iPhoto is scary, and Lightroom is too much - help!

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I pretty much work the same way as Robin. I want to be able to name my files so I can see the name if I decide to place it on the desktop, within nested folder structures and when I burn a ton on CD so that a year or so down the road when I want to hunt up an image and all I can remember is the visual thumbnail I know where to go. I'm not going to remember IMG_899902.jpg and know where I put it.<br>

<br /> I'm going to see the image in my head and know that I named it something associated with its visual so I'll be prepared years down the road when I may not have the right software or OS platform that can read tags or maybe be able to display the thumbnail.<br>

<br /> I find a lot of freedom using Bridge and I do believe if I'm not mistaken that it comes with Elements which only cost about $100. I have Bridge that came with CS2 on Mac OS 10.4.11 and can go to a folder that already has images, add more images from a just plugged in CF card and change the name of folders and the images while Bridge is open and Bridge will update its interface once I click back to it reflecting the changes quite quickly with no hiccups.<br>

<br /> I'm addicted to Bridge. I get frustrated and confused with Mac OS X's apps like iTunes and iPhoto copying and doing everything through a library system. When I want to clear a ton of files within both apps I never know if I got them all. It's just not the kind of intuitive user interface that I can get used to since I'm so use to the directness of Mac Classic which didn't deal with libraries except for system extensions and preferences.</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>Robin, stay tuned to <a href="http://www.acdsee.com">www.acdsee.com</a> for a Mac version of ACDSee Pro coming soon. At $130, it's half the cost of Lightroom and in my experience does a lot of things better and easier than Lightroom. There's a huge segment of the population here who use LR because they don't know there's something better out there, and Adobe has brand recognition going for it. I'm a pro photographer and I've been using ACDSee for years. I do 95% of my post production work with it, and all of my RAW processing with it. It makes LR and Bridge seem positively clunky.</p>

<p>In Lightroom, you have to "import" a group of photos just to work on them or do anything with them. Then, you have to export them somewhere else. This is clunky. With ACDSee, you simply navigate photos and thumbnails and previews are created automatically in the background, so you can browse and edit without importing or exporting. It's SO much simpler. And the editing tools and RAW processing are top notch. Plus, it has the best shadow/highlight tool in the business, far better than LR or PS which only has one slider for shadow and highlight. With ACDSee, you can adjust specific tonal ranges without disturbing the other parts of the photo. And, you can batch process a whole range of edit operations to speed workflow, and it will remember the last setting you used, or save your own as presets. It's really a well-designed program.</p>

[robin_briggs]

<p>Howard and Steven - I'm glad it has not happened to you yet that the program managing all your photos has either died, went belly up, or otherwise stopped working. It has happened to me. And not being able to change the file names keeps you 100% dependent on iPhoto working properly forever and ever. I have 13 years of digital photos, and trust me, if the oldest ones didn't have names that made sense at the file level, I would have a tough time figuring out what was what. This is my big concern with iPhoto.<br>

Tim - I like Bridge, but it doesn't help with offline media. It's fabulous for looking at what is available right now, but it has no memory. For that reason alone, it's not too helpful to me. I use a laptop, so I don't like to keep more images on my local HD than I absolutely have to. But for browsing, you're right - nothing beats Bridge.<br>

Steve C. - funny, before I switched to the Mac platform, I used ACDSee on my PC. I liked it, but thought it was kind of buggy, especially when it came to viewing thumbnails for my offline images. That said, I will check it out when it comes out for Mac. In the meantime, since I already have Lightroom, I'm going to invest a little time in learning it more thoroughly, and trying to use what I have. But thanks for the suggestion!</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>ACDSee has "grown up" a lot from the old days. Give it a try when possible.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>".. in my experience does a lot of things better and easier than Lightroom.."</p>

<p>Im curious to know what?</p>

<p>"..In Lightroom, you have to "import" a group of photos just to work on them or do anything with them. Then, you have to export them somewhere else..."</p>

