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Should I use iPhoto again?
In October of last year, I wrote a blog entry about a decision to migrate my personal collection of photographs from iPhoto to Aperture, unifying all my photographs, from personal images to professional work, "under a single roof."
It was not an easy decision to make, and it certainly is not for everyone, but judging on the advantages and disadvantages based primarily on my personal work style and workflow, I finally decided to unify my photo collection. At that time, I reasoned, I've come to use Aperture more and more, and iPhoto less and less, in working on the post-production of images from my personal collection. Aiming for convenience and consistency, it made sense to me to work on both sets of images using a single software, and from a single interface.
But even after I emptied my iPhoto library, I didn't actually totally give up on iPhoto. In a few cases, would load back images into it to take advantage of some functionalities I need or wanted. But by and large, I no longer have a massive, separate iPhoto library to speak of. Practically everything is now inside Aperture.
But then, fast-forward to today, four months since then, my elected method of unification, and my seemingly perfectly organized universe of images, appears to have been challenged in a major way. I'm beginning to have a change of heart. I might just want to use iPhoto all over again. Have I been too hasty in setting aside iPhoto?
What happened? Two things. First, a new toy, the Panasonic Lumix LX3; and second, Phil Schiller's keynote at the recently concluded Macworld announcing the release this month of iLife '09, wherein he demonstrated at length the new major features of iPhoto '09.
Because of the tight integration between and among several Mac software, I imagine that I can of of course pull out images in my Aperture library from iPhoto '09, but this doesn't seem to be the right solution. To really take advantage of the new iPhoto '09 features, particularly Faces and Places, among others, it seems to make sense that I should work from within its own library.
Personally, with the new version shipping any time now, iPhoto is interesting again. And, much like before my decision to unify my entire image library, iPhoto appears once more be a nice complement to Aperture. It's as if Apple's message is: both software, consumer and professional grade, are meant to be used hand-in-hand.
Perhaps, now more than ever, I have been made keenly aware that there will always be a new, new thing--in software, in hardware, and in much of everything else. With all the new and interesting features built into iPhoto '09, the idea that perhaps, at the right time when a new version of Aperture rolls out, these very same or even comparatively better features and tools will be added in it as well.
It seems to make sense that the new features in iPhoto '09 could also possibly be included in a future Aperture version, unless of course, Apple decides to really create, further down the line, more distinction between the two by investing in each, only certain, particular feature sets. Still, I can't help wondering if there might be a chance that at least some iPhoto '09 features will somehow find its way into Aperture as well.
I guess I'll just have to wait and find out. Meanwhile, once iPhoto '09 becomes available, I will surely give it a try.
I thought the same thing when watching Phil's keynote. My first thought after "cool" was that these features will most certainly find their way into Aperture, one way or another. Then again, anyone buying a new Mac after this month (or after iLife '09 ships) will have it without the need to upgrade software.
I wonder how iPhoto '09 and Aperture integrate together on managed libraries?
@Trace "I wonder how iPhoto '09 and Aperture integrate together on managed libraries?"
The short answer is, they don't. Aperture's a totally different beast that stores much more information in its database. Also, there is a significant different in how RAW files are handled as far as I know - Dominique - you should probably know this as well, that is that iPhoto can read your RAWs, but any changes made to them results in a JPEG being created, so I really don't think there is any reason for semi-professional use to go "back" to iPhoto - I certainly won't be spending any thoughts over migrating my main image libraries.
These two things which are new in iPhoto 09 are at the end of the day nice features. But nothing in iPhoto compares to the precision and level of fine adjustments you can accomplish in Aperture.
Sure, Faces, and especially Geo-Tagging ("Places") without GPS data to begin with are very sexy features, but if iPhoto09 had not presented Face recognition a few days ago, NO ONE would have been "demanding" Apple to come out with this for Aperture ASAP. Even today it REALLY is not the most wanted possible feature improvement for Aperture 2.5 / 3.0, that's for sure.
And yes, of course Aperture V.next will have this Geo-Tagging integration... do we really need to wonder about that?
Stick with Aperture for your main photo library is my 2c of advice - though I am also getting iLife 09 anyways, but then the equivalent of $4 or whatever per month (over the cost of about a year, well worth the "continuous" improvements!) for the iLife Suite has always been a no-brainer in my eyes.
