New mac user

[fielden]

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So having been a long time pc user, my pc was getting a bit tired and starting to cause some problems so after much deliberation I took the plunge and bought an iMac.

 

So, yesterday after I got the kids off it, I tried to start getting it organised for my photography. (I have installed parallels and windows)So I copied all my files to an external hard drive and transferred the files onto the mac. Dropped all the music in to itunes - easy. Now where do i put the photos?

 

I think maybe I am being a bit of a numpty, but do i import them into iphoto and if so can i access them from capture one and photoshop in windows. Or do I just store them in documents?

And what about the raw/dngs from my m8 and dlux4? will iphoto recognise them?

 

I am a bit confused. doh!

 

I would be interested to know how other mac users organise the photos and in which software. I have the opportunity with a clean computer to organise things well with a new start.

[gwelland]

Graeme,

 

I would copy over your photos into a directory structure and not into iPhoto. Since you indicate that you'll be using Capture One and PS I'd definitely take this approach.

 

The exact location of your picture directory structure can be anywere - typically you might use your Pictures directory since it's available and lots of utils will look there, or you can store it within Documents or under your user account directory.

 

Personally I have a separate disk allocated that holds all of my images and this is separate from my general user documents etc - it saves me against accidents & upgrades etc.

 

With respect to software, it depends on your workflow. Aperture does a great job on the Mac as a catalog and photo editing tool. It's somewhat clunky if you continue to use Capture One for raw conversion. It can be used to invoke Photoshop and I also use the full suite of Nik Multimedia add on apps like Viveza, Color Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro, Silver Efex etc.

 

Other choices might be Lightroom 2, or just Bridge & PS. It all depends really on your likes/dislikes and experiences.

[mongrelnomad]

The first thing I'd do is invest in either Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture.

 

Apart from the photograph-specific editing tools you'll get, they will also give you a firm database system through which to archive your photos. On the surface, iPhoto looks good for this, but the way it stores your photos and the directories it creates are an absolute disaster, not to mention the destructive nature of its editing tools.

 

They'll allow you to specify a method of storing your photos any way you want. I do it by camera, but you can do it any way you want.

[gwelland]

I'd agree with Julian ... once you've selected your preferred image management tool like Lightroom or Aperture, you can import directly into their catalogues which will make your file directory issues much simpler.

[fielden]

On the pc. I used ACDsee to transfer the photos and organise. Using a date orientated directory structure i.e by year then by month then by event or location. I then split the folder to keep my raw/dng's separate. From there then I open them in capture one or lightroom and then into photoshop for printing.

 

The above works for me, I am just not sure how to do it on the mac. I think I am getting old. should ask the kids

[stunsworth]

I don't use iPhoto, I use Lightroom for cataloging, though you could use Bridge if you have Photoshop. Lightroom can import by date putting all the files in directories named by date.

 

At the moment all my photos are on a 1 TB external drive. There's no reason why you can't use your existing directory structure. To open a particular file, either double click it - assuming you've set up your desired application as the default for that file type, or right click and select the application you want to use (or add one).

 

One other thing with the Mac is that you can set up a Raid drive in software. So at the moment I have Time Machine running as a back up with two 1 TB drives in a striped array as the Time Machine drive.

[Alberti]

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. . so after much deliberation I took the plunge and bought an iMac.

Graeme, just a question,

how do you get the new pictures on the iMac? I have been to the shop, pondering, yes, the best platform - but in my PC I have the slot I can put my camera card right into (still SD but soon SDHC). With only a USB socket this leaves me with some very slow interface. Isn't it?

The Apple brochure says there is a firewire attachment ($$?).

alberti

[pleeson]

The newest version of iPhoto is non-destructive, similar to Aperture.

I'd try moving a bunch of pictures to iPhoto, play around with them and see -- you may find that this is all you need. I have Aperture, but iPhoto is nearly all I really need.

Keep it simple!

[pleeson]

Graeme, just a question,

how do you get the new pictures on the iMac? I have been to the shop, pondering, yes, the best platform - but in my PC I have the slot I can put my camera card right into (still SD but soon SDHC). With only a USB socket this leaves me with some very slow interface. Isn't it?

The Apple brochure says there is a firewire attachment ($$?).

alberti

 

A simple USB card reader will transfer those photos as fast as need be!

[microview]

The only slight issue I have had (twice) with a Fuji card reader was that the transference of DNG files to desktop can 'freeze' after so many have been copied across. And you cannot use the Force Quit function. Or go to Shut Down. So then you have to switch off manually and restart the iMac. It may be prudent to copy over in groups of 10 or less.

 

My preference is to create a folder for the desktop DNGs than drag that across into Capture One's process folder. The M8 door is so feeble I'd never use the USB cable and direct connect to the Mac. A USB card reader is best (as suggested above).

[Marquinius]

Here's my bit: I started out almost the same way you did, but after a while I started working with standard directories on separte hard disks. I never felt comfortable with the direct entry into aperture or LR.

 

So I read my cards into a new directory on HD1, read from this directory in LR (let's not go into which tool - Aperture or LR - is better now, both do fine) and work on refferenced files (which in Aperture also is possibe). This helps keeping your Mac's HD clean and, this is a major AND , let's you do something else also: make a regular backup to yet another external drive.

