is iphoto worth using?

shaylou · 3 Apr 2012

I have a MacBook so I already have it installed. I'm a beginner and dont know anything about editing but I am worried that about taking the time to learn a new software if its not worth a flip. So with that in mind, what are the good point and bad points ? Please keep in mind I am totally clueless on editing. Thanks for your help.

pablo_paul · 3 Apr 2012

if your new then iPhoto would be acceptable bearing in mind that aperture which is more capable and is used my professionals is avalible very reasonably in the new app store for Mac it's far more capable and if you fall in love with your new hobby you'll want to move on.

The other alternative is Lightroom from adobe which is similar to aperture but slightly more expensive at £100 and works on PC as well. I use this.

PSILVERMAN · 3 Apr 2012

Its good for a putting together a quick slideshow.

srichards · 3 Apr 2012

Depends on what you do. I have noticed if you level horizons you find the image is well fuzzy compared to using something better like Gimp (free photoshop style image editor).

Iphoto has RAW support so I think you could do a reasonable job if you used RAW rather than jpg if you needed to edit something quite heavily.

Some of the quick tools like 'enhance' and the spot removal type of tool are very useful. The levels and saturation etc editor is also handy.

Craikeybaby · 3 Apr 2012

As a basic introduction it is great (and already installed!), if you want to take things further Aperture is very similar, so you wouldn't need to unlearn everything.

oldnick · 3 Apr 2012

For basic editing, cropping, etc rescuing detail from back or peak white its great - I love the full screen edit mode, far better than Elements.

shaylou · 4 Apr 2012

Judging from the amount if responses I think iphoto might be a bad choice.... :/

Craikeybaby · 4 Apr 2012

Most of the responses were positive though.

TBH subjects that get covered fairly often may not get so many answers, so it could be worth doing a search too.

JonathanRyan · 4 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
Judging from the amount if responses I think iphoto might be a bad choice.... :/

You have it - why not try it...?

Surprisingly good at image level (vs pixel level) editing for what's basically a freebie. Nice for cataloguing stuff too.

shaylou · 5 Apr 2012

JonathanRyan said:
You have it - why not try it...?

Surprisingly good at image level (vs pixel level) editing for what's basically a freebie. Nice for cataloguing stuff too.

I must admit that I dont know anything about editing (I'm a beginner). Right now I am using iphoto to analyze my pics. This has proven effective with seeing how my adjustments truly effect the exposure. Unless I'm missing it, there is no way to look at the camera setting, histogram and picture at the same time. That alone makes me think that this software was not well thought out, at least not for beginners. Am I missing something?

Slaphead · 5 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
I must admit that I dont know anything about editing (I'm a beginner). Right now I am using iphoto to analyze my pics. This has proven effective with seeing how my adjustments truly effect the exposure. Unless I'm missing it, there is no way to look at the camera setting, histogram and picture at the same time. That alone makes me think that this software was not well thought out, at least not for beginners. Am I missing something?

You have to remember the target market for iPhoto. It's aimed at the general populous that happen to have a camera. Those people who have a camera simply for holiday snaps, party snaps, generally snappers. That said it's OK for most basic things, but I'm of the opinion that anybody who develops an interest in photography will outgrow it pretty quickly (not to mention it seems to have a nasty habit of screwing up your library to such an extent you have to reimport everything).

Aperture is iPhoto's bigger, more grown up brother, which is far more suited to the enthusiast and is available from app store for around £60 I think, which is a bargain considering it's vast capabilities.

Craikeybaby · 5 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
I must admit that I dont know anything about editing (I'm a beginner). Right now I am using iphoto to analyze my pics. This has proven effective with seeing how my adjustments truly effect the exposure. Unless I'm missing it, there is no way to look at the camera setting, histogram and picture at the same time. That alone makes me think that this software was not well thought out, at least not for beginners. Am I missing something?

I'm not at my mac at the moment, but unless someone else can answer this for you, I'll have a look.

srichards · 5 Apr 2012

It seems you can't. The info and edit button (latter includes histogram) can't have their contents displayed at the same time.

