Wednesday June 4
15:41
Photo Organisation On Macs
Importing and Organising - iPhoto 08 vs Aperture vs Lightroom 2
Introduction
Moving from PC to Mac, I need to find a way to manage my photo album. My current organisation is to store photos in a Group/Date-Event structure, eg.
Family/20071201-NewBaby
When a group becomes ~4GB in size, I archive it to DVD and start again. I only have a few groups - Family, Me, UK, Korean Friends, Japanese Friends, etc - but in total, I have about 100GB of photos, spanning 1000s of events.
While this is a great arrangement for archiving, it’s not so great for finding photos. If I want to find all the photos with “Mike”, for example, I have to do a filesystem search. Slow.
I tried using photo management software on the PC, but since some of those photos are scans, some sent by friends, some edited in Photoshop, etc, EXIF data like creation date cannot be relied upon, and I ended up with a huge mess of out of order photos. Eventually I simply gave up - since I had a system that already worked.
Now I’m moving to Apple, it is time to try again. I’m currently using VMWare Fusion and XP to maintain my current workflow. Hopefully I can find something better to replace it.
My Requirements
My photos (and videos) are all stored in a Group/Date-Event/Photo.jpg structure. EXIF data is assumed to be inaccurate (see above). Some photos are not rotated and have no rotation flag; some photos were rotated and the rotation flag may or may not have been set correctly. There are over 100GB of photos.
I need a photo organiser that will retain the data from the folder structure: Group, Date, and Event, and make it searchable. If that data is lost during import, I’ll have 8 years of untagged photos - I’ll have no way of finding anything.
I need to be able to retain a grouping structure. It’s no good just having all the event data retained if work, family, friends, holiday events become merged into one big list of events.
I want to be able to rate and create smart groups, defined by tags and ratings (which I will add), as well as group and event data. The comparison here is iTunes: in iTunes, I rate the songs that I like and then create a playlist of all Korean music with 5 stars. This works much better than me manually updating a static album. For my photo organiser, I want the same: all the family photos I have marked with 5 stars, for example.
Editing should be non-destructive, of course.
I should be able to archive to DVD in a similar method to my current scheme. I don’t care whether this includes the new tag information that I add - but I want the Group/Date-Event structure maintained. I know Apple has Time Machine, but I like having copies of my photos on DVD that I can leave at my parent’s house in case I ever lose my originals.
I don’t want to be constrained by my internal hard drive - or by any single hard drive. I’d like to be able to relocate master files, moving from one disk to another, and I’d like to be able to spread a library across multiple disks.
Finally, if there can be built in tools to help my DSLR workflow - such as comparing two images side by side, noise reduction, etc - that would be great. However my primary objective here is being able to organise and find the photos I want quickly; and to be able to back them up easily in a non-proprietary manner so that I always have safe copies.
This writeup will deal with getting my 100GB of photos into each photo organiser - working out how to retain the folder information - and testing the search and basic viewing. If a tool fails to achieve keeping my photos searchable by group or event, for example, it’s not much use to me.
This will be a long report, mainly so that I can remember later the steps that I have done. It is obviously tailored to how I want to use photo management software - and your workflow or things you deem important may be different.
Test Photo Structure
To test each program, I’m going to start with the following simple structure:
~/PhotoSource/Group1/Date1-Event1/jpegs
~/PhotoSource/Group1/Date2-Event2/jpegs
~/PhotoSource/Group2/Date3-Event3/jpegs
~/PhotoSource/Group2/Date4-Event4/jpegs
~/PhotoSource/Group2/Date5-Event5/jpegs
~/PhotoSource/Group2/Date6-Event6/jpegs
Some events span across several days.
This should replicate in minature what I want to do. Anything that fails this test is never going to handle a 100GB library.
iPhoto 2008
Test 1: First attempt - import all in one go.
“Auto split into Events - Imported items from Finder” switched OFF
“Copy items to the iPhoto Library” switched OFF
Import from ~/PhotoSource
Result:
6 events, each event name as “Date#-Event#”. Library size: 10MB.
Library contains thumbnails and aliases to the original files.
Rotate an image doesn’t cause a copy to be created. Cropping an image creates a copy in the Modified directory.
Renaming ~/PhotoSource to ~/PhotoTest causes all the aliases to be updated (hence it looks like it’s possible to move files).
Smart albums can be created “Event contains Baby”
Problems:
Groups are lost completely, and there’s no way to specify a group structure. This means that all my event grouping (family, work, Korea, etc) would be lost without renaming all events to “Group-Date#-Event#”.