 

After first having experienced burglary and theft of my computer, I also had a major crash in one of the hard disks. Both times I was VERY glad I had the other copy: I was up and running in the time it takes to make a new backup to a new harddisk.

 

A simple syncroniser helps: I use "superduper", shareware for a couple of dollars and worth every one of them.

 

Marco

[MPerson]

To keep everything running sweetly:

 

The Mac OS is based on Unix and Unix runs several clean up scripts to keep the system running smoothly. Some run weekly and some monthly. These scripts were designed to run during the night when the servers were quiet.

 

If you shutdown your Mac over night these scripts never get a chance to run and and over time performance will be affected and you can suffer slow-down etc.

 

A good utility to use is Leopard Cache Cleaner. LCC allows you to run these scripts and perform many other tasks from one simple interface.

My Macs at home are never switched off but my two Powerbooks run LCC and I cannot fault it. I usually run it weekly before backup.

 

Leopard Cache Cleaner website

[spylaw4]

To keep everything running sweetly:

 

The Mac OS is based on Unix and Unix runs several clean up scripts to keep the system running smoothly. Some run weekly and some monthly. These scripts were designed to run during the night when the servers were quiet.

 

If you shutdown your Mac over night these scripts never get a chance to run and and over time performance will be affected and you can suffer slow-down etc.

 

A good utility to use is Leopard Cache Cleaner. LCC allows you to run these scripts and perform many other tasks from one simple interface.

My Macs at home are never switched off but my two Powerbooks run LCC and I cannot fault it. I usually run it weekly before backup.

 

Leopard Cache Cleaner website

 

There's also MacSweeper which does a similar set of maintenance. And more importantly Macaroni, which you can set to do them automatically on boot-up.

 

Import photos via a card reader using Image Capture (standard on the Mac), I then use Exif Renamer to rename the files into something meaningful - YYYYMMDD_HHMM_X and Lightroom can then place them into the Year/Month/Shoot file structure.

 

Just my 2p.

[pleeson]

To keep everything running sweetly:

 

The Mac OS is based on Unix and Unix runs several clean up scripts to keep the system running smoothly. Some run weekly and some monthly. These scripts were designed to run during the night when the servers were quiet.

 

If you shutdown your Mac over night these scripts never get a chance to run and and over time performance will be affected and you can suffer slow-down etc.

 

A good utility to use is Leopard Cache Cleaner. LCC allows you to run these scripts and perform many other tasks from one simple interface.

My Macs at home are never switched off but my two Powerbooks run LCC and I cannot fault it. I usually run it weekly before backup.

 

Leopard Cache Cleaner website

And if the M8 has you all tapped out, MacJanitor is free, but only manually operated.

[fielden]

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

I am slowly getting used to the mac and I must admit that I am liking it even though it is sometimes frustrating trying to find out how to do things without right clicking etc.

 

Re: the software. I don't like iphoto. So until i get round to upgrading my software I have just loaded everything up into windows.

 

Re organising. Is there anything reasonable priced for photo viewing and organising - Like ACDsee which doesn't appear to be available for mac? I don't want to go to the expense of Aperture.

 

Thanks again

[fielden]

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

I am slowly getting used to the mac and I must admit that I am liking it even though it is sometimes frustrating trying to find out how to do things without right clicking etc.

 

Re: the software. I don't like iphoto. So until i get round to upgrading my software I have just loaded everything up into windows.

 

Re organising. Is there anything reasonable priced for photo viewing and organising - Like ACDsee which doesn't appear to be available for mac? I don't want to go to the expense of Aperture.

 

Thanks again

[stunsworth]

...it is sometimes frustrating trying to find out how to do things without right clicking etc...

 

You can still right click.

[ammitsboel]

Re: the software. I don't like iphoto. So until i get round to upgrading my software I have just loaded everything up into windows.

Why?

 

I rightclick by placing two fingers on the mousepad and click.

[Fokalfissur]

File organisation: For Aperture or iPhoto I suggest that you let the program organise the files for. The same is with iTunes. The reason is that nothing is cluttered. If you delete a photo, the file is deleted. You don't have to take care of two different ways of organising. Simplicity is safty.

 

I don't know lightroom. There is a free demo for apperture if you like to try it. I would stick with iPhoto first, if you switch to aperture you can easily import the files with all the structure from iPhoto.

 

I don't use capture1 for import and raw converting. I simply use aperture/iphoto for import and conversion if needed for printing.

 

Set Photoshop as an external editor in either prog you use. I think with the new plug-ins in aperture I can do all the work there without switching progs. (I dont like adobe - too much, too cluttered).

 

Think of backup *now*. Time machine is very nice. Example setup: RAID 1 (=mirrored, eg 2*500GB) for working and one external 1TB for time machine.

 

If your brain still has some capacities free, get into colour sync. It is quite easy on a mac.

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[AlanG]

...Re organising. Is there anything reasonable priced for photo viewing and organising - Like ACDsee which doesn't appear to be available for mac? I don't want to go to the expense of Aperture.

 

Thanks again

 

I doubt if many Mac users are familiar with ACDSee. I use ACDSee Pro 2.5 and have been using ACDSee for many years. I used a Macbook for about a month and hated iPhoto and don't know if there is something in the Mac world that is similar to ACDSee. I think ACDSee is a pretty unique program, especially considering the price.