Walter, you were complaining about the dearth of Mac apps. Have you tried Photo Mechanic? I haven’t seen it mentioned on this thread, so I don’t know if you have seen it. I mention it because I was just reading about it on Luminous-landscape

He is bragging about its speed. It may do much of what you want it to do. You can read his article about it here:

HTH

-Jon

What iView Media Pro is doing when it’s “importing” is reading all the metadata from the photos and storing them in its database (for quick searches and organization). It also extracts thumbnail images from the photos into its database – this allows you to take the media with the actual photos offline and still be able to peruse them by thumbnail.

Hope this clarifies things.

-John

I’m a bit puzzled by your reactions to GraphicConverter. I run it on a 2000 model G3 Pismo (ok, I have just recently put a G4 into it as a Christmas present to my computer). 576 megs of RAM. GraphicConverter is the fastest photo app I have found, with the exception of iView Media. It does slow down a bit when it it thumbnailing a large photo of RAW files for me, but it is usable during this time. Maybe I changed some settings that helped speed it up, but I don’t remember. Maybe, also, you are using some _large_ image files. I only have 3mp images from my D30, but I often have folders of 100-200 images, all RAW, and it deals with them. In fact, I find it faster and easier to simply launch GC, than to look in the Finder.

Aso for multiple windows, I guess that’s a matter of taste. I am not a fan of the unified view. I prefer having multiple windows open. In fact, with GC, I can open the same image in two different windows, and compare them. I consider that a good thing. :-)

For me, I can’t justify the expense of the Pro version of iView Media, and iView Media doesn’t do RAW. In the end, I’m happy with GC, but I can understand your not being happy. If you are willing to pay for iVew Media Pro, I think you will find it a more-than-acceptable substitute for AcDSee. I have a friend who loves the app, although I’ve never seen it in action. I hope that iView makes you happy. :-)

-Jon

I think I’m going to move to iView Media for viewing my archived photos (on external drives… So we’ll see how that goes. Hope iView helps out some

On IView Media Pro…

Hmm, impressive. The interface is refined and well thought out – almost as pretty as iPhoto. Thumbnail generation is very quick and software interaction is not affected while thumbnails are being created. Functionality is intuitive and logical. Lightbox mode similar to ACDSee in full screen mode with simple, single-button, forward and backward navigation and zoom in and out. The slideshow function is elegant and very similar to iPhoto’s (which is great) yet with superior navigation control and no need to create a slideshow file. Speed is good – much better than iPhoto – though not quite as fast as ACDSee. However overall performance is definitely acceptable.

Now on the bad side, the program DOES import images. Not clear yet if just for organizational data or whether images are actually duplicated, which I would consider a big no-no.

Though the import process is VERY quick, simple and painless, you can’t simply browse existing folders, so importing IS required. Another thing I don’t like very much is that by default, as in iPhoto, ALL images are shown jumbled together, unless you select one or more folders to view. I think that if no folders are selected, NO images should be displayed. This would be a more logical interface response. Plus here are times when you may want to keep some images private, and the current design makes it all too easy for a casual observer to accidentally reveal such images. I think thumbnails should only be displayed for selected folders, with a blank screen if no folders are selected.

Overall, though, I’m very impressed. This is a huge help. I think I never gave this app a good looking over because I probably wrote it off the moment I saw it required importing images. That was back when I first started hunting for an iPhoto replacement. Now that I realize how deeply flawed everything else is, IView’s advantages are better appreciated.

What exactly are the differences between the Pro and non Pro versions, aside from price?

Regarding iView Media Pro, I’m sure I tried it before but I don’t remember the details. I’m downloading a copy now to refresh my memory. At a glance, though, their website seems to indicate that it works by “importing” images and maintaining a central database. If this is the case, then we’re back to square one. I refuse to import images or rely on a central, application-specific, proprietary database of my images.

If this central database/image importation is strictly optional (as it is in ACDSee) and the software can be used entirely in “browse” mode, viewing and organizing images residing in existing locations and folder structures, then it will boil down to the interface and performance. I’ll write back once I’ve reacquainted myself with iView Media Pro.

Even with this modest folder, the vertical scroll bar responds VERY sluggishly and not at all smoothly. This sluggishness alone renders this software unusable for me.

Double clicking an image opens it in a single window, but that window appears ON TOP of the main interface instead of replacing it. This wastes system resources and clutters your work space needlessly. Once in this single window mode, tapping an arrow key does absolutely nothing. As usual in all things Apple, a two button operation is required for the simplest of tasks, and so I need to press COMMAND arrow to advance to the next or previous image.

In ACDSee this would be instantaneous, as fast as I could tap the key. Here, it takes about 2 and a half seconds for EACH IMAGE! This is reason #2 why this program is unacceptable.

I’m using an 8 month old PowerBook 15″ with 1 GB or RAM, and 30 GB of free disk space. ACDSee could handle this effortlessly on a 4 year old Sony notebook (not known for their performance) running Windows Me with 512 MB of RAM!