Test 2: Second attempt - trying to work around the lost Group issue.
Created a new smart album “__ToOrganise” containing the rule “keyword - does not contain - organised”.
Import ~/PhotoSource/Group1
Open the “__ToOrganise” smart album, select all the photos, and add the keywords “organised” and “group1″
Add a new smart album “_Group1″ containing the rule “keyword - contains - group1″
Import ~/PhotoSource/Group2
Open the “__ToOrganise” smart album, select all the photos, and add the keywords “organised” and “group2″
Add a new smart album “_Group2″ containing the rule “keyword - contains - group2″
Result:
This worked but selecting _Group1 or _Group2 smart albums just showed a long list of photos - I wanted to see the photos split into events. To achieve that, I edited the _Group1 and _Group2 smart albums to add the rule “Event - is in the last - 99999 events”. This extra rule split the smart albums into events.
Clicking on Events still shows all the events merged together.
Problems:
When importing group 2, I accidently added the group1 keyword instead of the group2 and had to correct it - hence this import process is prone to some manual error.
I’m also left with a Catch 22 situation: If I move a photo between events, it isn’t moved in the underlying file structure. I would need to move the files manually myself, or let iPhoto manage everything. If iPhoto managed everything, however, that would be in the iPhoto library. The iPhoto library is organised by year and doesn’t have any concept of my groups, so if I moved to another application (such as Lightroom), all group information would be lost.
Test 3: Third attempt - trying to keep group structure in the filenames
Rename all folders in this style: Group1/Date1-Event1/jpegs -> Group1/(Group1) Date1-Event1
Potentially batch renamer could do this - I did it by hand for this test.
Import ~/PhotoSource
Add a new smart album “_Group1″ containing the rule “event - contains - (Group1)”
Add a new smart album “_Group2″ containing the rule “event - contains - (Group2)”
Result:
This worked but selecting _Group1 or _Group2 smart albums just showed a long list of photos. Strangely, simply editing the smart album and changing nothing grouped the photos by event - a bug in iPhoto perhaps (it may also work in Test 2, without the 99999 hack).
Clicking on Events shows the events listed by date - but it also shows the event grouping in the title, which is nice.
Folders can be created under albums, so I can put all the initial groups in a single folder.
Problems:
Moving a photo between events or changing the even name doesn’t move the file on the underlying disk - as before. Now, however, if I let iPhoto manage the files, they would be organised in the library as Year/(Group#) Date# Event#, which is much better than before. The downside of letting iPhoto manage the photos is that it would be practically impossible to have a library split across multiple disks.
Test 4: As per test 3 but with iPhoto managing the files
Result:
As expected - everything is nicely in the Originals folder, organised by Year/(Group#) Date# Event# - and it keeps the original filenames.
Problem:
As a test, I tried exporting _Group2. One of the files was not viewable in Preview, even though the original was viewable in iPhoto. I deleted all the exported files and then tried again. No problems the second time. Why would iPhoto create a corrupt photo the first export, but not the second time?
Conclusion: iPhoto 08
I think I’ve gone as far as I can with iPhoto. I seem to have a scheme where I can import photos and keep the data from my folder structure of Group/Date-Event/Photo, with a choice of either managing the photos myself and not being able to move them between events in iPhoto, or letting iPhoto manage the photos and so being limited in the future to being able to relocate parts of albums.
However the corrupt photo when exporting concerns me. It’s clearly not the only bug in iPhoto, as I can see from Smart Albums not being grouped by event until the smart album is edited.
Aperture 2.1
Test 1: Import Images
Options: Store files in their current location, leave Version Name as Version Name, no time adjustment. Annoyingly, the “Add Metadata From…” input selection is almost cut off from the bottom of the screen.
Result:
Importing images wouldn’t let me import ~/_PhotoSource or ~/_PhotoSource/Group1 - I had to import one low level folder, eg~/_PhotoSource/Group1/Date-Event, at a time. This brought the photos into an Untitled Project. Not good.
One thing to beware of is that when deleting Untitled Project, if “Move referenced images to trash” is selected, the ORIGINALS in ~/_PhotoSource/Group1/Date-Event will be trashed. Also not good. (In fact later I found out that Aperture doesn’t move referenced photos in the underlying disk structure when they are moved between projects, so it’s inconsistent to interfere with referenced photos here IMHO.)
Test 2: Import Folders into a Project.. - all folders at once
Options: Store Files In their current location and Version Name as Version Name.
Select ~/_PhotoSource as the source.
