Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with iphoto

Random slideshow?

Go Banana — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:37:16 -0800

Is there a way to randomize the order in which slides appear in a (very large) iPhoto slideshow? Help is failing me. I'd like a bunch of photos (about 500) that are currently in an order I don't like to run in random order as a party backdrop. Thank you, brilliant and computer-savvy Mefites!

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help?

scazza — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:02:40 -0800

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help? I am looking for help with this issue AND/OR great resources to help. There are tons of forums, its difficult to find my answer.

It started with my photos. First iTunes would not sync my selected album. I would sync over and over, and it would say it synced but on my phone it would say "no photos or videos." Then it stopped showing any options or albums under "Selected albums."

Then I noticed that it triplicated my notes.

Most importantly, since I really only got this phone years ago for the calendar and never had problems until now, it has stopped syning my calendar. Like iPhoto it has stopped showing any options under "Selected calendars." I am afraid to restore because I don't want to lose the information on my phone. It says it's backed it up, but obviously it's lied to me in the past.

It looks like there's a communication breakdown between iTunes & these other programs; like iTunes can't see my calendars, photo albums, & notes. Do I downgrade my software? I never had problems before. I upgraded to the latest Mac OS as well and that has made a lot of programs crash that never crashed before, my computer crashed 3x yesterday. My calendar is the most important, vital part of having this phone at all. I am starting to panic. My phone is 3G and I'm wondering if Apple is just dropping the ball on supporting not the latest model of their products.

What's the best way to work with iPhoto 8.1 and Flickr?

2oh1 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:43:59 -0800

What's the best way to work with iPhoto 8.1 and Flickr? Strategies and tips, please!!! I realize iPhoto can export to flickr, but it seems cumbersome to have to then use flickr to add titles, descriptions and tags. Is there a way to do this in iPhoto? Is there a better way? I used to use Flickr Exporter, but that thing is so buggy! I'd prefer to do all of this in iPhoto, if at all possible.

I'm using iPhoto 8.1 (in other words, the latest version of iPhoto, the one that came with iLife 09).

Tips for organizing a large iPhoto library?

scrm — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:23:29 -0800

I'm about to start the colossal task of organising several years' worth of photos on my Mac in iPhoto. Workflow tips, experiences, scripts or software suggestions to make this task easier are much appreciated! The photos are currently stored in three separate iPhoto 09 libraries across my internal HD and external drive, mostly in RAW format. My goal is to end up with three piles of photos:

1. 'To work on': the 'decent' photos, living on my internal HD, to be worked on later (~10% of the photos at a guess)
2. 'To keep': The rest, living on my external drive (~80% of the photos)
3. 'Trash': Poor quality photos and all duplicates, in one place, that I can easily review and delete (~10% of the photos)

I prefer to use iPhoto to organise the photos as I'm familiar with it, but I'm open to other options. The new structure needs to play nice with other software like Aperture / Photoshop as I will use these to work on the first group. For photos I've already edited, I'd also like to preserve the originals (currently stored in iPhoto) for safety.

So far the only sorting of the photos that I have is with iPhoto's events - I don't really use ratings, faces, or geotagging. I have iPhoto Library Manager, which enables copying between iPhoto libraries but is quite slow, as well as Duplicate Annihilator (which didn't catch all my duplicates after several passes and tweaking the options).

What can you guys suggest?

How to email full size photo attachments from iphoto 08?

Flacka — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:55:00 -0800

When using mail to email a photo as an attachment from iphoto 08, the photo is embedded in the email message and the picture is very small. When selecting the photo from the thumbnails I have selected full size but the picture is still small. I tried attaching the photos several different ways but the result is the same. What am I missing?

iPhone 3G doesn't mount as a camera any more

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:13:47 -0800

iPhone 3G doesn't mount as a camera any more (contains list of things already tried) My iPhone (upgraded to 3.0, but has worked fine between the upgrade and this problem) doesn't do what it's supposed to do for iPhoto, or other software, to see it as a camera and import the pictures. In all other respects it seems normal.

Here's what I've tried so far:

soft restart
hard restart
different computers
different operating systems
different USB cables
different photo-import software
a full restore

I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

Keeping it real with post-production.

