Viewing and Managing Photos with Mac OS

Bruno Schull · #1 December 24th, 2007, 11:31 AM

Hello,

I have an iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.5.1. Overall, I am delighted with the Mac environment, the interface, the flexibility and so on. However, I find the Mac system for vieing and managing photos akward. After experimenting with Preview and iPhoto, I am searching for information about alternative photo programs or techniques that will allow me to manage photos more easily.

My photo needs are simple. I need to 1) Open a folder of photos from the desktop 2) View all the photos together 3) Organize the photos in a specific order 2) Name and number the photos 3) View the photos easily as a slideshow.

For example, imagine that I went on a hiking trip and downloaded the photos to my desktop. I would like to open the folder, and view all the photos together. Then I would like to delete some photos, change the position of others, possibly crop a few photos, and then name and number the photos to tell a story: 1-trail, 2-climb, 3-ovean view, 4-sunset. Finally, I would like to view the photos as a slideshow.

When I open a folder of photos on the Mac, I can view all the photos together as small icons, but I can not organize or change the position of the photos in the folder. That makes renaming the photos difficult, becasue I can not tell where the photos belong in the story. If I select all the photos and open them with Preview, I can view them together as an Index sheet, but I can not change the position or rename the photos. If I open the photos in iPhoto, I can make a new album, and change the positions of the photos, but I can not rename them. Also, I will have photos stored twice, once in iPhoto, and once on the desktop. This seems redundant and possibly confusing (lots of old photos, deleted photos, and photos with different names in different places in the computer). Finally, both Preview and iPhoto seem difficult to navigate, with too many procedures, options, views, possibilities, none of which meet my needs.

So, basically, I am searching for a Mac program or technique that will let me manage photos like Windows Picture Viewer. Despite all the problems with PC's, I have to say that Picture Viewer is simple and easy to use. You click on a folder of photes, you can manage the photos immediately, the changes are reflected in the original folder, you can immediately switch to a slideshow....

Any ideas about how to simplify this process on a Mac?

Any experience with other photo viewing programs?

Thanks for your help,

Bruno

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 December 24th, 2007, 12:03 PM

Currently, the "best" photo organizer for the Mac is iPhoto. Can you elaborate on what iPhoto doesn't do that you would like it to do?

With iPhoto, you can create albums, re-order/re-organize photos, rename them, and add comments and add/delete photos easily (in my opinion). Is there something that iPhoto is lacking in this area?

I don't know of any other photo organizers for Mac that meet all your needs -- perhaps one of us can explain how to use iPhoto "differently" to meet your needs.

You can search for other photo organizers on sites like http://www.versiontracker.com and let us know what you think of other photo management software out there... perhaps then we can lead you in the right direction.

Madelin · #3 December 24th, 2007, 12:29 PM

If you rename them them to what you want you can then rename them again in order you would like them. (eg. 01 - Blah, 02 - Blah ...) They will then be in the order you want, named, and numbered.

To then view them in a slideshow, highlight all the photos in the album, double click on one (to open in Preview) then go to 'View' --> 'Slideshow'

Edit: With preview you can also crop the photos

Bruno Schull · #4 December 24th, 2007, 01:52 PM

Thanks so much for your replies. I really appreciate your help.

Here are three specific problems:

Problem # 1
-When I open a folder of photos on the desktop, I can view all the photos together as small icons, and I can delete individual photos, but I can not change the position of the photos in the series. That makes re-naming the photos difficult, because I can not tell where the photos belong in the series (I only know where the photos belong in the series after I move them around). On to Preview....

Problem # 2 (Preview)
-When I open a folder of photos with Preview, I can view the photos together as an Index sheet, but I can not change the position of the photos in the series or rename the photos. On to iPhoto....

Problem #3 (iPhoto)
-If I open a folder of photos in iPhoto, I can make a new album, and in the new album, I can change the positions of the photos, but I can not rename the photos.
-When I use iPhoto, the photos are stored three times, once in the library, once in the album, and once on the desktop. This seems redundant and confusing (lots of old photos, deleted photos, duplicated photos, photos with different names, and so on)

OK, hope that makes my query a bit more specific.

Again, thanks for your help.

Bruno

ElDiabloConCaca · #5 December 24th, 2007, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruno Schull

Thanks so much for your replies. I really appreciate your help.

Here are three specific problems:

Problem # 1
-When I open a folder of photos on the desktop, I can view all the photos together as small icons, and I can delete individual photos, but I can not change the position of the photos in the series. That makes re-naming the photos difficult, because I can not tell where the photos belong in the series (I only know where the photos belong in the series after I move them around). On to Preview....

This is normal behavior -- Mac OS X's Finder does not have built-in photo management capabilities -- files are organized "Finder-style" -- either by name, by date, or by size. The Finder is meant to move/copy and manipulate individual files. It's not meant as photo organization software, and trying to make it work as such will just lead to frustration.

