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The dearth of Digital Photo Tools for OS X.

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gordon shephard

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I'm wondering whether there are any amateur digital photgraphers
who've been able to configure their OS X environment (including
classic mode, but not booting under OS 9) without spending
enormous amounts of money.

Basically, all I want to do is catalog, edit, and format my digital photographs for printing at an online shop. And I'd love to be able to do it all under OS X. Is it too soon to consider doing this?

Editting:

Photoshop: $600. Ouch. (Not available under OS X for awhile anyways)

Photoshop Elements is awesome, but it's only available under OS 9.

If I could get it for OS X for less than $200 or so, it would be a no brainer. Love it's stitching capability.

I've seen a couple references to http://www.microfrontier.com/products/colorit40/ in the dpreview forums. Not running under OS X, but it does run under classic mode... Does it compare well with Elements?

Cataloging and preparing for printing.

iPhoto kind of does the job, but on my Powerbook TI (667) it is a little cumbersome after around 3000 pictures, and really started to drag once I hit the 5000 picture mark. It is a simple program, but it is pretty well designed for the basics, and I'm sure there will be upgrades. (Cropping, rotating and red eye removal are well implemented).

Reading the forums It looks like the preferred tool for Cataloging is
ivew Media Pro

http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ . Has anyone used this and found it was missing something that was in iPhoto?

So, is there any general consensus as to whether Mac OS X system, for less than (arbitrary number) $500, is suitable as the platform for the amateur digital photographer? If so, what software worked out well for you?
 
I use OS X exclusively and never use Classic :-)

check Curator and TIFFany from http://www.caffeinesoft.com/
great software for what I do. As for iPhoto...
---------

On my iBook 500 with 384MB of RAM, iphoto was fine, then all of a sudden scrolling through the library, opening pictures, etc, was painfully slow.

Couple of days later, noticed that I had unchecked the 'sort by film roll' option (or something like that), so my library was one big list. Checking the option (to show the film rolls) returned my iPhoto to it's former speed...!
----------

Might be worth checking out.

Steven
gordon shephard said:
I'm wondering whether there are any amateur digital photgraphers
who've been able to configure their OS X environment (including
classic mode, but not booting under OS 9) without spending
enormous amounts of money.

Basically, all I want to do is catalog, edit, and format my digital
photographs for printing at an online shop. And I'd love to be
able to do it all under OS X. Is it too soon to consider doing
this?

Editting:

Photoshop: $600. Ouch. (Not available under OS X for awhile
anyways)

Photoshop Elements is awesome, but it's only available under OS 9.
If I could get it for OS X for less than $200 or so, it would be a
no brainer. Love it's stitching capability.

I've seen a couple references to
http://www.microfrontier.com/products/colorit40/ in the dpreview
forums. Not running under OS X, but it does run under classic
mode... Does it compare well with Elements?

Cataloging and preparing for printing.
iPhoto kind of does the job, but on my Powerbook TI (667) it is a
little cumbersome after around 3000 pictures, and really started to
drag once I hit the 5000 picture mark. It is a simple program,
but it is pretty well designed for the basics, and I'm sure there
will be upgrades. (Cropping, rotating and red eye removal are well
implemented).

Reading the forums It looks like the preferred tool for Cataloging is
ivew Media Pro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ . Has anyone used this and found
it was missing something that was in iPhoto?

So, is there any general consensus as to whether Mac OS X system,
for less than (arbitrary number) $500, is suitable as the platform
for the amateur digital photographer? If so, what software worked
out well for you?
Click to expand...
 
I only tried iPhoto a bit, but from what I can tell, iView MediaPro is a much more powerful product. It'll take care of cataloging your images, lossless jpeg rotation, slide shows, web page generation, etc. Nice product. The one thing I really wish for is unsharp mask after scaling. It seems to use a bicubic scaler, and these always seem to benefit from some unsharp mask.

