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Level 1

4 points

Best workflow - iPhoto + Photoshop (Elements) or simply drop iPhoto?

Hi everyone.

I am an amateur photographer but I like to take good pictures and have them look at least semi-pro. My wife and I have been using iPhoto for years to organize our photos. Some basic editing is also done in iPhoto.

However, the biggest reason to use iPhoto is the ease of organization and the sharing features (share via email, Facebook, etc. right from iPhoto).

I am ready to move to Photoshop (via Photoshop Elements, I don't need the full program). But I am not sure it is easy to go from iPhoto to Elements.

Would you recommend:

1. using iPhoto + Elements (how? right click a picture in RAW and "edit with external editor"?)

2. simply organize and edit it ALL with Photoshop Elements and forget iPhoto (is there an easy way to import the iPhoto Library with at least some of its organization elelemtns like albums, RAW pictures and dates into Adobe Bridge or Elements?)

Please help, what would be the best workflow?

Maybe Lightroom or Aperture? (which don't seem to offer the same features as Photoshop or Elements)...

Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 25, 2009 6:54 AM

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,380 points

Posted on Sep 25, 2009 7:20 AM

If you're shooting RAW then you're best to use an app like Aperture or Lightroom.

These apps, like iPhoto, are photo managers at heart. They are not editors, instead they will help your process your RAW into a usable format like jpeg or tiff. None of them, for instance, have layer based editing.

Photoshop (and Elements is the same, just a more entry level version) is a layer based image editor. Ideally, you would use this with an associated Manager, such as Aperture, LR or iPhoto. All of these apps work +in association+ with an editor.

If you're shooting RAW then the vast majority of your photos will never need go near Photoshop if you process them with LR or Aperture. The fact is that Photoshop has a million features that a photographer will never use. (Old joke about Photoshop: No one uses more than 30% of its features, so they should forget the other 70%. It's just that everyone uses a different 30%)

Aperture and LR (as well as iPhoto) offer lossless processing of the Original image.

LR and Aperture are firmly focussed on the RAW shooter, iPhoto is aimed much more at the Point and Shoot end of the market. RAW support in iPhoto is tacked on, somewhat. For instance, you can send a RAW to be processed in Elements but you must save it to the desktop and then import it back to iPhoto. This is not the case with jpegs or tiff.

Aperture has many of the sharing features of iPhoto built-in, and others can be added by plug-ins. LR may also have but it has none of the OS integration of iPhoto and Aperture.

My personal suggestion: download a trial of both because they do have a learning curve. Explore and see which one fees right to you.

Then afterwards, add Elements to whichever you you choose.

FWIW, Bridge is best forgotten.

Regards

TD

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24 replies

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,380 points

Dec 22, 2009 4:19 AM in response to Pro Jules

I am a bit concearned the way iPhoto may store RAW masters

You have no cause for concern. It stores them in exactly the same way as it stores any original file. And you can access the Raw anytime by simply going File -> Export, Kind: Original

Regards

TD

Dec 24, 2009 2:48 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks everyone.

Well my copy of Aperture is here. I am not going to open it yet! I may still send it back.

I am a MacBook Air fan and feel like a moth heading towards a flame!! Yesterday I figured out I would move up to a $4,000 MacBook pro! WHAT? Just to run Aperture? Hello? Reality check?!!!

I am very much a part time photographer, weekend snaps of the kids and the odd event coverage for work / web publication.

Will try the elements via iPhoto and see it the fancy plug ins I want (mainly Silver FXPro) will run or not before ripping off the celophane wrapping on Aperture. I really like the suggested tip that said this method will take a far smaller CPU hit and makes me think I may be able to stay on the Air range of laptops. (comments very wellcome here, this is the real deciding factor for me air-iphoto-elements or mbp-aperture !!)

Perhaps like many others it's Aperture 3 that I need. ?

Perhaps I should wait it out, stop moaning and get on with RAW in iPhoto?

I have 14 days to contact Apple about a return!

Thinking aloud on line has helped! Sorry if this has been tedious!

Dec 29, 2009 1:48 PM in response to Pro Jules

Wow, MBP spec'ed the way I want it.. nearly £3,000 GBP !!!

Ker-ikie!

Must do that iPhoto Elements test soon!

kjhooke

Level 1

4 points

Jan 3, 2010 8:56 PM in response to Pro Jules

Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I think I'm trying to do something similar as the original poster and I think running into the same misunderstandings.

I've been using iPhoto for the past year and on the whole it does 90% of what I need - I'm a hobbyist photographer and shooting in RAW. Occasionally I want to edit certain areas of a photo, not the photo thing like what iPhoto does, so I've been looking at Aperture and and Photoshop Elements 8.

