Re: Mac users - image software

**C* B* <c*@gardengate.net>**

Doug,

iPhoto is a great little program considering it comes FREE with the  
Mac OS. Beats the pants off of any thing that comes free in Windoze.  
However the program is designed to do exactly what it does and it is  
not a Finder type application. It operates like iView Media Pro which  
makes aliases and uses thumbnails. However if you import the images  
directly you get them full size.

iPhoto is great for populating a Web site since you can put your small  
JPEGs in "events or albums or projects" ... makes using iWeb a breeze  
or other similar Web generation software like RapidWeaver. The media  
you put in iPhoto comes up in all these program's inspector panel so  
all you do is drag and drop your JPEGs. Works hand-in-hand with  
FotoMagico or Keynote to create great slide presentations.

For what you have described as your needs there are many programs to  
chose from and everyone will have their favorite. If you use Photoshop  
CS3 and the newest version of Bridge you've got what you need with  
Bridge. The newest version is much faster. Bridge works just like the  
Finder so you can "see" all your folder no matter their location,  
assuming you mount the volume. Beside see great thumbnails of your  
images that you can sort any way you like, you can batch rename files,  
delete files, rate files, color code tags, see all the metadata and  
edit metadata templates, add keywords, run slide shows, batch process  
files via Photoshop and filter the files you want to view via any  
criterion you can think of. It's an industrial strength, simple to use  
solution.

The other nice part about Bridge is that it comes free with Photoshop  
or Creative Suite and it doesn't matter if you have a few hundred  
images or hundreds of thousands of images. It gets the job done.

The only thing that you might want that it does not do with grace is  
create catalog sets. A catalog being perhaps "perennials with yellow  
flowers". The keyword feature will enable you to do this albeit not as  
elegantly as iView Media Pro will do. A few months ago you could still  
buy the original IMP version 3 on eBay or Amazon. I don't know how bad  
MS has screwed up the program since they bought them out? They did  
however, hire the original programers to re-write for the new MS  
version, so maybe it's okay. We use iView for cataloging and key  
wording landscape projects that we build. It's not a multi-user  
program but we've figure out how to fake it and have distributed the  
library and it work great.

The other professional level cataloging program is Extensis Portfolio.  
I gave up on it several years ago. Too slow, too expensive, bad tech  
support. Of course now there is probably no tech support with iView  
unless you get the newest version. Portfolio is real industrial  
strength and shareable. There is another one used by stock houses and  
libraries but I can't think of the name. iView will do a professional  
job for you if you want to catalog at a reasonable price.

For my personal work I only use Bridge, but not iView. Bridge truly  
does all I need. I tried Lightroom and Aperture but still like Bridge  
better, especially since they fixed some bugs and sped it up.

Just one person's opinion. Hope this helps.

Charlie

Charles Bowers, President
Garden Gate Landscaping, Inc.
charlie@gardengate.net
www.gardengate.net

On Jun 17, 2008, at 11:20 AM, Doug Green wrote:

I ran into an interesting problem with my Mac this week that I'd  
appreciate
a few notes from more experienced Mac users.

LIke all of us, I have a fair number of images and collect more  
regularly.
I "assumed" that iphoto would work on the underlying collection/ 
library and
when I deleted an image from iphoto, it would delete it from the  
disc.  Or
if I labelled something, it would label the image in the main  
library.   Not
so apparently.  Iphoto works on copies of your pictures it puts into  
its own
library.  (I note you can upload to the original libraries but that
deleting  I had a ton of garbage (over 130,000 files) that I hadn't  
deleted
from the garbage  (again, Linux not only deletes files you say  
"delete", it
actually takes them off the computer for you.  Apparently when you  
tell a
Mac to delete, it really means store it until I empty the garbage)   
When you
tell iphoto to label, it only labels the picture (a duplicate) in  
iphoto but
leaves the original untouched.

So the query is for an image editor/manager that not only sorts/ 
catalogs but
actually works on the underlying image files.  When I delete that  
file, I
want it gone from the main library file  as well as the file manager.  
(OK, I
want it put into the garbage bin and I'll empty the garbage now) ;-)   
But
not clogging up the main library with unusable images and hogging  
memory.
When I label an image, I want the underlying image labelled, not the  
copy in
the software leaving the original unlabelled.  (changing away from  
iphoto
means I have to relabel every image in the main files).

Having just ordered my first terraflop server for images and video, I  
want
to make sure I have the labelling done once now cause when I fill this  
baby,
I surely don't want to change again.

Any help would be appreciated.

Doug
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