[X4U] Macs & photography mailing list?

[Stroller]

[split into two - I think I'm about .9k over the list's limit]

On 1 Jan 2006, at 00:24, Thomas Noel wrote:
>
> I have followed your contributions here and elsewhere for years.  
> Nice to give back a little.

* blushes* Thanks.
Now where else are you stalking me?!?!  ;P

> The current version of iPhoto is a good starter program for both  
> organization and minor editing, and is tightly integrated with the  
> other Mac OS features, as I am sure you are aware...

Ah! Someone who understands exactly what I'm interested in. Right now  
I want to wrap my head around the way I import & edit photos, so that  
I can get on with taking them without having to make a major  
reorganisation on my hard-drive at some point in the future.

I'm interested in what programs people are using to convert RAW files  
and whether it's necessary to keep a backup of the original RAW file  
before colour correction. If I colour correct a RAW image to match  
the grey card I shot, does the original RAW get overwritten when I  
save it? Is it easy (or even possible?) to get back to the original  
RAW that I imported from the camera?

> I import all photos into iPhoto first just for the ease of use to  
> quickly post to web or email Like all the choices for organization,  
> the value of the program depends on the user's willingness to add  
> proper metadata to the images. The Smart Album feature is very  
> useful IF YOU TAG!. iPhoto does have a practical limit of how many  
> images can be in one collection and still remain responsive.  
> "iPhoto Library Manager" allows the use of multiple Libraries to  
> avoid this problem.

iPhoto has worked really well for me. I resisted it for a while,  
using it to import from my digicam, copying files from iPhoto to  
folders I'd set up in Finder and then deleting the pics in iPhoto,  
but I think the three things that won me over to iPhoto were:
- Keeps an original copy of the jpegs I imported from my P&S, as well  
as my edited copy.
- Easy to search, organise & browse the library within iPhoto.
- Straighten slider brilliantly easy to use. Colour correction also  
simple.

Stuff I don't like about iPhoto:
- Photos I've named in iPhoto under Panther don't turn up in  
Spotlight until I rename them again in Tiger.
- I hear that it doesn't handle RAW files very well. Poor conversion  
algorithm?
- Editing / colour correction facilities probably to simple for what  
I'll want to do now.

I know I can tell iPhoto to use Photoshop as an editor, but I'm not  
sure if this is the way I want to go. I'd miss iPhoto's  
straightening, in that case, but I could live with that for  
Photoshop's more powerful features. iPhoto would continue to keep a  
copy of the original file as well as the edited one in this case, but  
my concern is over what format iPhoto uses for this. My last camera  
was a point-and-shoot, so jpegs were fine, but I want a quality- 
preserving RAW-to-bitmap "workflow".

Lots of people seem to convert their RAWs to tiff - what are the  
advantages of tiff over bitmap?

> Apple's new ProApp "Aperture" is specifically targeted as a  
> workflow enhancer.  Intended to be a light table for initial  
> sorting of keepers vs chaff, as well as cropping,  rotation,   
> tagging, editing, etc. I'm just breaking the surface with this app  
> myself. There is a list for Aperture: groups.yahoo.com/group/aperture.

I heard that Aperture's RAW conversion algorithm also isn't very  
good. Do you know if that's true? Being able to browse and manage  
images is important to me, but it's no good if this is the case.

> If you are using or intend to use Photoshop CS2, please explore the  
> functions of the "Bridge" utility for organizing and tagging your  
> images. It is right there anyway, and may be all that you need for  
> light table functions.

I do have CS2. I'd be really interested in any opinions or comments  
on Bridge from anyone whose using it. Does Bridge allow you to  
automatically keep originals the way iPhoto does? Or does that  
require me to learn Version Que, too? I suppose I'd probably be happy  
making "originals" and "working" directories manually, but I'd be  
keen to know how other people handle this.

Stroller.