I've found that if I set up iPhoto to edit photos externally in Photoshop Elements it will save the modified JPG back in the same directory, which looks like within the iPhoto directory structure, but then it never appears in iPhoto, and the Import in iPhoto won't let you import files from within the iPhoto dir tree.

So to get this to work can someone confirm - you have to save the final edited JPG from PSE outside of iPhoto and then import it back in? I'm expecting to keep iPhoto for my photo organization since I've got 6000 photos from the past 10 years in my iPhoto library and I don't fancy moving them out to anything else since they're already tagged and in Events.

How about Aperture - does it work better with iPhoto? I had a trial download but it expired and I can't seem to get another trial to install to get another trial period, so I can't check for myself.

Thanks!

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,380 points

Jan 4, 2010 12:09 AM in response to kjhooke

I've found that if I set up iPhoto to edit photos externally in Photoshop Elements it will save the modified JPG back in the same directory, which looks like within the iPhoto directory structure, but then it never appears in iPhoto, and the Import in iPhoto won't let you import files from within the iPhoto dir tree.

Here's how the External Editor things works with iPhoto. You decide to edit the pic in Elements so *iPhoto makes a copy of the pic* and sends it to Elements. Do your work in Elements and Save the file (not Save As...) and it comes back to iPhoto.

This works because +iPhoto creates the copy+.

It can't work if Elements makes the copy because iPhoto doesn't know about this copy. So if you use the Save As command, it doesn't work. SImilarly, because you cannot save a Raw file and it must be saved in a new format, iPhoto doesn't know about that either, and so you must save it to the desktop and then import it as a new image.

As for Aperture... What does "work better" mean? It's designed for a Raw workflow and works in an entirely different way than iPhoto - as detailed above.

Regards

TD

Jan 4, 2010 2:10 AM in response to Yer_Man

Great stuff. Many thanks!

I feel I am inching forwards through the minefield!
Aperture 2 is all ready to go back
iPhoto and Elements (demo) seems to be working fine - I even have Nik softwares Silver FX pro visible (but my demo ran out so cant test it Grrrrr..I have contacted them for a new code)

Reading this I am daydreaming of a workflow that puts my 'old" RAW copies into another place (perhaps a 2nd "RAW library" in iPhoto?)

*BUT... a question..* will Elements have any 'memory' of the processing done to old stored RAW files?

Or is that a negative aspect of the iPhoto / external editor combination?

Thanks a million.

Jan 4, 2010 2:35 AM in response to kjhooke

Still learning myself. My enquiries have lead me to believe that Aperture is a very CPU hungry App and will almost certainly crawl on my Macbook Air. It also seems very overdue an update according to on-line chatter and moaning. I am sending my (unopened copy) back and will try the iPhoto / Elements route. I really dont want a heavy laptop and a stationary Mac doesn't fit into my day to day life. I tried the free beta of Lightroom 3 for a few days but missed the Mac styling...

kjhooke wrote: I'm expecting to keep iPhoto for my photo organization since I've got 6000 photos from the past 10 years in my iPhoto library and I don't fancy moving them out to anything else since they're already tagged and in Events.

How about Aperture - does it work better with iPhoto? I had a trial download but it expired and I can't seem to get another trial to install to get another trial period, so I can't check for myself.

Thanks!

Old Toad

Level 10

207,631 points

Jan 4, 2010 5:25 PM in response to kjhooke

If you're using PSE to edit the jpg files in iPhoto here are some tip on using it with iPhoto:

Using Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) as Your Editor of Choice in iPhoto.

1 - select Photoshop as your editor of choice in iPhoto's General Preference Section's under the "Edit photo:" menu.

2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done.

3 - however, if you get the navigation window that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.

This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..

NOTE: With Photoshop Elements 6 the Saving File preferences should be configured: "On First Save: Save Over Current File". Also I suggest the Maximize PSD File Compatabilty be set to Always.

If you want to use both iPhoto's editing mode and PS without having to go back and forth to the Preference pane, once you've selected PS as your editor of choice, reset the Preferences back to "Open in main window". That will let you either edit in iPhoto (double click on the thumbnail) or in PS (Control-click on the thumbnail and seledt "Edit in external editor" in the Contextual menu). This way you get the best of both worlds

2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done.

3 - however, if you get the navigation window that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.

This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..

Any time you edit a Raw file with PSE the new file has to be saved to the Desktop and imported as a new file.

Jan 5, 2010 5:59 AM in response to Old Toad

Thats a great "idiots guide" for me

Many thanks..

Best workflow - iPhoto + Photoshop (Elements) or simply drop iPhoto?