Any good programs like Picasa for Mac?

AlanR said:
Anybody tried iPhoto Buddy? It works pretty well for me.

www.iphotobuddy.com
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I'm trying it - but have some questions first to avoid wasting the time of importing and sorting etc. since I just finished getting all my photos OUT of iphoto. For optimum performance you keep your libraries around say 1000 photos, right? So I assume that searching, keywords, albums, etc are specific to EACH library, is this correct? For example: I couldn't have keyword results turn up photos with the same keyword if they are in a separate library (I assume this, but want to make sure). And you wouldn't see any albums from other libraries either, right? Thanks
 
sfenton83 said:
What I meant by it not doing you any good is that this application is not any form of a substitute for iPhoto - it's merely an application that allows you to upload to the google web albums, nothing more. I've used the app already - and that is why I say this.
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SF
Sorry, I've been busy all weekend and only just caught up with this.

You're right it is not a substitute for iPhoto. It is nothing but a management tool for any number of iPhoto Libraries.

iPhoto buddy simply makes it possible to have many independent iPhoto Libraries which you can name anything you like (Famiy - 2004, Car Racing, Kids in the Park...whatever).

As for uploading to google web albums I'm not sure Buddy can be used for that. I think it's only intended for managing a bunch of iPhoto Libraries. Because I'm running 10.2.8 (see my earlier post) I can't use Buddy 1.2.6 so maybe there is something there for uploading as you mentioned.


sfenton83 said:
I'm trying it - but have some questions first to avoid wasting the time of importing and sorting etc. since I just finished getting all my photos OUT of iphoto. For optimum performance you keep your libraries around say 1000 photos, right? So I assume that searching, keywords, albums, etc are specific to EACH library, is this correct? For example: I couldn't have keyword results turn up photos with the same keyword if they are in a separate library (I assume this, but want to make sure). And you wouldn't see any albums from other libraries either, right? Thanks
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As no doubt you know, the bigger your iPhoto Library the slower it is to load, so keeping Libraries to about 1000 is about right. That's what I aim for, although it's not always possible.

From the list of Libraries in Buddy you choose whichever Library you want to open and then do your searches or anything else in iPhoto itself just as you would if you hadn't used Buddy to open the Library.

Buddy shows you the Albums you have set up in each Library and if you double click on an Album in a Library Buddy opens that Library and takes you to the Album. That's all.

So everything you said about keywords etc is right.

Hope that is some help and hope you find iBuddy is useful. Bummer if you have to reload them all!!

Cheers
AlanR
 
i'm a long time unix user (background is solaris, running on sparc) and have just bought a 17" mac book pro after my laptop was stolen. used pc for my photos as theres not much for sun gear so settled on picasa, my workflow is load raw pics from my 20d divide into respective folder, then i go through and edit on the fly tweaking shadows colour temp etc and selecting the ones i want by using the star tool. i then used the export option and resize to 800 x 600 for my web site and then upload using gallery remote. now if theres is away to do this in iphoto i haven't figured it out yet, namely selecting the photos i want but retaining all of them, then exporting the selected and resizing at the same time to a folder of my choice. can anyone suggest a way of doing this or shall i just continue with boot camp install and have to boot into windows just to do my photos? or hopefully google will get picasa done for mac as there seems to be demand for it.

forgot to add my image library is currently standing at about 150,000 images, so i'm concerned about what i have read about iphoto and large quantities of images.

thanks in advance

Giles
 
[sarcasm]thnx for that mario really helpfull reply[/sarcasm]

so can anyone actually suggest a method of selecting specific photos as i go through them without having to either delete the ones i don't want or then going back through and selecting with mouse and and apple option to select specific ones can get annoying with 1000+ photos especially if you miss click.

Giles
 
drop them into an album, as in iTunes with playlists. then you can keep track of the ones you want.

also, to export in different fliesizes to different places, go File > Export.
 
Cyberprop,

Awhile ago, MacAddict magazine dumped 250,000 pictures into iPhoto 6 (the latest). It didn't work so well. Glitchy!!

So, I would think twice before dropping all 150,000 pix into iPhoto. 10,000? 20,000? Probably fine. Not 150,000.

What about running Picassa in Parallels? You'd have to buy Parallels and have a copy of Windows. Just a thought. I've never run Picassa so I don't know how it would handle 150,000 pix.

