Mac OS X users: I love Camera Helper, the one-trick memory-card downloader from Script Software. Since I prefer not to use iPhoto (its incomprehensible mandatory file storage system puts me off — I don’t dislike the interface or tools), Camera Helper saves me the multi-step work of detecting, downloading, and deleting image files from my camera. It doesn’t do anything else, but it’s handy to let Camera Helper do these errands.
I have an inordinate number of images, for no good reason. I agree about the incomprehensible iPhoto structure–and renaming images doesn’t seem to work, somehow. However, I seem to be a visual organizer, and the iPhoto pane lets me quickly see and scan what I’ve got. Most of my images are hi-rez and way too big. If I want to use them online (such as in a blog post) I drag them to the desktop (which makes a copy), resize and compress in Photoshop Express (Handy! Dandy!), save them as a suffix of the original, then import them back into iPhoto. Then I put the desktop image copy in the trash.
The naming of photos is a cumbersome thing I haven’t quite manage. This so far is working for me. Of course, I have the luxury of giganto memory.
I keep wanting to give iPhoto a try. Maybe someday after I do a big back-up, I’ll try it again. I too have a great many images, and I’ve heard that (at least the earlier versions of) iPhoto play poorly with large databases.
I presently use Graphic Converter as if it were iPhoto, as a browser/low-overhead editor. I’m comfortable with it, it leaves files where I expect to find them, and the editing tools are a shade more powerful than previous versions of iPhoto. I hear that the new version of iPhoto (demo’d at MWSF) incorporates stronger editing tools; that may provoke me to try iPhoto again.
Same here, AKMA. I’ve used Graphic Converter for years. Even given the new editing features added in the version we saw at MWSF, I don’t like the file structure (thumbnails, originals, and editing masks). For 90% of my pictures, all I do is crop them and then sort them, and Preview crops just fine.
Is there something wrong with me that I just like to create my own folders and put pictures where I want them? Pictures/Xmas04 and the like?
Thanks for the heads-up — I love it!
Dylan
Yeah, Thanks for the heads-up. That thing looks cool…
sylvia