It has limited features for messing with the pixels (such as adjusting the color), but I avoid those features in favor of a dedicated photo editing app. For that, I currently run an older version of Photoshop under Classic. Not ideal, but it works. I tried TIFFany 3 but found it too radically different for me to get up to speed on quickly. I guess I'm set in my ways. Also, it isn't that cheap. Then there's GraphicConverter. It runs under X and has quite a big set of image processing operations. Probably more than adequate for most tasks. I just have to get used to using it.--Peter Epstein
 
I have to admit to having some problems getting up to speed with
TIFFany III at first but after I realized it was not trying to be PS,
it worked great. I have come to really like the program and can't
imagine going back to PS.

But I will admit, the user interface is unique to TIFFany.

Steven
Peter Epstein said:
I only tried iPhoto a bit, but from what I can tell, iView MediaPro
is a much more powerful product. It'll take care of cataloging your
images, lossless jpeg rotation, slide shows, web page generation,
etc. Nice product. The one thing I really wish for is unsharp mask
after scaling. It seems to use a bicubic scaler, and these always
seem to benefit from some unsharp mask.

It has limited features for messing with the pixels (such as
adjusting the color), but I avoid those features in favor of a
dedicated photo editing app. For that, I currently run an older
version of Photoshop under Classic. Not ideal, but it works. I
tried TIFFany 3 but found it too radically different for me to get
up to speed on quickly. I guess I'm set in my ways. Also, it isn't
that cheap. Then there's GraphicConverter. It runs under X and has
quite a big set of image processing operations. Probably more than
adequate for most tasks. I just have to get used to using it.
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
 
Just organize by rolls and the problem goes away unles you go out on a shoot and shoot a "roll" that is 500+ images
Steven Noyes said:
check Curator and TIFFany from http://www.caffeinesoft.com/
great software for what I do. As for iPhoto...
---------
On my iBook 500 with 384MB of RAM, iphoto was fine, then all of a
sudden scrolling through the library, opening pictures, etc, was
painfully slow.
Couple of days later, noticed that I had unchecked the 'sort by
film roll' option (or something like that), so my library was one
big list. Checking the option (to show the film rolls) returned my
iPhoto to it's former speed...!
----------

Might be worth checking out.

Steven
gordon shephard said:
I'm wondering whether there are any amateur digital photgraphers
who've been able to configure their OS X environment (including
classic mode, but not booting under OS 9) without spending
enormous amounts of money.

Basically, all I want to do is catalog, edit, and format my digital
photographs for printing at an online shop. And I'd love to be
able to do it all under OS X. Is it too soon to consider doing
this?

Editting:

Photoshop: $600. Ouch. (Not available under OS X for awhile
anyways)

Photoshop Elements is awesome, but it's only available under OS 9.
If I could get it for OS X for less than $200 or so, it would be a
no brainer. Love it's stitching capability.

I've seen a couple references to
http://www.microfrontier.com/products/colorit40/ in the dpreview
forums. Not running under OS X, but it does run under classic
mode... Does it compare well with Elements?

Cataloging and preparing for printing.
iPhoto kind of does the job, but on my Powerbook TI (667) it is a
little cumbersome after around 3000 pictures, and really started to
drag once I hit the 5000 picture mark. It is a simple program,
but it is pretty well designed for the basics, and I'm sure there
will be upgrades. (Cropping, rotating and red eye removal are well
implemented).

Reading the forums It looks like the preferred tool for Cataloging is
ivew Media Pro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ . Has anyone used this and found
it was missing something that was in iPhoto?

So, is there any general consensus as to whether Mac OS X system,
for less than (arbitrary number) $500, is suitable as the platform
for the amateur digital photographer? If so, what software worked
out well for you?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--Pips
 
It's at times like these (both trying TIFFany and getting used to MacOS X in general) that I realize that I'm quite set in my ways ;-)--Peter Epstein
 
Is there any way iView can be used to Download RAW images direct from the D30 ? I tried setting Image capture to load to Iview but nothing happened!
Peter Epstein said:
I only tried iPhoto a bit, but from what I can tell, iView MediaPro
is a much more powerful product. It'll take care of cataloging your
images, lossless jpeg rotation, slide shows, web page generation,
etc. Nice product. The one thing I really wish for is unsharp mask
after scaling. It seems to use a bicubic scaler, and these always
seem to benefit from some unsharp mask.