Result:
One project: _PhotoSource; Two folders inside: Group1, Group2; 6 albums: Date-Event.
Problem:
Setting up a smart album, I can’t search the names of folders or albums inside projects. So if I want to find all events which include “NewYear”, or everything from Group2, I can’t. Not good.
Experimenting further, I found that Aperture has two different types of folders - those inside a project and those outside a project. As a test, I created a folder at the top level, ABC, and dragged _PhotoSource inside it. I could create a smart album with the rule “Other: Project includes ABC” or “Other: Project includes _PhotoSource” - both would work. I couldn’t, however, get a smart album to match a folder or album within a project. Again, inconsistent behaviour.
Test 3: Importing Folders into a Project.. - a group at a time
Select ~/_PhotoSource and then select Group1 and Group2 at the same time and import.
Result:
This imported top level projects of Group1 and Group2, with 6 albums under. This time I could create a smart album based on group (because groups are now at the project level), but not based on the events within a project. Still not what I want.
Test 4: Importing Folders into a Project.. - low level event folders
Select ~/_PhotoSource/Group1, and then select all the folders within that group and import. This created projects named “Date - Event”, with an album in each project: “Images from: project name”.
Create a top level folder Group1 and drag all the created projects into that folder.
Repeat for Group2.
Result:
After repeating the import for Group2, I was left with two top level folders, Group1 and Group2, containing 6 projects between them. Each project contained one album: “Images from: project name”.
From this I could use smart albums to select by text match of group or date-event - finally. It was, however, buggy - on one occasion matching nothing even though the filter for the smart album was correct; and if I changed “Project includes AAA” to “Project includes BBB” and then clicked “close” instead of hitting enter, the smart album didn’t update until I opened the setting again.
Test 5: Moving photos
Using the structure from Test 4, quit Aperture, rename ~/_PhotoSource to ~/_PhotoTest, and restart Aperture.
Result:
It found the original photos no problem. Rename the directory while Aperture is running - still no problem.
The only issue I found is moving photos between projects. In that case, Aperture doesn’t move the underlying files (like iPhoto). Also, if I move a photo to another project, Aperture keeps it within the “Images from:” album in the old project.
There are two other options when importing - moving files to the Pictures folder and moving them to the Aperture library. In the first case, I have the same issues moving photos between projects (it doesn’t move them on the underlying disk). In the second case, I would end up with a huge Aperture library and lose the ability to have originals stored on multiple disks.
Conclusion: Aperture 2.1 and iPhoto 08
Now I have a Folder -> Project structure in Aperture which matches my Group -> Date-Event file structure and keeps the folder names intact. It is searchable, like iPhoto. I can’t create a smart album which matches album names in Aperture; I can’t create a smart album based on other smart albums in iPhoto.
Now that I have the structure I want, how do iPhoto 08 and Aperture 2.1 compare for viewing? Well there are a few major differences.
In Aperture, I have a Windows Explorer style tree view - which means I can select to show a whole group or just a project (event) within that group. In iPhoto, I have a simulated group list only - so it is harder to go direct to an event within a group (I have to scroll through the events to find the one I want).
However, when I select a group in iPhoto, it shows all the photos within the group split into events. In Aperture, if I select a whole group, it doesn’t split them into events - it’s just shows all the photos with no event boundaries.
To see a photo large in iPhoto, I double click it. This takes me to either a magnified view or into Edit mode, depending on the setting chosen in Preferences -> General -> Double-click photo. Edit mode can be full screen, in the same window, or in a new window - again the default is a configuration option in Preferences -> General. Instead of double clicking a photo, I can also right click a photo and choose one of the Edit options, or use View -> Full Screen (which is actually the same as right click -> Edit using full screen).
In the iPhoto magnified mode, there’s no way to see a photo at exactly 1:1. The only way to see an image at 1:1 level is in edit mode - a pretty stupid limitation in my view: I don’t really want to go into an “edit” mode just to see a photo at “actual pixel” level. In edit mode, pressing 1 will show the image at 100% and 2 will show at 200%; 0 will return the view to “fit to screen”. By selecting a second photo from the film strip using Apple + left click, I can view two photos side by side, and zoom in and move around the two photos independently - great for comparisons. It would be nicer if I had the option to have both photos move at the same time though, rather than having to move each separately.
To see a photo large in Aperture, I need to have the “viewer” open - and that’s not so “large”. I can see 1:1 by clicking the zoom button below and to the right of the image or pressing Z (I don’t like the little square for moving around the image, however). To see full screen, I can double click on the image - it’s a little slow to transition to full screen though. Again Z toggles between 1:1 and scaled.