Gordion Knott — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:15:43 -0800

What sliders should I focus on when doing basic touch-up with programs like iPhoto? As a follow-up to this previous question of mine, I'd like to explore the optimal, most efficient was to enhance RAW digital photos with programs like iPhoto, Aperture and Photoshop.

I'm not looking for complex post-production or fancy-pants special effects such as HDR. I'd simply like to make basic adjustments to exposure and saturation to make the photos more appealing and attractive. Yet I find that once I begin to adjust sliders, I fall into a "slider K-hole," in which I become obsessed with achieving perfect results. Inevitably, I go overboard, and the photos are overprocessed and unnaturalistic.

1. How can I upgrade the efficiency of post-production to achieve great results on the quick?
2. When I launch iPhoto or Aperture, what's the optimal order for making adjustments? Which should be first, which should be next? Which should I ignore altogether?
3. Given that I'm only interested in basic touch-up and enhancement, is there value in springing for an (expensive) copy of Photoshop? Can professionals with needs like mine get by with iPhoto or Aperture?

iphoto :: get filepath

H. Roark — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:08:08 -0800

What's the quickest way to get the complete filepath of an image in iphoto copied into the clipboard? (ie, to fill in a "Browse..." to upload button a webpage) All the "info" stuff I see just gives me a filename. The only way I see to do it now is "Show File" in iphoto, which open finder window, then right on icon and do "Show Info", but maddeningly the "Where" field is not selectable to copy onto clipboard.

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

rileyray3000 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:12:51 -0800

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?

But I Did Everything Right! Right?

foxy_hedgehog — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:06:31 -0800

I backed up all of my iPhoto library onto my iPod (by using the iPod as a hard drive) in anticipation of a Mac hospital system reinstallation. I retrieved my music files just fine and loaded them back into iTunes, but the saved iPhoto library on the iPod won't open and won't let me import it into iPhoto. I'm viewing the contents of the iPod through the finder, and the iPhoto library is there -- in all its 13 GB glory -- but when I try to open in within the iPod, it flickers and nothing happens. When I try to import it via my newly reinstalled copy of iPhoto, the library isn't "clickable" in the import window. I tried copying the library from the iPod to the desktop first, and it seemed to work -- the copying process took 50 minutes -- but I can't access or import anything from the desktop either.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I might have done, or am doing, wrong? Please let me know if you need any clarification.

Aperture metadata -> iPhoto?

markturner — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:46:14 -0800

Can you export photos from Aperture to iPhoto with metadata? I've just started shooting in RAW and using Aperture to edit my photos, however, they take up so much space that I want to edit the current project in Aperture, then export high quality jpegs to iPhoto, and then delete the RAW files that Aperture uses.

I've figured out how to do this (it's not as obvious as you'd think – aperture prefers to export it's low quality 'preview' images), but I can't get the metadata to go across with the images (the star rating, tags, etc).

Does anyone know how to do this? Are there other solutions that would suit me?

How to make my iPhoto thumbnails display correctly?

kidsleepy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:09:47 -0800

Why don't the thumbnails in iPhoto match up with my images? After getting a new Mac, I decided to try organizing all my photos with iPhoto. After uploading photos from my camera to iPhoto, I almost always go in and edit them in Photoshop. I do this by highlighting (within iPhoto) and dragging the files to Photoshop, then saving them as their original files names. My problem is that iPhoto is displaying the thumbnails of the original files, and not my edited versions. However, when I double click on the pic in iPhoto, it opens as the edited version. So I guess the thumbnails are based on the original files? How do I get my thumbnails to display only the new versions? Am I missing a step in the editing or saving process, or doing something in a backwards way? And in the interest of space, is there a way to make iPhoto NOT save the original files as duplicates, and only use my hard drive space for the edited versions?

I feel like there is something obvious I'm missing, but when in doubt, turn to the hivemind.

