iPhoto vs. Finder

Larry,

I use the RAW files as the backup (the negative as it were) and edit the out-of-camera JPEGs because I want the proprietary Olympus rendering.

Does iPhoto strip the camera JPEG metadata? In that case you would be correct about just shooting RAW (that has no settings). But at that point it wouldn't matter because I would then not use iPhoto if it means losing the unique Olympus look I spent a lot of money to get.

Brian

Larry, my earlier message should be modified to read "Does iPhoto strip the camera JPEG EXIF metadata..."

Brian

Larry, I don't want to be argumentative, but how do we know that "iPhoto does not strip anything"? Apple doesn't say that, Apple doesn't let you see the full EXIF data.

I just opened a JPEG in Olympus Viewer 3 and the EXIF data is there, but in iPhoto, nothing but the basic exposure settings. So does iPhoto use that to export a JPEG or TIFF for editing?

Brian

TD, well that's a good point.

However, I can take the RAW (ORF) file into the Olympus Viewer software and apply every in-camera setting seen in the JPEGs and export that as an edited JPEG. It's an extra step, but if I really want every bit of exposure dynamic range and detail in the RAW image, plus the settings used in JPEG rendering as seen by the Olympus software, it can be done.

But that workflow is pointless if those settings don't get written into the metadata and used by iPhoto for future editing or to post to Flickr. In that case the original workflow makes more sense. I'd much rather use iPhoto (Aperture?) and save the time and trouble, for easier cateloging and search and save disc space, but not if I'm not getting the images I want the way I want them,

Brian

TD, took your advice and here are the "accessible" EXIF data (if you can read it) but in summary there is very little difference between the iPhoto and Viewer EXIF except for image size and "transformation color matrix" whatever that is. I conclude that the iPhoto JPEGs are close enough to the Olympus output that it isn't an issue. But my original question, why iPhoto is so much slower than Finder is still a puzzle. Thanks for the input on this,
Brian

TD, according to Olympus the in-camera rendering and the Viewer renderings are identical. In fact, some folks on dpreview have compared LR and Viewer and concluded that Viewer is noticeably closer to the the camera settings. Wish they'd done it for Aperture as well,

Brian

Larry, answers:

1. As I said, if iPhoto is using the Olympus EXIF data then I still need the Olympus JPEG EXIF data fields. Once that's in iPhoto, then everything is the same. Since I can't back engineer all the RAW data out of JPEG, I want to hold onto the RAW files.

2. I'm not sure what you are suggesting. I have a "RAW Data Edit" feature in the camera, but it creates a RAW image with the changes that are applied to a JPEG file. Just as easy to shoot both and not worry about in-camera conversion; it's easier to post process it in Viewer if I want to do that.

3. SD card reader

Brian

Larry, I reformat the SD card every time I turn the camera on to shoot. The card reader is plugged into a hub, but the same go-slow problem exists when it is directly plugged into the SB port.

Brian