<p>Not sure what you meant? you dont have to export iamge somewhere else..you can simply open them directly is Ps and have them back automaticaly in Lr. When you export your image its because you want to share them, send them to another software or else..theres no *need* for it.</p>

<p>"..Plus, it has the best shadow/highlight tool in the business, far better than LR or PS which only has one slider for shadow and highlight..."</p>

<p>How mny slider do you need? i exposed my frame right, and i use those only 2 slider minimaly to fine tune the exposition..</p>

<p>"..With ACDSee, you can adjust specific tonal ranges without disturbing the other parts of the photo.."</p>

<p>So does in Lr with the curve tool, or by dragginh *live* the histogram.</p>

<p>"..And, you can batch process a whole range of edit operations to speed workflow, and it will remember the last setting you used, or save your own as presets..."</p>

<p>Same in Lr.</p>

<p>So other than those exact same thing easily done in both software..what do i miss?</p>

 

[patricklavoie]

<p>I like to learn new stuff, but when they are back with real example, real life experience. Comparing 2 software and saying that 1 is better without fully knowing the other one..when they can (it seem) do the same thing is not enough.<br>

Please provide example;</p>

<p>1_image save as JPEG best quality vs a photoshop save as JPEG best quality so whe can all see why GIMP should be better.</p>

<p>2_And a real list of advantage of ACDsee vs Lr, for now i only see the price.</p>

<p>thanks</p>

<p> </p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>While the software you use makes matters easier or more difficult, I think a lot has to to with the way one thinks about the problem of dealing with lots of images. So I process 25000-30000 digital images every year and have done so since early 2000's. These are the things I have learned along the way.<br>

1. A standard, boring way of naming each image file. I use the format YYMMDDxxxx where YY is a two digit year (that will last me until 2099), MM is a 2 digital month (01-->12), DD is a two digit day (01-31) and xxxx ranges from 0 to 9999. If I have two or three different shoots on a single day, I add a letter to the format: YYMMDDaxxxx, YYMMDDbxxxx. I doubt that my pictures will be important in 2099 and I also doubt that I will shoot more than 9999 images in one day.<br>

2. I keep a small database (Excel works but you can be more elegant) of a description of what I shot on a particular day, and this can include keywords as well. Once I know the date, I can find any image I want.<br>

3. I maintain at least 2 and more usually three copies of each image on separate drives (one archived offsite)<br>

4. I regularly backup my computer and its software (at least once a week, absolutely before every upgrade, and when it seems wise.<br>

I have lost hard drives over the years, and had to rebuild my operating system a few times as well (when software goes belly up). Fortunately, the task has not been any more difficult then getting a replacement drive and generating a new backup from my good back up or booting off my external operating system and replacing the internal operating system with the backup.<br>

I use Macs, generally western digital drives (MyBooks and passports), a backup software called SuperDuper, Aperture for workflow and CS3 for clean up if needed. I shoot everything in RAW and export to TIFF or JPEG as I need.<br>

In Aperture, all of my images are referenced (that is not stored in Apple's Library structure). My structure at the Finder level is 13 folders for each year (1 for each month and 1 miscellaneous). Inside each month folder is a folder for each day that I have shot in the format YYMMDD. Inside the YYMMDD folder is another folder YYMMDD NEF (for the RAW files). If I generate TIFF files, they are stored either in the RAW folder or in a folder YYMMDD TIFF and JPEG copies are stored in a folder called YYMMDD JPEG. <br>

I know all of this is boring, but I want naming, tracking, finding image files to be BORING and routine.<br>

I consider my RAW files to be the most important file to protect. </p>

[m_dekdor]

<p>"I am not a photographer....", "I take a LOT of pictures." What then, is a photographer?</p>

<p>"Now I'm wondering if I keep using 1% of LR, or go to some other solution." You have a Mac. You are probably not using 0.5% of your Mac - are you looking for another solution to it? How many Mac's have you had (more than one, I bet)?</p>