Switching from iPhoto to Lightroom

hasna — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:16:48 -0800

I'm a photographer, switching from iPhoto, to Lightroom. I only want one copy of my (original) photos. How can I make the switch, and clean my computer up, without deleting any photos/shoots accidentally? So, I suppose I'm not exactly sure what my question is. I'll start with some information:

-I have been primarily using iPhoto for the past couple years, mostly for cropping, but I currently have 1,000 photos imported into the program.

-For two separate periods of time, I used 30 day trials of both Adobe Photoshop, and Lightroom, for my photo editing. I did pretty extensive retouching in LR, and my "catalog" or whatever it's called in LR, has about... oh, 150-250 photos in it.

-I have many other 1,000's of photos in neither program, just organized well in folders in "Finder".

-I finally purchased the full version of LR today, and plan on using it virtually exclusively, and migrating everything over.

Basically, I want make sure I'm not wasting space by having redundant duplicates on my harddrive. I never import directly from camera>iPhoto. I always import my (99% of the time RAW) photos into Finder, using Camera Utility, and then import my favourites into iPhoto from finder. Does this mean all my iPhoto photos are duplicates? If so, I'm likely to delete most of them from iPhoto. Is this safe? Will it leave the originals in Finder untouched?

Secondly, how do I handle Lightroom? (workflow-wise, I mean... I know how to use the program) I'd prefer not to use 2x the space for every photo (by storing one in Lightroom, and one in Finder), but I love the easy navigation of just clicking through Finder....

BTW, I'm already burning and deleting as many old shoots as I can. There are still many, however, that I work with too regularly to delete off my hard drive just yet.

*If it matters, some of my photos were for paid assignments, some for paid stock, others for portfolio development, or travel photography...

Flip me left, flip me right

trouserlouse — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:28:11 -0800

iPhotoFilter: how to make vertically-oriented photos taken on a Casio EX-V8 automatically show up that way in iPhoto? My Casio EX-V8 camera is great...except for the fact that when I import photos into iPhoto, horizontally-oriented (landscape) photos turn out fine, of course, but vertically-oriented ("tall") photos don't get rotated automatically. This means I have to manually go through all of the photos and rotate them so that they face the right way, instead of staring at me at a 90 degree angle.

Even the ancient digital camera I had before could deal with this, but this one cannot. Either camera-based (camera settings) or software-based (in OS X/iPhoto) solutions are fine. I'm running iPhoto 7.1.5 on 10.5.6. Thanks!

Back my Mac up online

c:\awesome — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 10:46:37 -0800

What's the best software for automated online backups for OSX? I have a Dreamhost account with unlimited storage and transfer, and I'd like to use that as a place to remotely backup the data on my Macbook Pro (mostly photos from iPhoto). MobileMe is a ripoff.

You'd think there'd be a nice piece of software that runs in the background and allows me to set a few directories to be synced, and any additions to those folders are automatically reflected online. True? Something that uses SSH or FTP, maybe?

I know about rsync but I'm stupid and I want a GUI.

What are my options?

Starting over with a new laptop, how best to stay organized?

pseudostrabismus — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:50:58 -0800

I'd like to know the best way to move a selected group of files & applications to a new laptop, and advice to help ensure that my new Mac doesn't get bunged up with duplicate & improperly deleted files like my old one did, with its inexplicably full hard drive and crammed iTunes & iPhoto folders. This is rather lengthy, geared to the slightly moronic layperson (me), and has 6 sub-questions inside. My old laptop quickly filled up & slowed down. I tried to back up & delete unused files, but later I'd find the same files still tucked away on the machine, not deleted after all. Also, when I first imported files from my old PC to my then-new G4, for some reason a lot of files showed up as "locked" on the new computer. Many of them (just word docs & jpegs, nothing important or complex) were nested into folders (from how I'd organized my old computer)- and try as I might, I could never get them all unlocked to delete them. It was such a pain in the butt.

So I have a new laptop now (thank you, Santa!), and I want to avoid all the problems from last time. Hence, I have some questions. And as you will soon discover, I'm not particularly computer-savvy. Plus I'm inexplicably intimidated by computer jargon. So simple explanations would be really appreciated here!

The potentially-relevant stats:
The old one is a 12" PowerBook G4, purchased in 2005, running OSX 10.4.11
The new one is a 2008 MacBook (aluminum body & glass screen) running OSX 10.5.5
I have a 1GB USB memory stick and a 500GB external firewire drive.

