Filed under: Macworld, iLife, Software
iPhoto 6: First Impressions
So I just finished installing my copy of iLife 06, and since I'm the most interested in the new iPhoto and iWeb apps, I thought I'd post a few initial thoughts at least on the new iPhoto, which is technically now at version 6. I've been playing with and poking at it for roughly 20 minutes, so this will obviously be just a raw rundown of what I've noticed is new and different so far:
- Starting, using and quitting the app is noticeably faster. I'm running it on a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz with 1.5 GB RAM, but I've still noticed a general increase in speed and responsiveness.
- Finally, finally, finally - the iPhoto Library folder (in ~/Pictures/) organizes your images the way an application like this should. Basically, under a new "Originals" folder are folders dated by year, and in those are folders named by album, with images arranged accordingly. Thanks Apple!
- iPhoto 6 now joins Mail and iTunes with unified toolbar goodness.
- Full-screen viewing/editing is responsive and absolutely gorgeous, though I have one minor complaint: there's no way to get out the current album of images you're viewing unless you duck out of full-screen. Not a big deal, but a minor nuisance.
- There's a new Advanced preference pane with the option: "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library." If this functions like the similar option in iTunes, I assume this means iPhoto doesn't necessarily need to move, copy and/or duplicate images you have sitting somewhere else on your Mac.
- The toolbar at the bottom of iPhoto's interface is now customizable, allowing you to toggle which buttons you actually have available down there.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Dinesh said 2:46PM on 1-12-2006
Nice review, Hey did anyone get a hand on the new iMac? Can anyone post a review please ?
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Entica said 2:50PM on 1-12-2006
Have they *FINALLY* fixed the Sharpness bug that's been around forever? I can't believe iPhoto has come this far and sharpness still doesn't work. Hopefully it's finally fixed.
And before some of you think it's all just me... do some google research. The sharpness bug in iPhoto is well documented.
E.
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axel said 2:53PM on 1-12-2006
The toolbar at the bottom of iPhoto's interface is customizable in iPhoto 5 to (just checked) .But you have to do it via the menubar
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oliver said 3:16PM on 1-12-2006
Damn, I can't believe more hasn't been said about the new folder structure. To me this was probably the single most annoying feature of previous iPhoto versions and one of the reasons I started using iView MediaPro instead. So thanks for bringing this great new feature to my attention David.
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Mikey said 3:18PM on 1-12-2006
Funny, I have those same Matrix Reloaded pics.
My copy arrives in the morning. I too bought it for iPhoto and to tinker with iWeb.
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Greg said 3:41PM on 1-12-2006
Great Great News!!!!!!!!
agree #4, the folder structure was the most annoying thing about iPhoto. I did the same, moved on to iView which is good but not as nice as iPhoto.
My iLife 06 box is on its way and I'll be installing it very very soon :)
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Jonathan Payne said 4:22PM on 1-12-2006
Any indication that they have fixed the horrible RAW file handling? In particular, once you have made a change to a RAW file and saved it, are subsequent changes made to the JPEG instead of the RAW file? (Hard to believe, but that's how it works.)
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Eric said 4:52PM on 1-12-2006
Do the new iLife apps have the sharper radius corners like iTunes 6 does?
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BobbyW said 5:24PM on 1-12-2006
How can the pictures be in the Finder folders by album? What if a photo is in more than one album - does it get placed in more than one folder?
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Neil O'Connor said 5:32PM on 1-12-2006
How many photos do you have in your library? How much physical RAM does the process use when loaded?
I had major performance issues (startup time) with ~7k photos. The process went to like 400Mb causing a lot of paging - before I upped to 1Gb
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Clark Goble said 5:33PM on 1-12-2006
The big question is speed with many photos. I've heard it is much faster overall, but the real issue is how it handles thousands of photos.
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Chris K said 5:34PM on 1-12-2006
David, I've heard iPhoto 6 can operate on files without putting them in its library. Can you comment on this?