<p>Those who use a particular program are using it (more than likely) because it makes sense to them and they find it useful. I've been through several packages trying to keep track of my photographs. I haven't found anything I like as well as LR (including my own database, ACDSee and others). To me, 90% of LR (and my use of it) is the Library module. The ability to use keywords and not have my file structure tampered with is very nice. Picking up this part of it was relatively easy for me, but even if it isn't easy for you at first, it is well worth the effort you'll have to put in to use it.</p>

<p>I use LR to rename my photos when they are in LR, but only to go from the camera's hash to my own yymmdd_nnn format. The keywords are what I use for locating a specific image. And there are very nice, easy things that can be done with Collections. Well worth the effort to learn it, although I have found LR to be one of the easiest photo programs I have worked with. But its organization aspects are the most valuable to me.</p>

<p>Ryan: Picasa. Tried this. Could never find where the image was on my hard disk. Here's a group of pictures in "X" directory. Fine, but where the heck is "X"?!?</p>

<p>Stephen Asprey: "...typical Adobe, try to keep some propreitary file management..." Not sure what you're talking about. Their catalog? Fine with me if their catalog is their own, at least they don't mess with my files. And LR is one of the few programs that can read all those different types of RAW images out there. I suppose a lot of people throw out their negatives (RAW) and just keep the pictures (JPEG), but if you keep the RAW files, you better hope your camera manufacturer is still around years from now - or do something like change your RAW files to DNG files (an open format that Adobe has published).</p>

<p>Steve C.: "In LR you have to "import" to work or do anything with them...", "ACDSee : browse and edit without importing or exporting". So suddenly my sister's pictures, in that temporary "TMP" directory are in my collection because I happened to point ACDSee at it? Ouch! And if you are editing a picture and not exporting it, why edit it in the first place? Any program imports a file to work on it and exports the final result. I would much rather explicitly tell a program to grab a file (import it) than to have it do it on its own.</p>

 

[steve_c.5]

<p>Heavens above, strike Steve C. down for saying anything against our all-powerful Lightroom, which any photographer worth his salt should be using! :-) I'm sorry I committed sacrilege in the community...</p>

<p>(for Patrick Lavoie) Patrick, perhaps if you tried working with ACDSee and comparing it to Lightroom as I did, you'd see the differences more clearly. Professional Photographer Magazine did an excellent review of the latest version <a title="ACDSee Review" href="http://www.ppmag.com/web-exclusives/2008/12/review-acdsee-pro-photo-manage-1.html">here</a>, and I think you'll get a lot out of reading up on all that ACDSee does (that other programs don't do, or aren't as good at). I'm not saying it's a perfect program, but I haven't found anything better.</p>

<p>First, there is an "import" function in ACDSee, but it's just a function they put in there for novices to bring in files from a memory card or other outside source automatically. Thankfully, it's just an option. I prefer to manually copy images from a memory card or other source rather than letting the program handle it with a wizard. With Lightroom, you can't view or preview/zoom in on your images, or tweak them without importing specific images or folders into the program. With ACDSee, this operation is eliminated. You simply browse folders as you would with Windows Explorer and thumbnails and zoomable previews are automatically generated as you browse. Want to edit an image? Right-click and "edit", and the edit window will open, with a range of excellent processing tools. And, the buttons and menus at the top are all context-sensitive, so you only see the buttons you need for a particular situation.</p>

<p>How many shadow/highlight sliders do you need? More than two. ACDSee has something called "Light EQ" which works like a graphic equalizer with 9 sliders for shadows and 9 for highlights. Each slider allows you to adjust specific tonal ranges in your photo with great precision, without affecting other parts of the photo. The control you have with this is so much finer than two sliders (ACDSee has a two-slider option too, if you want it). And it the RAW processor, you've never had such fine control over your images, because this EQ is there too.</p>