Okay, so here are some really obvious questions:

1. What's the best way to transfer many selected files from my old box to the new one?
I don't want all the files from the old machine- just the ones I'm currently using. And I particularly need to avoid accidentally moving copies of locked files to the new machine- which is tricky as they're all nested deep into folders and I can't find them all. In fact,

2. How do I ensure that I never again have any "locked" files on the new machine?!
Is there a default for this? I don't even know how they all got locked in the first place, and although I know you can select specific files & folders, then hit "Get Info" and select "Unlock", my files are nested deep into various folders, and that command doesn't unlock individual locked files nested in folders- believe me, I've tried!
And I can't just delete the locked files, either- that leaves the originals locked where they were AND adds locked & therefore undeletable duplicate files to the Trash, thereby doubling the number of locked files, aargh. I don't want to go all the way to the end of each tentacle and unlock the files one by one- there are hundreds.
Is there an easier, blanket way to unlock them all?

3. How do I transfer programs I downloaded from the web?
VisualHub is the main one I'm concerned about since it's discontinued.
But I'd also like to keep my paid copies of Net News Wire, VLC, Transmit, and Minuteur.
Also, I acquired a few other programs from friends (Final Draft, Photoshop). Is there an easy way to move those over, too?

4. How to transfer drafts of iWeb pages?

5. When I get going on the new computer, how best to keep the files streamlined on that machine?
I noticed that I was losing a lot of disk space to:
a) duplicate, "locked" files, as above
b) extra copies of photos & videos I downloaded from my digital camera- they all went into iPhoto, which was fine, but then there seemed to be other copies (?) floating around in the "Pictures" folder, and in other places.
c) iTunes songs. In the past, I would try to delete them in iTunes by selecting & dragging to trash or hitting delete, (like I used to on Windows Music). And then, after "deleting" them, I'd be annoyed to note that I didn't free up any disk space... because the files were still sitting in my Music folder. Obviously my limited PC skillz didn't transfer really well.

6. Is there an easy web tutorial that shows how you're supposed to manage iTunes?

Oh these are such dumb questions. I'm embarassed. Sorry, smart computer people. This is seriously not my forte. If you ever need help with something I'm good at, like public speaking or feng shui or crossing your eyes or something, I promise to be soooo nice when I help you! THANK YOU.

Mac iPhoto facebook importer only sends tiny little image to facebook.

HuronBob — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:06:28 -0800

Why is the facebook importer plugin for iPhoto all of a sudden only wanting to send tiny little images instead of the correct size? I'm using OS X 10.4.11, iPhoto 6.0.6 This worked fine until just a few days ago, but now all I get is a tiny, tiny copy of the photo in the importer window, and that's exactly what it sends to facebook... A search online found a couple of people asking this question (I think), but they weren't asking the Mac experts at MeFi and didn't get any responses....

Need more info to pick an on-demand photobook publisher

blueshammer — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:00:34 -0800

Trying to pick an online photobook publisher to make family Christmas gifts, and am overwhelmed. Who has had recent experience with blurb, lulu, iPhoto, MyPublisher, Picaboo, Smile Books, etc.? I just want to make a family photobook as economically as possible (softcover, 20 or 40 pages, square or landscape format), and most places have comparable prices, so it seems like the movie is definitely to differentiate on quality. But reading reviews, blogs, etc., I'm getting the impression that the quality of any given publisher's printing process, paper choices, etc., keep changing over time, and so Googling isn't doing a lot to make me able to make a reasonable comparison of what each publisher will deliver in November 2008. Does anyone know of a resource that I'm missing, or have personal experience to share?

Did OSX delete my pictures?

iknowizbirfmark — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:48:00 -0800

Did I lose the photos I had in a guest account on my MacBook? About a year ago, I enabled a guest account on my MacBook (or did I create another non-guest account?) and uploaded some vacation photos there from my camera for my family to look at. (I did this to not have to worry about my family seeing other work or personal stuff on my regular account.)

