How do I view photos on my Mac from a SD card without using iPhoto?

You can use the Image Capture program to import them to a variety of programs.

or you can open them in finder and select, press the spacebar for "quicklook"

Here's what you do: First, click out of iPhoto, close the program. Then, go to Finder, File, New Finder Window. Then, do that exact same thing again. You will end up with two Finder windows on your screen. That's a good thing.

Resize both those windows so that they fit on the screen in a way that you are comfortable with. Then you can grab the images or whole files from one window, and drag them into another file on the other window. Voila, the computer will move the files.

For easier organization, you might want to first create a new file for your photos, if they are all of a specific subject. On the destination screen, click on File, New Folder. A new folder will appear in whatever folder you are already in. Type in whatever you want to name it. Then move the pictures into it.

Much more intuitive for all of us old Fortran programmers who migrated from Windows.

Hope this helps, -J