Any good programs like Picasa for Mac?

[chevy]

Does Picasa keep your originals ?

What is "interesting" is that Picasa can do all it does using IE as the user interface (even when used through another browser). Do all iLife apps use the WebKit as the basis for the GUI ?

[bluedepth]

Originally Posted by chevy

Does Picasa keep your originals ?

Picasa, through my experience keeps all the originals in-place, and when you make edits, the edits are applied not to the image, but to a kind of "stored workflow" so the next time you open Picasa and look at the file, Picasa applies all the edits you made to the photo again. You can only "Save" changes made to a photo by exporting the photo to somewhere else. At first I wasn't sure exactly what it was doing until I looked at the file and saw how it was operating. I appreciate that level of security regarding my originals.

[lbj]

Originally Posted by bluedepth

Picasa, through my experience keeps all the originals in-place, and when you make edits, the edits are applied not to the image, but to a kind of "stored workflow" so the next time you open Picasa and look at the file, Picasa applies all the edits you made to the photo again. You can only "Save" changes made to a photo by exporting the photo to somewhere else. At first I wasn't sure exactly what it was doing until I looked at the file and saw how it was operating. I appreciate that level of security regarding my originals.

Hey, that's pretty slick! And I'm guessing "workflows" are only a fraction of the size of making a duplicate and applying changes as iPhoto does.

[chevy]

That's a good approach... as long as nobody modifies the original ;-) But there are probably no good way to be able to edit an image with several applications and still have an infinite number of undo levels.

[wibblefoo]

Try QPict (www.qpict.net).

Cheaper than most of the alternatives (other than iPhoto). Works great on my ~9000 collection of 8mpix images.

[iji oh]

Originally Posted by wibblefoo

Try QPict (www.qpict.net).

Cheaper than most of the alternatives (other than iPhoto). Works great on my ~9000 collection of 8mpix images.

Sounds interesting. But unless it asks whether you want to save the original after edits, I'm not interested. What's so hard about making a program whose default mode doesn't clog up your harddrive?

[hecubus]

Just some thoughts on earlier posts about iPhoto re-organizing people's image organization into junk - I agree that iPhoto should be more like iTunes in allowing you to add files to the library without necessarily adding it to it's own internally-maintained structure, but the reason why a lot of people love iPhoto is that it takes that level of maintenance out of the equation. I don't need to organize my photos myself, the software does it for you. If I add my images to its library, why would I need to keep a duplicate set in a completely different structure? iPhoto's goal is to take over the task of organizing your photos so you don't have to do it.

Part of the simplicity of iPhoto is that it's not complicated, it's not infinitely-configurable. Infinitely-configurable software increases complexity for the user and the software. This can be said for most of Apple's software - it does the 80% of what everyone wants extremely well, whereas I find most Windows software does 95% of what everyone wants but does an acceptable job of it. There's a trade-off there. Obviously there are exceptions, Picasa being the obvious one.

For those looking for a free (for the time being) alternative to iPhoto, check out Adobe Lightroom. It's currently in public beta (you have been warned that it's beta software) so don't expect it to be free after the beta period is over and the software expires. You might actually have to *gasp* pay for good software that does what you want it to do.

[Lacus Odii]

Ok, here's the set up. I have a 2.16Ghz core duo Macbook Pro. My roommate has a 1.2Ghz Windows XP laptop. I watched him download pictures from his camera into Picasa, do color correction and remove red eye, run a couple of filters on a few, then save them and upload them to facebook. He beat the iPhoto workflow on my machine by about a factor of three. It appears to be more featureful to boot.

This weekend I am going to try to get Picasa working under Crossover (Wine for Mac.) Even under Wine, provided it works, it should blow the doors off of iPhoto. I'm currently running (Windows) ACDSee32 2.4 under Wine, and it cycles pictures faster than any native OS X app I've come across yet.

In short, I am not buying the argument that iPhoto is better for some things. Anyone who has more experience with both, go ahead and educate me. Just remember that I spent over 2700 dollars on a Macbook before anyone accuses me of hating Apple.