It has limited features for messing with the pixels (such as
adjusting the color), but I avoid those features in favor of a
dedicated photo editing app. For that, I currently run an older
version of Photoshop under Classic. Not ideal, but it works. I
tried TIFFany 3 but found it too radically different for me to get
up to speed on quickly. I guess I'm set in my ways. Also, it isn't
that cheap. Then there's GraphicConverter. It runs under X and has
quite a big set of image processing operations. Probably more than
adequate for most tasks. I just have to get used to using it.
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
--Pips
 
Caveat: I don't have any experience doing this.

I think Image Capture should be able to download the RAW files. Either way, once the files are no your computer, iView should be able to catalog them. However, it'll use the small jpeg embedded in the RAW file to render the image, and that means you won't be able to see all the detail in the image when viewing the image in iView (such as in a slide show).--Peter Epstein
 
I did take your advice and downloaded Iview Media Pro it is good program BUT it does not provide software to download from the camera so you have the following 1) Image software to download 2) Iview to manage and 3) Iphoto to enjoy the experience.

I only wosh Iphoto managed RAW images and just providea temporary place to choose which files to download then I would just need iphoto for 1 2 & 3
Peter Epstein said:
I only tried iPhoto a bit, but from what I can tell, iView MediaPro
is a much more powerful product. It'll take care of cataloging your
images, lossless jpeg rotation, slide shows, web page generation,
etc. Nice product. The one thing I really wish for is unsharp mask
after scaling. It seems to use a bicubic scaler, and these always
seem to benefit from some unsharp mask.

It has limited features for messing with the pixels (such as
adjusting the color), but I avoid those features in favor of a
dedicated photo editing app. For that, I currently run an older
version of Photoshop under Classic. Not ideal, but it works. I
tried TIFFany 3 but found it too radically different for me to get
up to speed on quickly. I guess I'm set in my ways. Also, it isn't
that cheap. Then there's GraphicConverter. It runs under X and has
quite a big set of image processing operations. Probably more than
adequate for most tasks. I just have to get used to using it.
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
--Pips
 
The way I see it, the downloading of images is handled just fine by Image Capture. You can set it up to automatically download the images to a specified folder, to delete them from the camera, and to run another application in order to continue working with them (such as iView). The only problem I have is that I like to use the Picture Transfer Protocol rather than the standard USB mode (which mounts the camera as a volume). That way, I don't have to eject the volume before inplugging the camera. PTP works fine except that the auto-delete feature doesn't seem to work. So, I either have to remember to eject the drive or remember to delete the images off the camera. Even without any automation, transferring images onto the Mac is easy enough.

For organizing images, iView is pretty good. However, if I want to modify the image in any way (even simply cropping it), then I'm forced to re-save it. These mods should be stored as actions to be applied to the image. The actions should be saved in the catalog, and applied after decempressing it. That way, you don't have to take extra disk space just to save a cropped/sharpened/color balanced version of the file. More important, iView would still know all about the file, including the EXIF data and any fields you filled in.

The other thing I really wish iView would do is to apply an unsharp mask after scaling. It has templates that let you generate a really nice web site, but the images don't have the punch that you'd get from a simple bicubic resample followed by an unsharp mask. For bulk web site generation, automatic scaling is great. I just want as an option to sharpen after scaling.

You mention iPhoto to enjoy the experience. What are you using iPhoto for? To view a slide show? Just wondering whether I should be using it too.--Peter Epstein
 
I have started using it to keep my top 10% "keepers". I place them in there
and this allows a quick place to allow me to make books fro friends and family.

Steven.
Peter Epstein said:
You mention iPhoto to enjoy the experience. What are you using
iPhoto for? To view a slide show? Just wondering whether I should
be using it too.
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
 
Another tool from the makers of TIFFany (which I own, but have not yet had a chance to fully grok - interface is indeed unique :) is called PixelNHance. It's a freebie (and actually now included on the new Power Macs). It's very handy for doing a lot of the fundamental corrections, brightness, contrast, sharpening, color...it's VERY useful. It actually has a GREAT interface with a before/after split screen you can drag around to look at all parts of the image.