All the best,
Jonas
Surely with Aperture 3 there will be a tighter integration between iPhoto and Aperture that does not require choosing one over the other?
Apple has nothing to lose by doing this, as those who have purchased Aperture have already paid a premium and will also have to purchase iLife 09 to get the complete feature set.
I don't know why their libraries can't talk to each other on a software level, rather than having to chose one over the other. This would also save them development time in the present and future in terms of not having to explicitly port features between the two.
PP
I really hope some of these features come to Aperture, but in the mean time I plan on using Aperture and just exporting lower res files (personal files) to iPhoto so that I have the functionality, without the file size.
This is what I did
all my images are stored in aperture library, but i created a few smart albums and named them "Ready" "Ready to iPhoto" & "Ready in iPhoto"
-in the first one, I keep all pictures with a rating greater than 3
-in the second, I keep pictures with a rating greater than 3 that don't have the keyword "iPhoto"
-in the third one, I keep all images marked with "iPhoto" keyword
to make it easier i created a simple automator workflow with these steps:
-Get selected images
-Mark all of them with "iPhoto" keyword using "Assign Keywords to Images" (you can also use other IPTS field that you find in action "Set IPTC Tag")
-Export Versions using "JPG for Web" preset (JPG-full size-72 dpi-sRGB) to the folder
"aperture ready pictures" or something like this. I prefer to use Project Name as a name for Export Subfolders.
when the export is completed I simply drag the folders manually to my iPhoto library.
Now all my ready pictures are in my iPhoto library and I don't have any raw files in it because i don't use iPhoto to adjust my pictures.
"I don't know why their libraries can't talk to each other on a software level, rather than having to chose one over the other."
iPhoto and Aperture deal with images and files in fundamentally different ways. For the libraries to talk to each other in that way would mean either rewriting iPhoto to use parametric editing (instructions are stored instead of discrete image files) or rewriting Aperture so that it's edits are non-destructive.
Ian
Just a reminder for anyone thinking of importing their Aperture photos into iPhoto.
When you copy images into iPhoto 08 from Aperture 2.1.2 using the 'Show Aperture Library' feature in iPhoto 08 - it is only the JPG preview files of the selected Versions that get copied into the iPhoto library. The size and quality of these Preview JPGs are determined by your Preview file settings in Aperture Preferences - All Version Adjustments are embedded permanently in the Preview JPG and your original/Master files do not get imported to iPhoto.
One other thing to consider now when using both Aperture and iPhoto '09, keywords (not ratings!) are preserved when importing from Aperture to iPhoto '09. I did this last night and I was surprised to see that the keywords were preserved. I think Aperture even added the keyword 'iPhoto Library' to all of the images.
As far as I can remember this didn't work with iPhoto '08.
I was able to confirm that keywords are preserved when going from Aperture -> iPhoto '09 but ONLY if the Preferences -> Advanced "Copy items to the iPhoto Library is CHECKED.
To import the photos from Aperture to iPhoto: select iPhoto -> File -> Show Aperture Library then select projects, albums, or photos and drag them to iPhoto.
Again, this is only for keywords and not ratings, of course you can get around that by assigning keywords such as '1 star', '2 stars', etc. and then re-assigning the ratings manually in iPhoto.
I ran into a bug (or perhaps a feature) in that if I changed/added/deleted a keyword and tried to import from iPhoto the new changes were missing. I had to perform "Update Previews for Project" in Aperture in order to be able to see the changes. Aperture however was stubborn and it would not update the previews even when I used the "Option" key to try to force it to do it, in my test I had to edit the photo to get it to update the preview.
I'm a non-pro photographer who has about 20,000 pics (and movies) in iPhone, and I also own Aperture. Figuring out how to best use both applications has been tough for me. I tend to use iPhoto 95% of the time, but break out Aperture to import "rolls" from my better camera when it's for something more high end. But having two libraries is kind of a drag, as is the thought of duplicating data. I don't care much about faces and places, and would simply go all Aperture, except I also take a lot of movies with my point-n-shoot, and my iPhone, and Aperture won't import my movies. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be keen to hear them. Thanks!