting to JPG and doing the renaming and cropping in iPhoto. Problem is that iPhoto makes the JPGs too small.

So now I'm thinking it might be best to start RAW (right out of the camera) editing process in iPhoto, then save the RAW files in a finder file, import them to Aperture, where I will do cropping and conversion to JPG, leaving me with decent-size JPGs.

Does that sound okay to youse guys?

richwig83 · Aug 31, 2009, 07:43 PM

Thats why if you care about your images use either Aperture or Lightroom

OreoCookie · Sep 1, 2009, 04:05 AM

No, you should simply stay within Aperture and crop and rotate your images there. Do not switch to another app unless you're done editing them! Aperture always renders from the RAW file after applying all edits successively, there is no loss in quality, just because you decide to undo and redo certain operations.

And I still maintain creating an 8 MB jpg file is useless, either you choose a lossless format (e. g. tiff) or you use jpg properly. File sizes of 2-3 MB are plenty, you will not see any artifacts.

Ralpho · Sep 1, 2009, 07:03 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

No, you should simply stay within Aperture and crop and rotate your images there. Do not switch to another app unless you're done editing them! Aperture always renders from the RAW file after applying all edits successively, there is no loss in quality, just because you decide to undo and redo certain operations.

And I still maintain creating an 8 MB jpg file is useless, either you choose a lossless format (e. g. tiff) or you use jpg properly. File sizes of 2-3 MB are plenty, you will not see any artifacts.

Yes, but I have to crop photos to make the ready to offer for sale. If I crop a 2.7 megabyte image the resulting file will be much smaller than if I crop an 8 megabyte image.

OreoCookie · Sep 1, 2009, 10:12 AM

No, that's not true.
First of all, you haven't explained why you insist on inserting iPhoto into the workflow. Stick to Aperture, make several versions of your pic (cropped vs. not cropped) and then export using the settings you like.

Second of all, the jpg file size is not the same as quality: depending on the content, the actual information (as measured in terms of resolution, for instance) can be the same, even if one of the files is smaller (8 MB vs. 2 MB). The newly saved image does not have `only one fourth of the information.' jpg is not a lossless format, but on the other hand, if the file size is large enough, you do not lose any information or quality.

I simply would cut out the middle man, iPhoto, and do all edits in Aperture.

mduell · Sep 1, 2009, 03:16 PM

Why not do the whole workflow in Aperture?

richwig83 · Sep 1, 2009, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

why not do the whole workflow in aperture?

+2..

Ralpho · Sep 4, 2009, 10:18 AM

I have to give my sports action pictures specific names so that I can find them when people place orders. For example, I just shot a soccer game and named the pictures like so: 09SW AC@NU 01. That means 2009 soccer women Alma College at Northwood University. The number changes with each image. Aperture isn't set up to rename pictures unless one is also exporting them. (A glaring oversight, if you ask me.) So I need iPhoto to rename the images. I was also using iPhoto to crop images but have learned in the last week that it's easier to crop them in aperture.

Beginning with aforementioned soccer game I am doing rough edit of raw images and renaming in iPhoto and everything else in Aperture.

If anyone wants to see my web site, here is url: http://rodcannon.com

And thanks again for all your help.

OreoCookie · Sep 4, 2009, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Ralpho

I have to give my sports action pictures specific names so that I can find them when people place orders. For example, I just shot a soccer game and named the pictures like so: 09SW AC@NU 01. That means 2009 soccer women Alma College at Northwood University. The number changes with each image. Aperture isn't set up to rename pictures unless one is also exporting them. (A glaring oversight, if you ask me.) So I need iPhoto to rename the images. I was also using iPhoto to crop images but have learned in the last week that it's easier to crop them in aperture.

That's incorrect, of course you can rename pictures in Aperture. (Although I don't get what's so bad about choosing a proper naming convention when you export your photos.) Renaming them in Aperture is just as easy as renaming them in the Finder:
(1) Click in the project where the files reside that you want to rename.
(2) Go to list view (there are three icons, from left to right: film strip view, `icon view' and list view).
(3) Double click the file name and change it to your heart's desire.

Although I would just choose a custom name when importing the pictures (which you also obviously can). For instance, your naming convention is easily realized when importing pictures: just use the custom name + counter preset.

To me it sounds as if you haven't settled into using Aperture yet. Instead of trying to `bypass' Aperture, check whether Aperture has the functionality first. It probably has

Ralpho · Sep 4, 2009, 06:44 PM

Thanks, Oreo: I learned something new about Aperture today.