Aperture has much better EXIF handling than iPhoto, allowing smart albums based on more complex criteria than iPhoto. When editing photos, Aperture stores a record of changes in a small file, rather than making a copy of the photo - that should lead to more efficient disk usage, but in actuality, Aperture creates previews of all images. My 412.8MB of photos created a 10MB iPhoto library, but a 70.8MB Aperture library - approx 1/6th the size of the originals (1280×1280, Quality:8 previews). However, the “record of changes” rather than copy approach will be invaluable when working with RAW files.
Although I’ve not tested it, it seems that Aperture will handle libraries across multiple volumes better, especially if volumes are taken offline (since it stores preview images locally, and seems to have features designed to handle disk management). I will need to test both iPhoto and Aperture’s handling of photos on multiple volumes - it may be the differentiating factor for me, organisation wise.
Aperture does not manage videos.
Lightroom
I previously tried Lightroom 1.4.1 and I liked it a lot. “Out of the box” it seemed to handle a folder based structure, rearranging photos and folders on my physical disk as I moved them about in the program - but the negative was a deal breaker: no smart albums.
Lightroom 2 Beta addresses this with Smart Collections. If they operate well, the combination of smart collections and respecting a folder structure (without having to hack together albums or project) could do it for me. The beta states that “Lightroom 2.0 beta libraries will be migrated to the finished version of Lightroom 2.0″ but “Develop settings applied.. are not guaranteed to transfer correctly”. Since I am interested primarily in organisational functions at the moment, I should be OK.
Test 1: Import, leaving photos at their current location.
One nice option during import it that I can specify keywords. It also offers a choice of Initial Previews: Minimal (uses thumbnail in the JPEG), Standard, 1:1, and Embedded & Sidecar (seems to take embedded JPEG images from RAW files). For the moment I’m going to choose Minimal.
Result:
Folders appear as per my structure in the folders dialog. I have to say here that the interface in Lightroom is simply beautiful - the font is crisp; hovering over a folder shows one of the images from it in the navigator (although there’s no left-to-right movement to see all images, as per iPhoto).
By default, the middle panel shows thumbnails of all the images. Double clicking on one expands it, replacing the thumbnails. Holding the left mouse button down lets me zoom 1:1 and drag round the image. This is the way I wish Aperture worked.
The new feature is Smart Collections. Unfortunately for me, Smart Collections are useless. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a way to match on a folder name - even though “Any Searchable Metadata contains NewYear” was set and Metadata examination of a photo showed “File Path” as one of the attributes, the search doesn’t appear to include File Path. I couldn’t find any way to create a smart collection based on folder names - which is a real shame. Searching on Google confirmed this.
Conclusion: Lightroom 2 Beta, Aperture 2.1, and iPhoto 08
Lightroom has an interface which I like a lot. I really really wanted to love Lightroom - but the Smart Collections feature is useless for me unless I add keywords for all events. With 100GB of photos, that’s not something that I want to do - and I don’t like the duplicate effort in maintaining a folder structure (because things are stored in folders) and a set of keywords that replicates that folder structure.
Aperture can use folders and projects to replicate my Group/Event structure. It can also handle smart albums - as long as I never ask it to base a smart album on another album or a folder within an album. It seems like it will handle offline albums well, although it will generate previews which take a 1/6th the size of the album it is managing.
iPhoto is surprisingly capable. I found a way to structure albums to replicate my photo structure; it can handle smart albums; and it can handle video (I believe). While it makes a copy of images when editing them, it doesn’t generate huge preview files to begin with - so the library size would be less than Aperture (unless I start editing RAW). Where it falls down is in general “basic” feel.
Which will I use? I can’t use Lightroom - which is what I’d prefer. That leaves me with a choice between Aperture and iPhoto. Aperture doesn’t manage video files, so iPhoto is a better option for managing my entire library - photos and videos - but I think Aperture will better handle larger libraries and having photos stored across multiple disks and on offline disks.
Before I choose between iPhoto and Aperture, I need to see how both handle multiple disks and moving between disks, how they handle offline disks, how to create DVD backups (outside Time Machine), and finally, how they handle importing direct from the camera.
Other options…
Bridge CS3
From my brief testing of Bridge CS3, it seems little more than an enhanced Finder. I discarded it pretty quickly.
Microsoft Expression Media 2
Listed as coming “1st June 2008″, it still doesn’t seem to be available (as of 4th June 2008). If I can get my hands on it, I’ll test a copy.
Read part 2, where Aperture gave me a horrible shock…