If this doesn't work I'm going back to the computers of John Hodgeman

April 14, 2009 11:12 AM

When I burn pictures to a CD on my mac, why does it always burn the uncorrected ones?

I freely admit - I'm not a mac guy. But I caved, I got a really nice I-mac and for almost everything that's not insanely technical it's great. one thing I LOVE is I-photo. The easy way to bump up shadows, to increase midtones and highlights. I'm frickin Ansel Adams with this thing.

Until I try to burn a disc of said pictures.

Then, for some reason, I get the original uncorrected photos. Photos I assumed were long gone. But for some reason, there they are, making me look like community college photography student.

So, question:

1) Why are the old copies still on there? Is there a way to insure when I change a photo it STAYS changed and there's no other copies hanging around?

2) Barring that, how do I burn just the good photos - the corrected ones - by default?

posted by rileyray3000 to technology (6 answers total)

Sounds to me like iPhoto is performing nondestructive editing, storing the actions performed on the photos in its library, a la Lightroom- therefore the originals won't be touched.
I don't have a Mac on hand at the moment, but can you 'export' the photos and burn those instead?
posted by dunkadunc at 11:17 AM on April 14, 2009

The corrected photos are here: hard drive --> iPhoto library --> Modified
posted by moosedogtoo at 11:32 AM on April 14, 2009

iPhoto does nondestructive editing as dunkadunc suggests. Also you should probably note what version of iPhoto you are using. But just using the burn option seems to burn iphoto disks, not just picture disks. If if you then browse for the pictures you get the original ones. If you want to use the pics in a non iphoto way, what you are supposed to do is select the files then choose File -- export. There will be some options, one of which is "Current". Make sure this is set. Export. Burn like any other files.
posted by d4nj450n at 11:37 AM on April 14, 2009

As stated: The "Burn" command within iPhoto should only be used to create iPhoto-compatible libraries.

As with many things on the Mac, some things that are "easy" are not necessarily obvious, and there are numerous ways to accomplish the same thing. This is how I do it:

Select the photos you want to share, and use the Export command. Just take a second to make sure you choose the options you want (Maximum quality JPG, Full-size, etc). Make a new folder wherever you want (I always use the Desktop) and export the photos there. When you have them all done, put in a blank disk and drag that folder to the CD or DVD. Once the burning is done, you can delete the exported files if you want, since these are just copies.

You are right about the editing capabilites of iPhoto, though. For even more leeway in your editing, shoot in RAW if you aren't already. (Assuming you have a later version of iPhoto.)
posted by The Deej at 12:16 PM on April 14, 2009

FYI - if it's an Intel Mac, you can run Picasa. It works in the same way (nondestructive photo editing) except instead of hiding your changed image, it hides the original (in the same folder as the image, in a subfolder named "Originals").

It has the same abilities for editing as iPhoto, but I prefer it for a couple reasons (it's cross-platform, first of all, and secondly it is better about letting me manage my images, which is great if you use more than one computer - iPhoto's main drawback in my mind is that it can't handle outside editing of images. You delete one, it freaks out; you add pictures, it won't automatically notice and include them.)

Picasa does play nice with iPhoto - you can try it, and if you don't like it deleting the program won't make any change to your existing iPhoto library.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:18 PM on April 14, 2009

Confirming what dunkadunc and d4nj450n hit on, iPhoto 08 and 09 uses nondestructive editing. Though you don't say it it sounds like you're burning the photos via the Finder, that is, selecting the pictures you want to burn from the appropriate place in your Pictures folder. Since you're wanting to burn the edited photos, I'd recommend doing so within iPhoto.
I don't have a current version of iPhoto in front of me, but I imagine the procedure is something akin to creating an album of the intended photos and then right clicking, selecting burn from the context menu.

You might want to consider either one of the David Pogue books in the Missing Manual series, Switching and Leopard.
posted by now i'm piste at 12:49 PM on April 14, 2009