Might be worth popping in a feature suggestion to apple? It seems an annoying omission!

ictus · 5 Apr 2012

You have nothing to loose with iPhoto as you can upgrade to aperture and import your iPhoto library....

shaylou · 5 Apr 2012

Slaphead said:
You have to remember the target market for iPhoto. It's aimed at the general populous that happen to have a camera. Those people who have a camera simply for holiday snaps, party snaps, generally snappers. That said it's OK for most basic things, but I'm of the opinion that anybody who develops an interest in photography will outgrow it pretty quickly (not to mention it seems to have a nasty habit of screwing up your library to such an extent you have to reimport everything).

Aperture is iPhoto's bigger, more grown up brother, which is far more suited to the enthusiast and is available from app store for around £60 I think, which is a bargain considering it's vast capabilities.

That is what I was asking, I guess I wasn't clear. I dont want something I'm going to outgrow. Does apiture allow you to see all of your setting along with histogram wail you make editing adjustments.

bornagain · 5 Apr 2012

Yes, Aperture shows the camera settings and histogram so that you can see the results of your changes as you make them. Have recently bought Aperture from the App Store for £59 (I think) and seems a bargain. Am just starting out with making adjustments so in the process of learning. It is an excellent cataloguing tool and goes a lot further than iPhoto. Non destructive editing too.

Phil

cambsno · 5 Apr 2012

I use Lightroom to edit pics then expor as jpg into iPhoto so they work with iPhone etc. purely use it as a viewer.

shaylou · 6 Apr 2012

bornagain said:
Yes, Aperture shows the camera settings and histogram so that you can see the results of your changes as you make them. Have recently bought Aperture from the App Store for £59 (I think) and seems a bargain. Am just starting out with making adjustments so in the process of learning. It is an excellent cataloguing tool and goes a lot further than iPhoto. Non destructive editing too.

Phil

Just to be clear, you can look at all of the about at ( Same time)? That's very important to me.

Slaphead · 6 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
Just to be clear, you can look at all of the about at ( Same time)? That's very important to me.

You can always see ISO, F-Stop, shutter speed and focal length when editing. The rest of the metadata is available just by clicking on the metadata tab next to the adjustments tab.

How much of the metadata do you really need to see when editing anyway?

shaylou · 6 Apr 2012

Slaphead said:
You can always see ISO, F-Stop, shutter speed and focal length when editing. The rest of the metadata is available just by clicking on the metadata tab next to the adjustments tab.

How much of the metadata do you really need to see when editing anyway?

So the answer is no you can't see all of it at the same time. If I didn't want to see it all at the same time I wouldn't had posted the question. I need to see it all for my own reasons.

whiteflyer · 6 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
So the answer is no you can't see all of it at the same time. If I didn't want to see it all at the same time I wouldn't had posted the question. I need to see it all for my own reasons.

Yes you can see all the Exif data while editing, there are several sets of data viewable while making adjustments in Aperture

You can select from a list of data you wish to view

Or edit which items in the exif data you wish to see

shaylou · 7 Apr 2012

whiteflyer said:
Yes you can see all the Exif data while editing, there are several sets of data viewable while making adjustments in Aperture

You can select from a list of data you wish to view

Or edit which items in the exif data you wish to see

Ahhh thank you. Finally someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Its frustrating to have someone ask you why you need it and they dont even know its available. Anywho thanks for the info.

Slaphead · 7 Apr 2012

shaylou said:
Ahhh thank you. Finally someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Its frustrating to have someone ask you why you need it and they dont even know its available. Anywho thanks for the info.

Actually I did know, but I'd just forgotten about it - makes the interface way too messy IMO, and takes up too much space. Everyone has their own way of working I guess, and for me, except for ISO, Shutter, Aperture and Focal length the EXIF has no bearing whatsoever in my workflow, which made me ask the question in the first place.

Anyway apologies for asking, and I'm glad you found your solution.

acetone · 7 Apr 2012

I guess there are two question here really

Can you show it : YES
Why would you want to show it ? : ____

shaylou · 8 Apr 2012

Slaphead said:
Actually I did know, but I'd just forgotten about it - makes the interface way too messy IMO, and takes up too much space. Everyone has their own way of working I guess, and for me, except for ISO, Shutter, Aperture and Focal length the EXIF has no bearing whatsoever in my workflow, which made me ask the question in the first place.