Of the Mac programs I’ve tried, GraphicConverter comes closest to having the interface I want, but it’s very slow and rather crude in appearance in many places. The speed alone makes it unusable. If this program makes you happy, I suggest you try out a copy of ACDSee 8 on any Windows machine and see what speed is all about. On the other hand, if someone cleaned up GraphicConverter, gave it some real performance and smoothness, and added the polish and elegance of iPhoto/Aperture, THEN you’d have a winner on your hands.

Back to performance, though, I’m not one of those geeks that only cares about speed, but this is ridiculous. This is a performance issue that is too intrusive to ignore or tolerate in exchange for a pretty computer. I don’t see why Apple is so damn stubborn about making Finder and iPhoto work they way most people want them to – the way they should. As with the MightyMouse, Jobs insists on being different even when it means delivering a flawed and inferior product.

Nonetheless, I do love my Mac and OS X – but not for image management, which is highly frustrating. This is like having a beautiful girlfriend who’s nice and funny and smart and fun and wealthy, but is totally frigid in bed. You can’t bear to part with her but something very important is missing… :(

I’ve tried every image software I can find on the Mac platform and they’ve all had some fatal flaw (speed, stability, interface, or a combination of all of the above). The fastest one I’ve found is ViewIt, but it requires you to first select a folder before browsing said folder. No good for file management without a dual pane interface so I can see a folder tree next to the thumbnails. Every other software I’ve tried that DOES have such an interface has been way too slow and/or highly unstable or crash-prone. My ideal solution would combine the best functions of iPhoto, Finder, and Preview (& GraphicConverter).

Let me describe how wonderfully ACDSee works… pretending for a moment that it exists on the Mac platform (so you can relate to it better…) Imagine, without starting any application, double clicking any image file on your desktop or in the Finder and having the image quickly appear in a single viewer window. The software’s settings allow you to customize the interface so that viewer window contains no toolbars or menus – nice and clean interface. Also, the viewer window automatically displays the image at full resolution. That is, unless the image is too large to fit. In that case, the viewer automatically scales the image down just enough to fit your display.

If you tap the + or – keys, you can zoom in and out as desired, while the window frame always resizes automatically to a best fit. No need to use the Mac window resize buttons every time. Tapping the F key, the window toggles between the windowed and a full screen display. Either way, tapping either the space bar, or arrow keys, or page up and down keys will advance to the next of previous image in the same folder. Again, this is very fast – virtually instantaneous – no matter how fast you tap the keys, how many images are in the folder, or how large the images are. (In my experience, on a 2 year old Dell computer, it’s THAT fast even when browsing 5 MP images. With much larger images, naturally, it will slow a bit, but never as slow as the programs I’ve used on a MAC.) Hitting the ESC key instantly closes the viewer window and viewer program.

I’ve just described how the Mac’s “Preview” program and Finder SHOULD work. Fat chance.

Now, while viewing any single image, tapping the Enter key or double clicking the image toggles from the single image view to a Windows Explorer-like interface, with a folder tree on the left, and a window full of thumbnails on the right. The thumbnails are generated automatically, extremely quickly, and they are updated dynamically if the image file itself ever changes. Select a folder on the left, and the images contained within are displayed as thumbnails on the right.

If you want more power and flexibility, it’s there. You can select multiple folders simultaneously to display all their thumbnails together. You can also filter the display using dates (EXIF, or file dates), keywords, or any available metadata fields. All of the above works flawlessly, extremely quickly, and without requiring a brand new $4000 computer with a top of the line video card, 4 gigs of RAM, or the fastest available processors.

I imagine some of the software I’ve tested would be quicker on a dual G5, but seeing as ACDSee has accomplished this for years on a “crappy” Windows machine, I expect at least the same on an 8 month old PowerBook.

Above all, I refuse to IMPORT images before I can work with them. And I need something with a powerful, elegant, and flexible interface that can handle thousands of images without choking. Nothing comes even remotely close to this on the Apple platform. I am a big Apple admirer in general, but iPhoto, Aperture, and the Mighty Mouse have taught me that Jobs’ ego sometimes far exceeds his intelligence.

If you are basing your opinon of the Mac situation based soley, or heavily upon iPhoto, then I would say that you are making a mistake. First of all, find my original post in this thread, and you will see that I mention that what you do is _exactly_ how I do things, except I sort and store my photos by date, with each year getting a folder, and individual dates inside that. There are various Mac apps that can browse this structure. Some can be slow in creating thumbnails, and others are better at it. My favorite is GraphicConverter at . It has a file browsing option that is quite snappy and powerful. In fact, you can even batch change ITPC info within GC’s browser. It also offers rudimentary image adjustment, which can actually server you quite well. On top of that, if you shoot RAW, it can even do fair RAW conversions, however, with my Canon D30, I have found that I need to allow GC to convert my CRW files to the sRGB color space in order to get decent color and saturation. Howevr, since I primarily use it for a file browser, saving DPP for editing, this is no real issue with me. If you seriously want something fast and cheap to browse _your_ folder structure, then GraphicConverter can hardly be beat. Give it a try. I think you’ll be satisfied. Oh, and did I mention that it costs a mere $30? Let us know what you think of it…

-Jon