I recommend it highly. It works great along with iPhoto.

jason
 
Peter,

On enjoying: I use i photo to view the shots at varing crops just by dragging the bar it is great for that. Then I can make an album of a subject, assign some music and then view the slides.

I also use it to creat a really cool slideshow for some dinner guests who had joined us for a Skiing hilday and I showed the digital phtos on my LCD Monitor directly with only 1 after dinner mouseclick, I carefully chose the music from my iTunes library and the result was spectacular.

So much so that they sent my wife a wonderful present and I responded by doing a Book for them and sending it direct to them.

Wow what was the result - my wife was happy to see me buying a 1D what could be better!

Pip a very happy D30 user just about to experience a machine gun!
Peter Epstein said:
The way I see it, the downloading of images is handled just fine by
Image Capture. You can set it up to automatically download the
images to a specified folder, to delete them from the camera, and
to run another application in order to continue working with them
(such as iView). The only problem I have is that I like to use the
Picture Transfer Protocol rather than the standard USB mode (which
mounts the camera as a volume). That way, I don't have to eject the
volume before inplugging the camera. PTP works fine except that the
auto-delete feature doesn't seem to work. So, I either have to
remember to eject the drive or remember to delete the images off
the camera. Even without any automation, transferring images onto
the Mac is easy enough.

For organizing images, iView is pretty good. However, if I want to
modify the image in any way (even simply cropping it), then I'm
forced to re-save it. These mods should be stored as actions to be
applied to the image. The actions should be saved in the catalog,
and applied after decempressing it. That way, you don't have to
take extra disk space just to save a cropped/sharpened/color
balanced version of the file. More important, iView would still
know all about the file, including the EXIF data and any fields you
filled in.

The other thing I really wish iView would do is to apply an unsharp
mask after scaling. It has templates that let you generate a really
nice web site, but the images don't have the punch that you'd get
from a simple bicubic resample followed by an unsharp mask. For
bulk web site generation, automatic scaling is great. I just want
as an option to sharpen after scaling.

You mention iPhoto to enjoy the experience. What are you using
iPhoto for? To view a slide show? Just wondering whether I should
be using it too.
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
--Pips
 
Photoshop is the way to go, I think it dropped earlier this month. As far as whether Mac OS is the way to go for a pro digital photo, I can only go with what the sports guys and other digiphotojournos are doing at the Tennessean ... they shoot with whichever monster camera is the leading edge, then use Powerbooks (Pizmos) to download, sort, edit and upload to the papers photo servers. If it works foir guys who make a living provising up to date photos for print and web rebroadcast, it works for me.l
 
Uncle_Judlow said:
Photoshop is the way to go, I think it dropped earlier this month.
As far as whether Mac OS is the way to go for a pro digital photo,
I can only go with what the sports guys and other digiphotojournos
are doing at the Tennessean ... they shoot with whichever monster
camera is the leading edge, then use Powerbooks (Pizmos) to
download, sort, edit and upload to the papers photo servers. If it
works foir guys who make a living provising up to date photos for
print and web rebroadcast, it works for me.l
Click to expand...
You could try "Graphic Converter" they have OS 10 version......you can try it out free.

http://lemkesoft.com/us_gcabout.html--Jacques http://www.geocities.com/cam2000.geo/
 
I've used ImageViewer for years. It doesn't have much for image modification, but for browsing I like it MUCH better than programs like iView that need to create a catalog when you import images. ImageViewer is faster browsing images on the fly with no catalog than most of the others are with a catalog. It also handles nested folders, you can just drag them onto the application.

I found iPhoto pretty limited by comparison (though ImageViewer doesn't import images from the camera - I still use Image Capture for that).
gordon shephard said:
I'm wondering whether there are any amateur digital photgraphers
who've been able to configure their OS X environment (including
classic mode, but not booting under OS 9) without spending
enormous amounts of money.

Basically, all I want to do is catalog, edit, and format my digital
photographs for printing at an online shop. And I'd love to be
able to do it all under OS X. Is it too soon to consider doing
this?