Anyway apologies for asking, and I'm glad you found your solution.

Thank you for the reply. I am a beginner using iphoto. Its helpful for me to see everything including histogram in order to understand my exposure adjustments. The problem I found was (unless I'm missing something) I have to switch between screens to get all of the information I want to see, this is time consuming. I really want a one screen tells all screen for now to help me with my studies. That is why I was asking the question about apiture. I'm not totally sure if I want to use apple software at this point. It seems that there is often a lot of hoops to jump through to get information with them. Dont get me wrong I love my MacBook pro but...

shaylou · 14 May 2012

It is a shame that apple makes such a good product (MacBook pro) but when I comes to their software they really stink. I am trying lightroom 4 and it is so much smother on my machine. No freezing, beach ball of death, or lagging. Its their machine and their software yet it is awful together.

ernesto · 14 May 2012

Don't agree. I have used iPhoto for years (currently on an iMac) and it works faultlessly. It is very fast with RAW files and amends made to any of the settings (exposure, contrast, highlights etc, etc. ) are made instantly.

Remember this is free software. Try a demo of Aperture for free and see if you like it.

shaylou · 15 May 2012

I used iphoto and like I said it is slow, freezes all the time and even locks up on me to the point I have to reboot my entire system. Not to mention the limited editing tools available. I am currently using lightroom 4 and it runs flawlessly. As far as trying apiture, first there was no free trial so you would have to buy it to try it. That seems a bit foolish considering how bad their pre-installed editing software is. I'm just happy that lightroom 4 had a free trial so I could see how much better it is before I paid.

srichards · 15 May 2012

I've used iphoto since g5 days. Only time it would crash consistently would be if you changed it from being the default programme to load when connecting a camera. If you then used it, it was awful and crashed like mad.

First uses if you have imported a large library can be slow because of the stupid face recognition it insists on doing. That's my only beef with it. I don't want it and there's no way of turning it off. If you don't let it finish it will be a nuisance and slow until you do.

shaylou · 16 May 2012

The biggest problem I had was when I zoomed into a photo and tried to edit it. If I changed the zoom wail editing it could not keep up. Another thing I noticed is when I used iphoto the temp of my mac went way up. In lightroom 4 everything runs smoothly and it gives a lot more control over the editing. Apple really shot themselves in the foot when they stopped offering the free trial of apiture. I would have tried it before moving to an outside software company but sense there is not a free trial and iphoto was so horrible there was no way I was going to spend my money on it. This is just another example of big business trying to impress their share holders by saving money in the short run (by pulling the free trail) but ultimately loosing money from consumers like myself that dont buy apiture.

PSILVERMAN · 16 May 2012

Iphoto is very good at slideshows which is what I use it for. Don't see the point of using it for editing when I've got LR and CS4.

ernesto · 18 May 2012

shaylou said:
I used iphoto and like I said it is slow, freezes all the time and even locks up on me to the point I have to reboot my entire system. Not to mention the limited editing tools available. I am currently using lightroom 4 and it runs flawlessly. As far as trying apiture, first there was no free trial so you would have to buy it to try it. That seems a bit foolish considering how bad their pre-installed editing software is. I'm just happy that lightroom 4 had a free trial so I could see how much better it is before I paid.

If it is crashing all the time and even causing reboots you have a problem with you Mac or install somewhere as that has never happened to me.
I tried APerture free for 30 days a few months ago but guess that offer must have stopped.
Yes, the editing tools are limited but they give me what I want to make slight corrections that are sometimes necessary. Anything that takes longer than a minute I am not interested which is why iPhoto does it for me.
I am trialling Lightroom now and can't be bothered with it already. I guess it just does more that I need and none of it is as immediate as iPhoto with it's simple set of editing controls.

shaylou · 18 May 2012

Apple pulled that free trial recently. As far as having a problem with my Mac, I don't Lightroom runs smooth as well as all my other programs. I see your point with simplicity but in reality lightroom has the same simple adjustments. If you do not wish to make major adjustments you don't have to. Simply ignore all the other adjustment tabs. Anywho if it works for you great, it just doesn't work for me.

is iphoto worth using?

whiteflyer

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