Organize photos w iphoto, PSE10, Shoebox, or what?

[hartworks]

Hi everyone -- I've read threads on this question but wanted to see if people could shed more light. After many years on Windows, I switched over to a Mac almost a year ago. At that time I got a general idea of iphoto but one thing that was a nuisance for me was that I am a blogger, and I always had to open it to find a photo instead of just looking at the files on my hard drive. Drove me nuts! (I DID see the mentions of iphoto buddy for making multiple libraries but don't see where that would solve the file-viewing problem I had.)

Last week I ordered PSE10 from Costco online, paying $4 more for not being a member there... got it there to get Linda's goodies that come with that version. It should arrive this week. Having used PSE 3 7 on my old Windows XP computer, I am not a huge fan of the PSE Organizer, and I did see in a thread here where Wendy commented that the Mac version wasn't great.

I looked at Shoebox and it looks possible, and is $30 at present for up to 10,000 photos in it.

I ruled out Aperture and Lightbox and being more pricey than I want to spend at present, but if people think they are superb, I could get one later.

Any thoughts on what works for you, or doesn't work? Thanks!

[Wendy]

Hi Zana ...

One of the problems is that both iPhoto and Organiser require you to actually go into them in order to find a photo you can't look into their libraries without going through the program itself.

iPhotoBuddy is something I use a lot but what it does is allow you to have smaller libraries ... so if you know you took the photo on a last years holiday it can make it easier to find depending on how you set up the libraries themselves.

Wendy

[hartworks]

Thanks, Wendy. Shoebox is sounding more interesting....

[otoole]

Hi, Wendy, While looking for something else, I ran across your issue with iPhoto. This is what works for me with iPhoto and PSE. I make a new folder from File while in Finder. This will make it come up on the Desktop. Name it and then go into iPhoto and drag the photos that you want for PSE into your new folder. When you want to start PSE Editor - click to open the new folder and highlight the photos that you want to send to PSE. Click Open with and find near the top PSE editor and your highlighted photos should be in the project bin.
Hope that I was clear enough. Pat O

[Wendy]

Hi Pat ...

Thats pretty similar to the way I use iPhoto and Elements

My workflow is from the camera into iPhoto, then I review in iPhoto and any that need editing I export (or drag & drop) into a desktop folder called "From iPhoto".

Then I edit the images in Elements and save them back into another desktop folder called "To iPhoto". Once I have finished I go back into iPhoto and add the "To iPhoto" folder to the Library.

After that I simply trash the items in both folder and leave then empty for the next time I need them

Wendy

[hartworks]

Helpful thoughts, will come back here eventually and report what works for me!

[Wendy]

Hi Zana ...

Do let us know how you go on with it

Wendy

[Spacecadetswife]

I'm so glad I found this thread. I'm dealing with a new IMac as well, and trying to use both IPhoto and Elements. I'm going to give the folder idea a try. I'm going nuts right clicking and sending to external editor, because IPhoto makes a dup of that image.

Are most of you guys organizing by event? Keywords? Dates? I have pictures on four different computers and I'd really like to get them on this new IMac. Also looking into getting an external disc drive to store my photos on. I'm sure moving them to that will be a mess as well.

[Wendy]

Hi Stephanie ...

I tend to use iPhoto rather like you would use a series of photo albums. I have multiple iPhoto libraries and each year I create two new ones e.g. iPhoto Holiday 2012 and iPhoto General 2012.

I also have a Scrapbooking library, Wedding library, Restorations library etc etc. It makes backing up really easy as I only need to back up and library that I have made changes to.

In order to manage multiple iPhoto libraries I use iPhotoBuddy ... its a small software program that I keep in my dock. When I want to open I library I just open up iPhotoBuddy ... select which library I want and iPhotoBuddy goes away and opens up iPhoto for me (with the correct library) ... I have been using it for many years now and I love it !!

http://www.iphotobuddy.com/

Its free but he does accept donations.

Wendy

[artc]

I, too, came from the PC world. If I open a iPhoto pic in PSE and save the revised photo, I only see the original in the iPhoto event. Where on earth do the edited photos go??? It's frustrating. It's like they've been saved to a dungeon and I don't have the key!