Editting:

Photoshop: $600. Ouch. (Not available under OS X for awhile
anyways)

Photoshop Elements is awesome, but it's only available under OS 9.
If I could get it for OS X for less than $200 or so, it would be a
no brainer. Love it's stitching capability.

I've seen a couple references to
http://www.microfrontier.com/products/colorit40/ in the dpreview
forums. Not running under OS X, but it does run under classic
mode... Does it compare well with Elements?

Cataloging and preparing for printing.
iPhoto kind of does the job, but on my Powerbook TI (667) it is a
little cumbersome after around 3000 pictures, and really started to
drag once I hit the 5000 picture mark. It is a simple program,
but it is pretty well designed for the basics, and I'm sure there
will be upgrades. (Cropping, rotating and red eye removal are well
implemented).

Reading the forums It looks like the preferred tool for Cataloging is
ivew Media Pro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ . Has anyone used this and found
it was missing something that was in iPhoto?

So, is there any general consensus as to whether Mac OS X system,
for less than (arbitrary number) $500, is suitable as the platform
for the amateur digital photographer? If so, what software worked
out well for you?
Click to expand...
 
Oops. That's:

http://www.imageviewer.com
Richard K said:
I've used ImageViewer for years. It doesn't have much for image
modification, but for browsing I like it MUCH better than programs
like iView that need to create a catalog when you import images.
ImageViewer is faster browsing images on the fly with no catalog
than most of the others are with a catalog. It also handles nested
folders, you can just drag them onto the application.

I found iPhoto pretty limited by comparison (though ImageViewer
doesn't import images from the camera - I still use Image Capture
for that).
Click to expand...
 
As for editing under OS X, have you considered Graphic Converter by Lemke Software? This is a fairly robust program for all of $39.00. It is a Carbonized application running under OS X - no Classic mode required.

You can download a full demo at: http://lemkesoft.com/us_index.html
===========================================
gordon shephard said:
I'm wondering whether there are any amateur digital photgraphers
who've been able to configure their OS X environment (including
classic mode, but not booting under OS 9) without spending
enormous amounts of money.

Basically, all I want to do is catalog, edit, and format my digital
photographs for printing at an online shop. And I'd love to be
able to do it all under OS X. Is it too soon to consider doing
this?

Editting:

Photoshop: $600. Ouch. (Not available under OS X for awhile
anyways)

Photoshop Elements is awesome, but it's only available under OS 9.
If I could get it for OS X for less than $200 or so, it would be a
no brainer. Love it's stitching capability.

I've seen a couple references to
http://www.microfrontier.com/products/colorit40/ in the dpreview
forums. Not running under OS X, but it does run under classic
mode... Does it compare well with Elements?

Cataloging and preparing for printing.
iPhoto kind of does the job, but on my Powerbook TI (667) it is a
little cumbersome after around 3000 pictures, and really started to
drag once I hit the 5000 picture mark. It is a simple program,
but it is pretty well designed for the basics, and I'm sure there
will be upgrades. (Cropping, rotating and red eye removal are well
implemented).

Reading the forums It looks like the preferred tool for Cataloging is
ivew Media Pro
http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ . Has anyone used this and found
it was missing something that was in iPhoto?

So, is there any general consensus as to whether Mac OS X system,
for less than (arbitrary number) $500, is suitable as the platform
for the amateur digital photographer? If so, what software worked
out well for you?
Click to expand...
 
GraphicConverter is powerful. It's just that after a while, you get spoiled and demand the very best Aqua user interface for all your MacOS X applications ;-) There are things I only know how to do in GraphicConverter by control-clicking on a thumbnail and selecting from the popup list.--Peter Epstein
 
Might be worth changing them.

http://www.caffeineSoft.com/

Just updated TIFFany (Yes same basic interface) and have added some great
new features to improve work flow. I like this. The company is vary
responsive to fixing bugs and extending the program.

I have come to dread the concept of ever going back to PS.

Steven
Peter Epstein said:
It's at times like these (both trying TIFFany and getting used to
MacOS X in general) that I realize that I'm quite set in my ways ;-)
--
Peter Epstein
Click to expand...
--'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him--therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.' -- Samuel Butler
 
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