<p>Every processing tool in the Edit section remembers the last setting you used, so you can recreate it instantly, or save your own presets for each tool discreetly. For RAW processing, you can process one RAW image the way you like, and then use those settings to process a whole stack of them instantly in that same folder, or in another folder without having to reimport that separate folder. With LR, you can't just browse other folders on the fly like that, you have to import them, an operation that isn't necessary in ACDSee.</p>

<p>When you work on an image in ACDSee, it gives you a dialog box to save that processed image over itself, or save it as another name or browse a copy to another folder. You don't have to "export" it to get it out of the program interface as with LR. And, you don't need PS running and having it bounce a photo back and forth between the two programs, or deal with Bridge at all. In fact, 95% of my post-processing work is done exclusively in ACDSee. The only time I use PS is for complex editing, stamp-tooling, layer work, etc. The freedom from the clunky PS interface is incredible!</p>

<p>(for M. Dekdor) Actually, browse to pictures in anbody's sister's folder with ACDSee, and they'll all remain intact, unless you edit them. They're not in your "collection" at all, whatever that means. It will simply create low-res (or hi-res if you choose) thumbnails of them in the background (you don't even know the difference) and allow you to browse them with ease.</p>

<p>ACDSee doesn't "import" a photo and "export" the final result. It simply does what you tell it, and nothing more. LR makes things harder than they have to be. But then, Adobe's been doing that with their software for years.</p>

[godfrey]

<p>I've compared ACDSee to Lightroom. ACDSee isn't useful for me, thank you. Lightroom is much better equipped to do the job I need.</p>

<p>G</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>That's fine Godfrey, use what you like, I always say. I'd love to know how LR is better equipped to handle your workflow than ACDSee, though.</p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>Heck, Aperture is better than either one of them!</p>

 

[Uhooru]

<p>Lightroom is really not that difficult. If you already have it and understand the management side of it, the development side is not that hard. Why don't you just buckle down for a few days and get a handle on it. You'll have to do that for pretty much every program anyways, so why look around for something else when you already have and excellent program? </p>

 

[Uhooru]

<p>Lightroom is really not that difficult. If you already have it and understand the management side of it, the development side is not that hard. Why don't you just buckle down for a few days and get a handle on it. You'll have to do that for pretty much every program anyways, so why look around for something else when you already have and excellent program? </p>

 

[dshombert]

<p>Grrrr.... my dad can lick your dad.</p>

[cp3]

<p>Call me old fashioned but the most basic workflow is using the operating systems to organize and sort things out. It should not take much more time, if any. You can have a two or three windows open, make and name folders as needed, rename the file on the spot, duplicate or copy when needed. When your done the files will be easy to backup and open or import to any application you want to use. It might make life easier down the road when you upgrade to whatever comes next. <br>

Icon view will give you decent thumbnail view of a picture. Color labels can be useful as a way to do some preliminary sorting. The name changing utilities might help too but that will be easier when things are sorted into folders. (I rarely rename a file from a digital camera so long as the folder has a descriptive name.) If you lose track of where you put a file but can recall a key word Spotlight will find it. <br>

Initially this might seem like a big job, but is going to take time no matter how you decide to do it. If you don't like a program having control of the file management you have little choice but to do it yourself.</p>

[cp3]

<p>P.S. - There is one point about iPhoto whicht might be important to you. If you have pictures in your Home pictures folder, named and sorted, iPhoto will leave them there when you import them. It will simply make a link to their location. (For that matter they can be on an external drive or DVD so long as the drive is available when iPhoto needs it.) You can do as you please with the pictures you import. If you delete a picture from iPhoto which has been imported it will not harm the original. However, if you move or rename a file in your pictures folder you will have to deal with that when you open iPhoto. iPhoto is a fine program and perfectly integrated with the OS as you noted. </p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>I completely agree with Charles Williams about managing files using the operating system, and I do exactly that. Even though ACDSee will let you do it exactly the same way (moving folders by dragging them around, copying, pasting, right-clicking to rename, etc. and showing you live previews of any folder you click on, etc.), I still use the operating system's functionality for that 90% of the time.</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>Back to Patrick Lavoie's mention of using the curve or histogram tool in PS or Lightroom, you have those exact same tools in ACDSee too, and they work exactly the same way. But adjusting them does NOT give you the same ability that the Light EQ tool of ACDSee does. It doesn't give you the control over specific brightness ranges in your photos.</p>

