Is it just me, or does iPhoto blow??

warpd

Ok, I loved imovie, and am addicted to itunes, so when iphoto came out I was really excited. I whipped out my Nikon 775, and began uploading images ti iphoto. Here is the problem...It creates it's own little virtual folder structure with your images hidden often 4 layers deep, with cryptic names like "5544.jpg" This means that if the user wants to have any direct contacy with the images, it is a nightmare to find them. this forces you to only work within iphoto. Image capture seemed to me to be much better. Also, iphoto forces you to import all of the pictures creating duplicates every time you try to import something!!!! WTF! So then I thought, "ok, I will use image capture to bring them in to a folder that I know and control, and will then map iphoto to that folder and do a manual import. seem simple?? Except iphoto duplicates all the images rather that jusr referencing them in a database!!! So now I have 2 sets of the exact same pictures!!! Bottom line is, I could go on for a while here. iphoto needs to be updated really soon, because it is, in my opinion, far and away the poorest of the "i" appz!! Anybody else have experiences like these??? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

ricrocket

Agreed -

Although I'm willing to give iPhoto a little slack...it looks like it was rushed to market (my opinion) and I expect (hope for) a least a slight upgrade in Tokyo.



One thing that may help with trying to find a particular image in the nested folders - don't bother, just drag it from iPhoto to the desktop. Yeah, it creates a copy, but at least you've got it right there to use and you haven't spent 20 mins wading through folders.



rr.

ghost_user_name

This is a good point. iTunes does a great job of importing and naming the files. iPhoto, as you've mentioned, doesn't

rok

iphoto, compared to its predecessor - imagecapture - rocks... pure and simple.



but, like itunes 1.0 and 2.0, iphoto 2.0, whenever it happens, will kick butt,too (though it'll need to be married to an apple-branded external device to achieve its fullpotential, just like ipod was to itunes 2).

warpd

You know, in terms of capture functionality, iphoto is a step back!!! Compare the preferences panes of both image capture and iphoto! Image capture has 5 times the functionality!! My point is simply that itunes did not need an Apple branded .mp3 player to be the best music player on the mac platform. It was intuative, elegant, and functional. It took stock of my .mp3 collection, catalogued it, and presented it to me in a way that only Apple could. I realizt that due to naming conventions, and lack of file identifiers, it was much harder to do this in iphoto. I am no software engineer, but it strikes me that one way to acomplish this is for iphoto to imprint every captured image with a unique watermark or some such thing. iphoto feels half finished!!! I want my money back!!!!!! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

eugene

iPhoto uses the cryptic names because it creates so many files. It has to. it creates an original, then creates multiple cpies along the way as you crop, reduce red-eye and whatever else. If you want to have direct access to photo files, mass export them, sheesh.

i like macs

if it has to put the photos in its own folder, can't it just make an alias?

eugene

It doesn't move your photos. It copies them, Your originals will still be where you left them on the camera or in whichever folder they were in...unless you chose to delete them off your camera.



Anyway, is anybody listening? iPhoto keeps a pristine original in any case...First, it doesn't delete any thing you drag into the window. Second, any changes you make to an iPhoto original will be done to a separate file. At ANY point in the future, you can revert to the pristine original. This is why iPhoto needs its own hierarchy. It probably wouldn't be much better if you had several thousand photos to dig through in several hundred folders anyway...especially if you've edited them and created several thousand intermediates.

kaboom

The thing that makes iPhoto blow for me is the fact that I can't selectivly import or delete files from my camera. When I go to import, I can only import all or none and can't delete any of them until I download them. Plus, unlike Image Capture, there is no preview before I download. Not like it would matter since I can't selectivly download, but you get the idea.



These 3 features would make iPhoto a great app IMHO.

eugene

None of my cameras are compatible with iPhoto or Image Capture...iPhoto uses the Image Capture engine, BTW.



However, when I do get a camera that is compatible, I'll probably use Image Capture to download the photos and just drag them into the iPhoto window. I tend to save all the photos I take though, so I'll probably not end up picking and choosing photos off my camera anyway.

mac's girl

i am not denying the shortcomings of iphoto. but it is infinitely better than what i had to deal with before: a mile-long list of file names like DSC00987364652. it took me forever to find anything! and if i changed each file name to make it more identifiable (another tedious task), then i couldnt copy them back onto my sony memory stick unless i changed the file name back to a valid number code.



i just got cd burning capability, but previously i had kept a back-up of all photos on zip disks. i wouldnt import anything into iphoto or leave it only on my HD if i didnt have a back-up somewhere. those photos are my memories, and i wouldnt take the issue of storing them lightly.



[ 03-16-2002: Message edited by: mac's girl ]</p>