Now, I can't find those pictures anywhere. I must have disabled the guest account at some point - now that I've re-enabled it, the pictures aren't there. Did it delete them when I disabled guest access? Are my pictures lost forever?

Help me with my photo storage and viewing, please.

monkeygenius — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:07:26 -0800

I need to speed up my mac/iPhoto by managing my files and workflow better. Can I speed up my clunky iPhoto? Or should I abandon it for another program? I'm using a two year old 17" macbook pro. Recently everything has gotten slow. I think my hard drive is just too full, so I'd like to start paring down by getting my photo situation under control.

iPhoto has always been extremely slow, so I'd like either a solution to that problem or a suggestion of another way to deal with my photos. The way it works now is that when I plug my camera into the laptop, iPhoto opens and imports the files. This means that I have to go through iPhoto selecting photos, finding the file, and deleting both the file and the thumbnail to get rid of whichever ones didn't come out well. This is extra annoying when the photos have been auto rotated and therefore have both an original file and a modified file (arg!!!). Also, I do all of my editing in Photoshop, if that matters.

So, I'm looking for some advice on how/where to store my files and how/where to view them in order to speed things up and get rid of the annoyance I'm experiencing.

Delete or not to delete...

cubedweller — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:54:29 -0800

Quick and easy - do you delete your photos after you've imported them to iPhoto? I'm a recent mac convert and I'm enjoying iPhoto but I'm not sure if one deletes the original photo after importing to iPhoto. Thoughts?

I'd love to see my photos somewhere other than on my phone

foxy_hedgehog — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:44:35 -0800

How do I get photos on my cell phone media card onto my computer? I added a media card to my phone to be able to store more pictures on it, but now I can't download the photos when I sync my phone with my Mac. Every time I try, I get an error message reading, "iPhoto does not appear to be installed or has never been run and therefore photos cannot be imported from the device." (I'm using Missing Sync).

I use I photo all the time, and am sure to have it open during the sync. Is there anything else I can do to get those pictures? Is there another way to "mount" it on the computer? This is an eensy-weensy media card, so I can't pop it into my camera and import photos from there, but maybe there's something I haven't thought of. Oh, and I can't send email from my phone, so can't mail the pictures to myself.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Connect Canon HG10 video to Mac os X

willep — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:02:20 -0800

Mac osx/canon hg10 cannot get stills off camera. Video yes, stills no. We're supposed to have a baby any day now and this sucker ain't behaving (the camera-mac connection). I haven't had this kind of problem with a mac in 10 years. I can get iMovie to find my Canon HG10 thru USB cable but not Final Cut Pro of iPhoto or Image Capture. That would be fine except that iMovie does not download images from still mode.

I have everything Canon has for download, I have iPhoto, etc. I have another Canon still camera that works fine in all programs.

I saw this thread was closed.

I've looked: no one else seems to have this problem and Canon isn't aware of it... thank you.

What is the best approach to reproducible color management?

teem — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:08:23 -0800

What is the best approach to color management? I only just realised that how I see my photos in iPhoto, Photoshop, and Safari isn't how the majority of people on the net are seeing them? What is the best setup for consistent color management that still looks good? Example: Smitten Kitchen versus Use real butter. Both food blogs (neither one mine) look great in Safari, but in Firefox Use real butter's pictures lose saturation, while Smitten Kitchen's remain brilliant.

What combination of setups should I use in my camera, iPhoto, Photoshop, and browser in order to color manage like Smitten Kitchen?

I read This previous question, but was keen to know if any recommendations have changed now that 2 years have passed.

80s power ballads, begone.

twistofrhyme — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:04:32 -0800

dumb question: when i delete a song from itunes, where does it go? i don't understand the delete mechanism in itunes. when i delete a photo in iphoto, for instance, it ends up in the iphoto trash, which i can then empty (as a seperate action from deleting my laptop's trash).

when i highlight a song in itunes and press delete, it vanishes from my itunes playlist. but it doesn't end up in my laptop's trash bin, and i don't see an itunes-specific trash. so where are those songs going, and how do i get rid of them for real, to free up some hard drive space?

oh, and i'm running osx 10.4.11.
thanks.