Mainly, I want to know if I can point iPhoto to a directory with some imagse in it, have it edit those images (sharpness, contrast, etc), then either save the modified images IN PLACE (ie: overwrite the files) or export them to some other directory as modified JPEGs.
This is my workflow right now, and iPhoto 5 couldn't do that. I had to resort to using Picasa on my PC for basic edits, and of course Photoshop for more complex corrections.
Also, can iPhoto browse a given directory structure? (Network SMB shares in my case.)
Any info you can provide would be most helpful! I'm trying to decide if I can replace my PC with a new iMac as my photography computer.
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Reid Ellis said 5:42PM on 1-12-2006
It could be that the option for copying is just an alternative to moving, so no, it does not sound like iPhoto can handle you putting your photos where you want yet. *sigh.
Please someone tell me I am wrong!
Plus tell me that the 90 degree rotated photos use lossless JPEG rotation so that the image size doesn't change, and the quality suffer?
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John B. said 5:43PM on 1-12-2006
I can't stand that when you open a contextual menu by right-clicking on an image within iPhoto, there's no "Reveal in Finder" option. If there were such an option, I wouldn't even care about the folder structure of the library. Perhaps they wise and fixed it in v. 6, though. Here's to hoping.
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Nathan said 5:45PM on 1-12-2006
Anyone know what performance is like on a G3 iMac?
Specifically, can you do any more editing features? (iPhoto 5 disables most of them when running on a G3).
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Joe Ego said 6:24PM on 1-12-2006
Regarding the G3 question, I finally found this on the iLife system requirements page:
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, or Intel Core processor; 733MHz or faster for iDVD
256MB of RAM, 512MB recommended
This appears to be saying G4 minimum with the caveat added for iDVD. This is a serious step, by immediately removing the G3 processors from the minimum requirements.
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ChillyWilly said 7:00PM on 1-12-2006
My biggest question... can you change the name of the actual file of the picture from the criptic name (ie. FVD00044.JPG) to a more friendly and descriptive name (ie. camping trip-04.jpg) inside iPhoto 6?
Or do I still need to make all of those changes before I import my photos into iPhoto?
For me, this is the biggest drawback to using iPhoto. I often take individual JPG files to a photo center to have them printed out. It's much easier to see what photos I have when they have descriptive names.
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John Faughnan said 9:54PM on 1-12-2006
Is there any way, even undocumented, to merge, combine or import one or more Libraries?
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David Chartier said 10:30PM on 1-12-2006
Here are answers to some of your questions boys and girls. If I didn't get to anyone's, it was probably because I didn't have time at the moment. Sorry:
7. Yes, the "unified toolbar" theme and rounded corners seem to be on all the new iLife apps.
9. I have only 1675 photos, so I'm quite a bit short of your library. I still noticed an increase in performance though.
11. From poking around, it looks like iPhoto *might* do what you want. There is no "File > Open" command, but I would imagine you could simply shut off that option I mentioned of importing images into the database or not and get your work done that way. Browsing directory structures however seems like a no-go, unless of course you simply leave that aforementioned option off and "import" those directories into iPhoto for browsing. Basically: it seems like iPhoto still functions around that sort of "contained library" ideal, so you might have to poke around with that one more on your own for your workflow needs.
13. There is a new "Reveal in Finder" on a contextual click, but for some odd reason it's always greyed out whether I click on photos in my main library or photos in an album. Guess I need to investigate further.
14. Bad news: iLife 06 requires a G4
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starwxrwx said 12:15AM on 1-13-2006
I like the old way photos are stored by date - after all you use the iPhoto program to organise the files by albums, THATS THE WHOLE POINT of iPHOTO (would you really rather windows thumbnail view in the finder? no thanks). If you want to copy a selection into a single folder use the EXPORT command - which also gives you the option of using the title as the filename during export (for #17 ChillyWilly)
Is it unified or dark unified?
Are EXIF data split up (iPhoto 4) or lumped into one file (the slowness that is iPhoto 5)?
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