Thinking of moving to Mac from PC--need iPhoto help

Question

Hi All,
I'm thinking about getting my wife a Mac to replace her PC to get a better computing experience. She's not very computer-literate, and the frequent Windows lockups and other problems are causing much frustration.
She mainly works with digital photos, creating slide shows for family members to view on their macs, pcs, and tv sets. She currently uses Photoshop Elements 5 for WIndows for her work. It's my understanding that there are some differences between PSE5 for Windows and PSE6 for the Max. The Windows version has Organizer, which is the component that allows you to organize photos (tagging, etc) and create slide shows. The Mac version uses something called Bridge.
My wife spends most her time creating albums, slide shows, printing pictures and the like, but she only does light editing. I'm thinking that she may be better off with something iPhoto than with Elements. One issue we have with PSE5 is that it creates photo cds, not true dvds, and the quality of slide shows played on a tv set isn't very good. Another issue concerns how we'd do the conversion. I guess we'd lose the slide shows we've already created, but can we preserve the photo takes?
I'm really flying blind here, having never worked with a mac or iphoto. Any help or advice from this community would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks much,
David

Answer 1

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You can't use Bridge and iPhoto together. Metadata added via bridge will cause problems with iPhoto. To use Photoshop or PSE 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..
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
Note: There now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.