iPhoto/Elements Workflow

[AndyMulhearn]

I’ve just managed to switch my wife to using a Mac and she’s taken to it like a duck to water. But the question of how to manage pictures has come up…

At the moment she has a load of images loaded into iPhoto and I’ve moved her Photoshop Elements 11 installation to the Mac but now I need to find the best workflow for her to use.

Does anyone use a similar setup and have any advice about how best to manage/edit images. As I see it she could:

• Import all her photos into Elements and stop using iPhoto. This may not be a good move for her as she had issues with deleting photos from Explorer on Windows and she looked a bit less than keen when I suggested it yesterday.
• Do what I do which is to save raw files from iPhoto into a working directory and then open them direct from there using ACR/Elements. This uses a bit of additional space and works ok for me but…
• Use the option to edit externally from iPhoto and then save the results either into the iPhoto hierarchy or externally. This is the simplest approach but the folders used by iPhoto are convoluted and badly named so very confusing for someone who’s not completely comfortable with computers.

Any suggestions anyone?

Andy

[Paulstw]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

I ditched iPhoto when I realised I couldn't get access to the pics unless I was in iPhoto and exported them to my selected editing program which was LR. I opted then to install EOS Utility and let that just handle importing to a dated folder in the Pictures directory. A much better system of file management and with the Mac having an in built RAW processor, you can view the file thumbnails in the folder. Something you can't do with an iPhoto import from my experience.

[Jock]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

Andy, I've been using iPhoto for a long time. My wife has been using iPhoto on her Mac for a while too as it was a simple workflow and kept everything together. As we have progressed and accumulated more photographs, I am beginning to find my iPhoto installation to be slow and recently it;s become unstable as well - I have even removed it and re-installed it on my machine. My wife is also complaining about iPhoto running slow, so we're looking for a new workflow. We both used iPhoto to catalogue the photographs and Elements for anything other than very simple editing. So far, I've looked at Adobe Elements Organiser, DPP and Lightroom and I'm beginning to think I'll just use DPP as it seems to be the quickest, but I've yet to make a firm decision ... so I'll be watching what you do with interest!

By the way, to make a quick backup of iPhoto to port over to Lightroom for example, Show Package Contents on the iPhoto Library and just make a copy of the Masters folder - it doesn't bring the filenames over, but it means you have a backup of all the photographs.

[tesarver]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

Andy, the biggest problem I found with iPhoto is that it creates 1 large file that stores the pictures. That means that the file gets larger and larger as you add to it. I only use iPhoto for linking images to my appleTv, or iPad/iPhone or if I'm going to create a project. Other than that I use LR and Elements 11. However 11 does have a very good front end manager

Tom

[AndyMulhearn]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

Thank for the feedback chaps. We're still working through the problem and I'll let you know how it goes.

Tom, it only looks like one file but is in fact a directory. If you right click on the iPhoto library and select "Show package contents" you can see the whole glorious mess. Of course, as the folders are all named randomly with long and odd names, it's a bit of a pointless exercise but there you go...

[AlexR!]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

Andy, I've not done any tests or comparisons of speed or file sizes. But for me I always think simplicity is the key. I have a Mac and do everything in Elements 11. The default folder structure is straightforward, and it means I view all my images on import in Organiser, which I then either delete or edit in ACR then Editor and save back into the folder. Anything more complicated, for me, wouldn't be worth any marginal savings in search capabilities. But we are all different...

[the black fox]

Re: iPhoto/Elements Workflow

andy if possible try and get aperture 3 loaded on ,it stores and handles all your raw files properly and systematically ,the only downside being apple may dis-continue it soon ,but i cannot see them leaving all users with no access to there files .

once loaded its simply a case of putting your pics in projects then for instance i do mine as whats taken per month ,simple to find from there .apeture allows for high grade basic processing and is very simple to use ,once i have a cropped and ready image i simply export to desktop as a 16 bit tiff file ,then drag into whatever version of photoshop you use for finishing i.e resizing for the web ,sharpening de-noise etc .then export back to desktop as a j-peg for uploading to flickr /facebook or whatever

its also then a simple task to make a new project to store your finished photo either with or without the original ,aperture also has a 5 star coding and six colour marking system ,so anything i process and use is coded with a star and colour rating