Quote:

Problem # 2 (Preview)
-When I open a folder of photos with Preview, I can view the photos together as an Index sheet, but I can not change the position of the photos in the series or rename the photos. On to iPhoto....

This is also normal behavior -- Preview is meant to, well, "preview" files: PDFs, GIFs, JPGs, etc. It is also not meant to be a global manager of groups of files. It is simply meant to view individual files of certain types. It is not meant to aid in organizing those files into "album-style" groups.

Quote:

Problem #3 (iPhoto)
-If I open a folder of photos in iPhoto, I can make a new album, and in the new album, I can change the positions of the photos, but I can not rename the photos.
-When I use iPhoto, the photos are stored three times, once in the library, once in the album, and once on the desktop. This seems redundant and confusing (lots of old photos, deleted photos, duplicated photos, photos with different names, and so on)

This is also correct behavior. The "Library" in iPhoto is meant to be a collection or list of ALL photos that exist inside the iPhoto database. "Albums" are meant to organize subsets of the Library into manageable groups. The photo itself is stored in the iPhoto database only once -- but it may appear in multiple Albums... in fact, it can be in any number of places any number of times inside of iPhoto. Once you import a photo into iPhoto, you can safely delete the copy of the photo on the Desktop, since the photo is now stored in iPhoto's database (as long as the preference Advanced > Importing > "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" is checked). If you wish to retrieve a specific photo and manipulate it in the Finder, you can always drag the photo from iPhoto to your desktop, which will make a copy of the photo as a JPG (or whatever format the original photo was) on the Desktop.

I think the thing you're perhaps overlooking is that iPhoto is meant to be a complete photo management system -- and that includes the actual photo files (JPEGs or whatever) themselves. Once a photo is inside of iPhoto, you no longer need to manipulate the actual photo file itself -- iPhoto takes care of that for you.

Once you make an Album, you can drag photos from the Library into the Album and re-order, re-name and organize away. You can re-order the photos in an Album simply by dragging and dropping photos in whatever order you want. You can re-name the photos by clicking the little "information" icon button in the lower-left hand corner of the iPhoto window (the icon with an "i" inside a circle). From this "Information" section, you can re-name the photo, add/edit/remove keywords, rate photos, and view other information about the photo itself.

I would suggest trying to use iPhoto in this fashion -- let the Library be the collection of ALL your photos from the beginning of time, then organize those photos into Albums with meaningful names. Change the names of the photos in the Albums, re-organize them, re-order them, add keywords, etc. To re-name multiple photos at the same time (even add a sequential number to the end), simply highlight all the photos you wish to change, right-click the set of photos, then choose "Batch Change."

If you find you DO need to manipulate those photo files directly in the Finder, you can export the photos one-by-one, or all at one time, or selectively, and you have the option of using sequentially-numbered files, the original filename, or the iPhoto photo name.

In short, I think iPhoto may do exactly everything you need it to do, but perhaps you're trying to use it counter-intuitively or maybe you just don't know where to find the options to get it to do what you want. For that, we can help!

I hope that sheds some light on it. iPhoto is truly a powerful, consumer-level image organization program, but perhaps some of the features you need aren't immediately apparent.

changstarr · #6 December 27th, 2007, 01:14 AM

Hi Bruno!!

Feliz Navidad! Glad you are making good use of the iBook.
It seems like you are looking to organize photos in a very "PC" way, or at least how you are used to doing it on your old setup - manually, without a proper photo management program. You can really do it all within iPhoto. If you must must spit out a new folder of renamed photos for some reason, you can always export an album. . . and ditto to all of what ElDiabloConCaca said. It's a new way of doing things for you, but a better one.

One caveat, if your photo collection gets huge (it inevitably will), you may want to keep your iPhoto library entirely on an external drive. Merging and managing different iPhoto libraries is currently not super convenient. I've been using iPhoto Library Manager (http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/) , a third party program, to do just that.

-kc

Bruno Schull · #7 December 27th, 2007, 03:02 AM

Thanks again to everybody for your replies!

As a newcomer, I am very impressed by the refreshing patience and perspective of the responses

I will follow the advice presented above, and adapt myself to the Mac/iPhoto system.

So, here is a new question:

I have many folders of photos on the Mac desktop. For example, in a folder entitled 'Hiking trips" there are folders entitled "California", "Alaska", and so on.

If I import these folders to the library, I think that iPhoto will simply collect all the individual photos together.

Is there any way to import the photos so that the different folders I allready have on the desktop are preserved as different albums in iPhoto? That way I do not have to recreate hundreds of new albums.

Thanks,

Bruno

VirtualTracy · #8 December 27th, 2007, 06:25 AM

Is there any way to import the photos so that the different folders I already have on the desktop are preserved as different albums in iPhoto?

Just select one folder at a time and drag it direct from the Desktop and onto the left hand side Library column of iPhoto and the folders + contents will not only be automatically added to the Library, they will be preserved as folders.