How to get thumbnails to indicate whether JPEGs or Raw files?

Question

In earlier versions of iPhoto I could look at a photo thumbnail and immediately tell whether it was a JPEG or a RAW file because the description below the thumbnail indicated such. With iPhoto version 9.2 the thumbnails do not include this information. Is there anyway I can cause this information to be displayed beneath the thumbnails? I shoot JPEG + RAW and would like to distinguish between JPEG and RAW files by merely looking at the thumbnails.
Bob

Answer 1

Try this from a different perspective:
Why are you shooting Raw?
In order to obtain the highest quality images my D700 is capable of producing.
When a camera takes a shot a Raw is generated, this Raw is processed by the camera into a Jpeg and that's goes onto your computer.
High end cameras allow you to step into that process. It stops the Jpeg being processed and allow you to bring the Raw data directly to your computer so that you can do the final step yourself: process and out put the Jpeg.
But the point of the exercise is to produce a Jpeg that can be used/shared/printed etc.
The point of shooting Raw is that you prefer the results when you process the Raw compared to what the camera does.
If you think the job the camera does is good, then don't shoot Raw.
If you think it's not, then shoot Raw and don't shoot Jpeg.
Shooting both makes little sense - excepting the scenario detailed in my para above.
On my iMac monitor I’m looking at the thumbnail of the last RAW file I processed.  Since a RAW file is not even an image I presume that what I am actually seeing is the JPEG preview you referred to. Correct?
No. The thumbnail is different again. Usually, it's actually a thumb copied from the one created by the camera and stored in the Raw file.
To see the Preview drag the shot to the Desktop from the iPhoto Window - that's it. Open it in Preview and compare that with the Jpeg version from the camera - just visually, not file sizes etc. (I'll come to that later on.)
I do all of my editing in Photoshop Elements, so in order to convert this RAW file I right clicked on the thumbnail and selected “Edit in External Editor” whereupon the RAW file opened up in Adobe Camera Raw.
In the iPhoto Preferences -> Advanced, have you selected to 'Use Raw when using external editor' ? If not then you're not processing Raw at all, just the Jpeg preview.
Yes, I selected "Use RAW when using external editor."
That workflow is quite convoluted
Camera to iPhoto, iPhoto to ACR, ACR to Elements, Elements to Finder (tiff), Finder to iPhoto (Sharpening), iPhoto to Finder (Jpeg) and then Finder to iPhoto.
At the end of it you're left with the Raw, Camera Jpeg, iPhoto Preview, a tiff and a couple of Jpegs, right?
Only one JPEG.
That's too complex and worse, there is no connection between the Master Raw and the final Jpeg. They're not even linked in the iPhoto database. You can't revert from the Final Jpeg to the master Raw.
I can't think of a reason why I would I want to revert from the final JPEG to the master RAW. The master RAW is already available.
Even though my workflow gives me good results it is more complex than I would like it to be. Since acquiring my new iMac last January I have been seriously thinking about downloading Aperture 3 from the Apps Store for a mere $79 and using it to manage and edit my images. Presumably that would give me a less convoluted workflow. A big question will be what to do with all of the thousands of images I have stored in iPhoto--leave them where they are as referenced files or move them into Aperture where they will be managed files. My initial inclination is to leave them in iPhoto.
To use the iPhoto preview just... use it. If you import a Raw and then try do anything with it, email, upload, print etc then it's the Jpeg Preview that is used.
If you process the Raw in iPhoto then the Preview is regenerated incorporating the decisions you made.
If you export (File -> Export) you can use many settings to set the level of compression, size and so on of the resulting file.
Put it this way: I'd be 99% sure that the iPhoto preview will be good enough for sharing by email or online. It may also be perfectly good enough for printing too - but if it's not that's when you export to the quality you prefer.
This is good to know. Sometimes I just want to quickly e-mail a group of JPEGs without having to go through the process of generating JPEGs by processing the RAW files. I previously mentioned that by dragging the thumbnail labelled RAW to my desktop it becomes a JPEG which can then be dragged back into the iPhoto Library. If I'm shooting only RAW is that the best way to quickly obtain a JPEG? By the way, I just did this with one of my thumbnails labelled RAW. The size of the JPEG thereby obtained was 6.3 MB. This is larger than the size of the high quality camera-generated JPEG which is 5.8 MB. This would seem to indicate that the iPhoto-generated JPEGs are of high quality. In a side-buy-side comparison the two images looked very similar except for the iPhoto-generated JPEG being a little brighter than the camera-generated one.
So if I am understanding this situation correctly it appears that I can cease shooting JPEG +RAW and instead shoot only RAW. Then for best results I will process RAW files to produce highest quality JPEGs and for less demanding requirements and for quick responses I can use the iPhoto-generated JPEGs.
Question: Even though I have been shooting JPEG + RAW for a relatively short time I have managed to accumulate a goodly number of camera-generated JPEGs. How can I most readily delete these JPEGs without having to go through my iPhoto library and tediously deleting them one-by-one?
Regards
TD