Doug
 
I don't know....I've given iphoto (5/6) plenty of chances to make me forget about Picasa and it's not really happening. I've had too many problems with the database in iphoto getting corrupted. iphoto doesn't have the cool inset picture when you zoom in on an image. iphoto doesn't have native IPTC embedding like Picasa does (with the captions). Picasa is really the only thing I miss about using PCs. Aperture is really nice, but it's still needs a bit of work in terms of performance and features.........mainly the web export feature and the fact that it doesn't seem to have very good image compression for saving web photos. What is really promising is Adobe Lightroom (currently in beta). It's development is almost completely driven by user feedback. I've found that a great program for batch editing is Graphic Converter X. It's an excellent value and even though a copy came with my computer, I decided to support the developer by purchasing it separately. It would probably rival Photoshop as a retouching tool if they'd only allow users to custom configure the keyboard shortcuts.....plus the GUI needs to be revamped. If you're looking to just manage/view alot of photos (without much editing), a great program to try is PhotoGrid. Drag and drop a folder to the photogrid icon on the dock and you can get a quick view of all photos (including the ones in subdirectories) and then move/copy or edit them in Photoshop. I've found Adobe Bridge to be too bulky in its feature set and it loading time seems to take awhile (although I'm only using a late model Powerbook with 1.5gigs of RAM).
 
Add me to the list of Mac lovers who don't love iPhoto. Picasa is the one thing I really miss about windows and I would love to see it ported to OSX. I switched to Mac a couple of years ago and I am still struggling with iPhoto... I still can't easily accomplish fairly mundane tasks without pulling my hair out.

My wife works in the same room as me on her windows machine and it embarasses me how much easier it is to do ANYTHING on picasa than it is in iPhoto. Way faster on her old windows box than iPhoto is on my much newer Mac, too.

Otherwise, I love my Mac.
 
eric2006 said:
If you really have that many pictures, you'd be better off with something like Aperture.
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i have apature and have started loading my photos in but its slow, even on my new mac book pro, albeit i only have 2gb of ram but still shouldn't be as slow as it is. i'm running osx stripped down while i run it nothing but bare minimum running inc dock switched off. but it allows me to do what i want and rate certain pics and edit on the fly just wished it ran a bit quicker, i will investigate pararells. picasa ran fine on my old pc with that many photos just struggled a bit with the raw images flying through them in full size.

thnx for all that have helped

gi
 
I;'m reading over a few of the posts here, but I'm sorry I used iPhoto and I thought it was great. i luved the little feature like the "make book prints" and the quick edits. i didn't like how it "managed" my photos. I use PS and Bridge more now than anything else; but then i was introduced to Picasa. very good for doing a few of the things i already do IN PS but with 1 or 2 clicks. Sepia, BW, fades, Light filling, and all done quickly and seamlessly. I can post to either Picasa Web or my website with little effort. I used to recommend iPhoto to anyone who never really needed to learn PS, but still wanted to have cool outputs. Picasa is just better at doing what iPhoto started with simplifying. i just wish Google didn't coupe out and figure that the mac community didn't want to use something else other than iPhoto. :(
I think Picasa would give iPhoto some great competition. unlike what Gimp tried to do with PS.
Hey give it time there will be something better than picasa.
:)
 
HELP!!!! I am a mac idiot being it I was raised on PC. I am a new convert. I renamed all the folders in my iphoto library and now I cannot view any pictures in iPhoto. What do I do? Is there anyway to undo what I did or do I have to download a whole new program to be able to view my photos? I love iphoto by the way.
 
Renaming all folders was not a good idea as you found out.

You can re-import your files by drag-dropping these into iPhoto. You may also be able to recover the whole system by selecting a new folder as you iPhoto folder (and set your renamed folder as the new folder).
 
dktrickey said:
Cyberprop,

Awhile ago, MacAddict magazine dumped 250,000 pictures into iPhoto 6 (the latest). It didn't work so well. Glitchy!!

So, I would think twice before dropping all 150,000 pix into iPhoto. 10,000? 20,000? Probably fine. Not 150,000.

What about running Picassa in Parallels? You'd have to buy Parallels and have a copy of Windows. Just a thought. I've never run Picassa so I don't know how it would handle 150,000 pix.

Doug
Click to expand...

Just due to the corresponding amount of HD capacity, this does not fit with iPhoto approach of having all files in one location.
 
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