<p>Digital cameras all have limitations in dynamic range. It's nowhere near what our human eye can capture. So, with many photos, there is a need to brighten shadows or recover highlights without disturbing the rest of the image. When you drag sliders in the histogram or with curves, you affect the entire picture brightness. With ACDSee, you have such fine control that you can affect only specific areas without affecting others. This can make the image more closely approximate what we see in real life.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>Well Steve, without bringing this long post further more..Just want to clarify the curve tool and some other minor things.</p>

<p>1_maybe the tool are not the same, but with experience (im talking about mine) i have all the control i need and want with a simple curve. Maybe ACDSee give you a more intuitive way of doing it, and amateur and pro who are not retoucher like that, and i understand.</p>

<p>2_again, when you drag a slider or play with curve in Lr or Photoshop, if you doing in a inteligent way, only thos tone will move, if they all move, well go back to the school bench and rel learn it...its all depend of your knowledge. The curve tool is the most sophisticated and complicated tool in Photoshop, but when you work with it a lot, you developed a good darkroom technique.</p>

<p>3_Whatever you choose to work with GIMP, ACDSee, or Lightroom, whats important is to feel comfortable using one software, and personnaly i like working and dedicating my precious time to less software as possible and mastered them the best i can.</p>

<p>For all my work i use Photoshop and Ligthroom to get the pro result i want, and more importantly the quality i and my client needs...For the rest, theres mastercard : )</p><div></div>

[godfrey]

<p><em>I'd love to know how LR is better equipped to handle your workflow than ACDSee, though.</em> <br /><br /> There are too many ways in which LR does a better job for me than I can spend time to write up. <br /><br /> Simplistically, it coordinates all my image management and image processing, from incept off the camera to client deliverables, prints, web galleries, and archives, smoothly and cleanly with a an easily comprehensible, and very reliable, working model. I don't need to devise workflow across multiple applications and different UIs to achieve my goals with Lightroom. <br /><br /> Godfrey</p>

[steve_c.5]

<p>That's funny, Godfrey. I say the exact same thing about ACDSee...</p>

<p>I use it for 95% of my work.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>@OP<br>

Robin, why do you feel like you need to keep updating Lightroom. The need to update is no different than iPhoto or anything else, the little updates get pushed on to the computer just like most programs. If you aren't a heavy user you probably will not have a need to update to a new version just like you wouldn't have a need to update to iPhoto or anything else. If you already have a pretty easy to learn and useful program that is so much better than iPhoto, I don't understand the resistance. Really, LR is very easy to get to know if you could just get past thinking it's impossibly hard. Otherwise, just about every other program available has been discussed here and you'll just have choose. But really, there's a learning curve to every program and you may, just may be spinning your wheels.</p>

[godfrey]

<p>It really isn't worth the waste of time this debate is. Go use GIMP. Be happy. Whether it's better or worse, for your needs, is completely irrelevant to anyone else in the world. </p>

<p>Maybe show a picture or two someday so people can see the great results your GIMPing produces rather than just blowing hot air about it. </p>

<p>G</p>

[mbkissel]

<blockquote>

<p>Ryan: Picasa. Tried this. Could never find where the image was on my hard disk. Here's a group of pictures in "X" directory. Fine, but where the heck is "X"?!?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure about previous versions of Picasa, but the latest Picasa 3, will show you exactly where the file is on disk by pressing Ctrl + Enter. Nice feature!</p>