iPhoto for WinXP???

[Clayton]

Saw a demo of IPHOTO on a Mac a couple days ago... For my uses, I was really impressed at the simplicity of building and saving slide shows, overlaying sound files, etc.

Is there a comparable (or better!) application that runs on WinXP for image sorting and slide show presentations?

Couldn't find out how much IPHOTO costs (Apple is very peculiar about those things) - so I have no idea of how much $$ is involved...

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Clayton

Couldn't find out how much IPHOTO costs

iPhoto is part of Apple’s Mac OS X-only iLife suite (also including iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, iWeb, and iTunes), which is bundled with new Macs. Users of older Macs can buy the package for $80.

I am not familiar with Google’s Picasa or Adobe Photoshop Album, but have read that they are similar to iPhoto.

iPhoto is a nifty little tool, especially as I got it for nothing with my Mac.

[Mike]

Take care if using RAW files. The recent versions of iPhoto claim to handle RAW files and appear to do so -- that is, until you try to open them in Photoshop. It's then that you find that iPhoto has converted them to jpegs!

[iamback]

Originally Posted by Mike

Take care if using RAW files. The recent versions of iPhoto claim to handle RAW files and appear to do so -- that is, until you try to open them in Photoshop. It's then that you find that iPhoto has converted them to jpegs!

It also seems to have big bugs in handling IPTC data - writes it but non-standard so other applications can't read them. Picasa had similar problems.

Best to test such things (on test copies of images!) across programs to see if what one program does is still accessibile by another. If not, one or the other (or both!) doesn't follow standards.

XnView (though basically a browser) seems to be reasonable with IPTC, and has a nice editor for that. IMatch is very careful in sticking to standards to ensure compatibility...

[Cristen Gillespie]

Clayton: Saw a demo of IPHOTO on a Mac a couple days ago... For my uses, I was really impressed at the simplicity of building and saving slide shows, overlaying sound files, etc.

I don't think Lightroom allows for careful audio work, but it does allow for music during a slideshow. I've been trying the beta lately, and if you want nice, quick publishing options, plus the ability to manage files on connected drives and do a nice job of simple tonal and color corrections, it works well. Might be worth a download for you to at least check it out.

There are several inexpensive slide show programs for Windows. When I tried some out recently, I noticed that each had some advantage and some feature missing that I thought I would want. The biggest stumbling block was how they handled sound. Some offered up the Ken Burns effect, some had even more motion possible, lots of transitions, but what you want to do with audio will probably be the limiting factor on all of these. Even iPhoto doesn't handle audio the way iMovie does.

I'm afraid there's no clear cut answer, but the good news is that's because creating slide shows is VERY popular and you have a lot of options.

[Robin Springall]

The real beauty of iPhoto is the fact that you're always working on a copy of your original file, so you can keep track of your originals even though you've ranamed and changed files, yet you can revert back at any time. That's brilliant, and I don't think any other program has the same feature.

[Cristen Gillespie]

Originally Posted by Robin Springall

The real beauty of iPhoto is the fact that you're always working on a copy of your original file, so you can keep track of your originals even though you've ranamed and changed files, yet you can revert back at any time. That's brilliant, and I don't think any other program has the same feature.

I think they've finally changed the behavior. Mine is still v4, until I get an Intel Mac. It used to be they did, in fact, copy all your files. This was not necessarily desireable behavior. I think now you can leave your originals in place. It still is a reference and you can revert, but it no longer duplicates everything.

Lightroom also references the original. It won't necessarily copy it in full to its own directory. And you can revert. I don't know yet what the limitations are, apart from the fact that it doesn't manage offline files -- it has to copy them to disk. However, if managed "in place" my Lightroom library doesn't fill up with duplicates. Only if I choose to Export to PS do I get another "copy," Tif this time. It must be using XMP because in Lightroom, I can see my edits and revert. In Bridge, I see my untouched originals, despite having edited them in Lightroom.

I don't know what Photo Album does.

Most of the cheap slide show programs for Windows are just that -- they make the slide shows, but they don't do the work of image editing. Since Clayton has PS, he doesn't need a program for image editing, I shouldn't think.

[Robin Springall]

Originally Posted by Cristen Gillespie

Since Clayton has PS, he doesn't need a program for image editing, I shouldn't think.

Absolutely. I wasn't about to recommend iPhoto as a serious substitute for PhotoShop, just singing its praises.

[Cristen Gillespie]

Originally Posted by Robin Springall

Absolutely. I wasn't about to recommend iPhoto as a serious substitute for PhotoShop, just singing its praises.

I'll have to wait for getting a new Intel Mac to sing the praises of iPhoto. My version 4 was buggy and I got caught out by the bloat with all my image directories copied! I thought I was going to be able to manage my photos with iPhoto, not have it turn into a beast. Well, okay, so I didn't read the fine print before I tried it out. Apple's online Help is just about the worst in the business, right up there with Microsoft, and iPhoto looked so easy to figure out. . . <BG>

But I wanted to point out that Windows-based software has apparently caught up with the idea, so Clayton needn't lament not having iPhoto available to him. Programs that do things with quantities of photos are all the rage now.

[Clayton]

Cristen, I can't seem to find the Lightwave Beta download - just a bunch of press releases for it...