Photo sorting software - Mac
Discussion
I've had an iMac for a few months and seem to be able to do most stuff with iPhoto with a bit of Photoshop thrown in. I try to get everything right in the camera so I need to to very little processing. Photoshop I use to re-size before printing and very little else.
I now shoot Raw only (before raw + jpeg) and iPhoto seems to do almost everything I need very quickly. I have had trial versions of Aperture, Capture One and Lightroom and find them to do much more than I need. If I do upgrade I will probably go for Aperture as it should be a seamless transition between iPhoto. So far I haven't felt the need to upgrade. The ability to shoot tethered would be nice but even then it is not essential for me.
I have also downloaded Google Picasa which is free. Useful as it finds all the photos on your computer and puts then in chronological order. Unfortunately when you export the Raw files it automatically converts them to .jpeg. With iPhoto you can choose Raw, .jpeg or .tif.
I'm not a computer person so want to get results as quickly and easily as possible. The above works for me at the moment.
You can always download the free trial versions of the various softwares and see what works best for you.
I now shoot Raw only (before raw + jpeg) and iPhoto seems to do almost everything I need very quickly. I have had trial versions of Aperture, Capture One and Lightroom and find them to do much more than I need. If I do upgrade I will probably go for Aperture as it should be a seamless transition between iPhoto. So far I haven't felt the need to upgrade. The ability to shoot tethered would be nice but even then it is not essential for me.
I have also downloaded Google Picasa which is free. Useful as it finds all the photos on your computer and puts then in chronological order. Unfortunately when you export the Raw files it automatically converts them to .jpeg. With iPhoto you can choose Raw, .jpeg or .tif.
I'm not a computer person so want to get results as quickly and easily as possible. The above works for me at the moment.
You can always download the free trial versions of the various softwares and see what works best for you.
Both iPhoto and Picasa will read Canon 5DmkII Raw files. I assume it will read all other RAW files too.
Much to my amazement Picasa will even read Raw files from a Hasselblad digital back. Shame Picasa doesn't export files as RAW or .tiff otherwise it would be pretty good and would do 90% of what I need. I used Picasa a lot on my PC laptop. Picasa web albums are a lot quicker to view than Flickr. An under-rated piece of software as it is perceived to be for amateurs. I think it gives pretty good results. The .jpeg conversion thing is not that much of a problem if your final output is prints. Printers (photo labs) print from either .jpeg or .tif. The lab manager I spoke to said that after 25 years in the business he couldn't tell the difference between a print from a .jpeg and one from a .tif.
Now I go straight for iPhoto 99% of the time as it works well on my iMac.
Much to my amazement Picasa will even read Raw files from a Hasselblad digital back. Shame Picasa doesn't export files as RAW or .tiff otherwise it would be pretty good and would do 90% of what I need. I used Picasa a lot on my PC laptop. Picasa web albums are a lot quicker to view than Flickr. An under-rated piece of software as it is perceived to be for amateurs. I think it gives pretty good results. The .jpeg conversion thing is not that much of a problem if your final output is prints. Printers (photo labs) print from either .jpeg or .tif. The lab manager I spoke to said that after 25 years in the business he couldn't tell the difference between a print from a .jpeg and one from a .tif.
Now I go straight for iPhoto 99% of the time as it works well on my iMac.
Ammo 7 said:
Both iPhoto and Picasa will read Canon 5DmkII Raw files. I assume it will read all other RAW files too.
Much to my amazement Picasa will even read Raw files from a Hasselblad digital back. Shame Picasa doesn't export files as RAW or .tiff otherwise it would be pretty good and would do 90% of what I need. I used Picasa a lot on my PC laptop. Picasa web albums are a lot quicker to view than Flickr. An under-rated piece of software as it is perceived to be for amateurs. I think it gives pretty good results. The .jpeg conversion thing is not that much of a problem if your final output is prints. Printers (photo labs) print from either .jpeg or .tif. The lab manager I spoke to said that after 25 years in the business he couldn't tell the difference between a print from a .jpeg and one from a .tif.
Now I go straight for iPhoto 99% of the time as it works well on my iMac.
In an ideal world I'd use Picasa, it's free, has a nice interface and does everything I need it to do. Apart from be able to read from a network drive on a Mac (I understand it to be possible on a PC as you can map a drive).Much to my amazement Picasa will even read Raw files from a Hasselblad digital back. Shame Picasa doesn't export files as RAW or .tiff otherwise it would be pretty good and would do 90% of what I need. I used Picasa a lot on my PC laptop. Picasa web albums are a lot quicker to view than Flickr. An under-rated piece of software as it is perceived to be for amateurs. I think it gives pretty good results. The .jpeg conversion thing is not that much of a problem if your final output is prints. Printers (photo labs) print from either .jpeg or .tif. The lab manager I spoke to said that after 25 years in the business he couldn't tell the difference between a print from a .jpeg and one from a .tif.
Now I go straight for iPhoto 99% of the time as it works well on my iMac.
I'm so ignorant about computers that I don't even know what a network drive is. Maybe someone can explain?
You may be able to answer your own question if you download this:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial/
You may be able to answer your own question if you download this:
http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial/
Looks like Aperture doesn't do what I want it to do:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
Been down the Picasa route, but from what I understand it can't reference a network drive unless it has a drive letter. Which isn't possible in a Mac.
Are you starting to get an idea of why I'm going round and round in circles?! It's amazing how there is nothing out there to do such a thing!
Are you starting to get an idea of why I'm going round and round in circles?! It's amazing how there is nothing out there to do such a thing!
theboyfold said:
Been down the Picasa route, but from what I understand it can't reference a network drive unless it has a drive letter. Which isn't possible in a Mac.
Are you starting to get an idea of why I'm going round and round in circles?! It's amazing how there is nothing out there to do such a thing!
PC's, making things simpler since 1976.Are you starting to get an idea of why I'm going round and round in circles?! It's amazing how there is nothing out there to do such a thing!
I use Photo Mechanic for all sorting, captioning, keywording, sending and selecting of photos. It is fast, powerful and has first-class support from the publisher. The one thing it doesn't have is any actual image editing features, but it plays nicely with Lightroom if set up correctly and on a Mac (thanks to OS-native support) can browse, caption, preview and save to jpeg all manner of raw file formats.
I use Lightroom 3 for raw processing once PM has done all the captioning and selecting.
I use Lightroom 3 for raw processing once PM has done all the captioning and selecting.
theboyfold said:
Looks like Aperture doesn't do what I want it to do:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
Never, ever, ever consider swapping a MAC for a PC. The MAC is far more suited to the task, I know I held off for long enough before moving from PC to MAC and would never go back!http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
Oldred_V8S said:
theboyfold said:
Looks like Aperture doesn't do what I want it to do:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
Never, ever, ever consider swapping a MAC for a PC. The MAC is far more suited to the task, I know I held off for long enough before moving from PC to MAC and would never go back!http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...
So it's Lightroom with loads of keywords and shed loads of metadata (which wifey won't be too interested in doing) or sell the Mac Book Pro and get a Windows laptop and run Picasa over a mapped drive.
What's interesting is that Mac software never seems to support shared working. iTunes is the same, you have to cheat it to make it access a shared library. From some further reading, it seems that Aperture 2 might support a shared network workflow. Could be the answer as I might be able to get a nice cheap copy off of ebay
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