How do you guys make iPhoto useful?

dmber

For example, I was listing some things on ebay today. I had imported the photos I took of the items into iPhoto but of course they retained the filename that my camera gave them: "DSCN####.jpg". When I clicked on "browse" in ebay's picture loader to find the file, I have to sort through all kinds of files with that same number to be able to find the picture. So what I did was open iPhoto (which is ridiculously slow) find the picture, copy the filename, and paste it into the little search box in the finder (opened in ebay.)



That is not right. Once I have imported my pictures into iPhoto I should be able to bring up a "renamer" window or something and go through the pictures and change what comes before the .jpg. This is a common sense use for a photo application. The "keywords" in iphoto do not turn into spotlight metadata, making them useless outside the program.



I don't get the point of iPhoto. It's like it takes ownership of my pictures once I import them and won't let me do anything useful with them outside of iPhoto.



So...straighten me out. What am I doing wrong?

atlas

I'd use automator to rename your files. My iPhoto experience is this:



1. Use it to show friends pictures of vacations or my car

2. Use it to sort photos so I can edit them in Photoshop

3. Import photos from Digital camera.



Honestly, if I didn't have spotlight or Photoshop, I probably wouldn't use iPhoto. Those three seem to work well together.

dmber

can i use automator to be able to see the photo that i'm renaming? i use the automotar action (or whatever it's called) "browse iphoto library. it would be great if there was a space at the bottom to highlight a picture up top and rename it.



is there??



thanks!

pt123

One iPhoto sucks your photos in, you really can't do anything to it except view it unless you are using one of those Apple specific integrated i-apps. It's really more of a repository than an organizer. You will have to export the photo to get it outside of iphoto and use it there.

dutch pear

Yes I second that. In the same situation, I select the pics I want, export them to the desktop, upload them from there and then delete the files from the desktop. As long as I know the name of the album the pics are in this is done in seconds. Actually I use aperture, but the scenario is identical in this case.

dmber

i've found myself doing a lot of: keep iphoto open when i'm working with pics, and just drag the ones i'm going to need to the desktop. it sucks, but it gets the job done.



darn, i was hoping i was just being clueless and missing some easy way to make iphoto really handy. oh well.



thanks!

kickaha

Select the photo.



Down in the bottom left you'll see a button with an 'i' in a circle. Click it to bring up the Information pane. Click on the Title. Edit.



When you export, make sure 'Use Title' is selected under 'Name'.



Once you place anything in iPhoto, iTunes, etc, trying to use the Finder to access, alter, change, or manipulate the files is pretty meaningless.

mojomixmeister

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kickaha


Select the photo.



Down in the bottom left you'll see a button with an 'i' in a circle. Click it to bring up the Information pane. Click on the Title. Edit.



When you export, make sure 'Use Title' is selected under 'Name'.

In addition, for a group of photos you can use the Batch Change feature in the Photos menu to change the title to something relevant, and append a number to each one. From there, export as above.