Hot answers tagged macintosh
19
Personally I much prefer Lightroom, though I suspect you'll find this argument goes on as long as the Mac vs PC or Canon vs Nikon debates.
Lightroom is more expensive but has far more features, and (surprisingly) seems easier to use, but that may just be because I'm more used to it. The main advantage of Aperture is that it integrates with your other iLife ...
10
I have two suggestions:
Apple has refurbished machines in their online store, that's a good way to get a discounted machine.
You could take a look at Lightroom, it's the main competitor to Aperture, and has similar functionality, but it runs on Windows as well.
7
Hugin might be your answer. At least it is available for the Mac and handles stacking of images (also into EXR-format), masking and distortion-correction of images. It is not per se meant for astrophotography, so you would have to know what to do.
As for automation (of the aligning) - I put each of my Stacks/Stitches into separate directories and just let a ...
6
As above, I'd suggest looking into Adobe Lightroom, which is a sort-of equivalent Photo process-management-library-workflow program. As a student, you'd qualify for a discount from Adobe on it, and it's also worth remembering that you can use the Apple store for education (or Higher Education for an even bigger saving) which will reduce the cost further if ...
6
You can rotate losslessly with NConvert which is available for many platforms including the Mac. It is a command line tool, which is invoked similarly to this:
nconvert -jpegtrans rot90 DSCF0001.JPG
On a Mac, the syntax may be different, I don't know but if you can invoke a command line program from your Automator, then you're probably set.
BTW, XnView ...
6
I wouldn't hope for much; CR2 files are already compressed, so losslessy compressing the file further would entail decompressing the existing data then using a marginally more efficient algorithm. The corresponding expander would than have to decompress your version of the file and recreate the CR2 using the original compression (and byte alignment, etc.). ...
5
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that whether a JPEG could be rotated losslessly depended on the exact dimensions.
The reason being that a JPEG image is divided up into a series of 16x16 pixel blocks (or 8x8 without chroma-subsampling), each of which can be rotated individually without having to re-encode. The top left corner of an ...
5
Instead of hunting down perfect solution with bunch of different software
Why don't you:
Install Lightroom on both systems (call Adobe about PC/MAC user licensing, not exactly sure if they will let you use your license on different OS, download trial versions for each OS and use your serial number on both, see if that works, if not call and complain)
...
4
First I want to make sure that the importance of proper hardware calibration is understood. Your eyes are not perfect(mine especially) and you can certainly give it a shot to determine the best brightness, tint, gamma, etc. but you are not going to be nearly as spot on as a dedicated piece of hardware. In reading you will find that as the display gets older, ...
3
The GIMP will load such files and allows such large images to be created though you'll need huge amounts of memory to get things done within a sensible timeframe - unsurprisingly, it seems most 'everyday' packages are not optimised for images of such enormous dimensions.
Creating a 40,000 x 26,667 pixel test image by resizing a smaller source picture took a ...
3
The issue you are going to face is similar to any database-based solution: the issue is ownership over a file and if two systems are trying to change a file at the same time. This can often corrupt a database for systems that are not designed with this concurrency in mind, and most systems are not designed with this in mind. As mentioned above, there are ...
3
gPhoto can be installed on a Mac (it may be difficult a bit). It supports Canon G10.
3
I've been looking for a similar kind of an app recently and the best light-weight software I could find was Xee.
It really fills the gap between the Quick Look and Capture One - the other image viewers I'm frequently using.
You could find more alternatives from the alternativeto.net website. I spotted Xee there.
3
Preview is a good option, but you should consider Quick Look, which offers almost everything you want, is built-in, and is available all the time.
It’s dead simple: Hit Command-A to select all the images in a folder, then Command-Option-Space to bring Quick Look up in full-screen mode. If you want to zoom in more, you can use the zoom feature which is ...
3
Luminance HDR is available for Mac as well as for other platforms. It is free and open source. The definition of "better" and "quality" may vary, but it doesn't cost money to try.
Flickr group with the samples
3
yes, that memory usage is normal converting to jpeg.
I"m finding 4Gig works fine. A few suggestions.
upgrade your drive to a 7200 drive. you're probably seeing I/O delays and a faster drive will help.
preferences->file handling, set the cache to a larger value. I use 25 gig.
optimize your catalog (under the file menu) every so often.
system ...
3
Memory usage is fine, as long as you have enough system memory to cover it. Once you start running out of memory, then you'll notice performance problems.
Switching between images in LR3 is a bit slow; I think there are enough users who report this issue that an update to lightroom will address it.
You've probably nailed it, the 5400 RPM hdd is your ...
3
If tagging and sorting is all you want to do, stick to iPhoto that comes bundled with your Mac. Its free, easy-to-use, has built-in face recognition, geo-tagging and did I mention its already there on your Mac.
But now that you have purchased a DSLR, you are going to discover the amazing things you can do with RAW files. And that's when iPhoto is going to ...
3
You can create a "watched" folder in OS X using Automator, Folder Actions or with an app like Hazel
There are examples on the Mac Automation blog. You can then set that to import to iPhoto or Aperture.
3
It helps to think about what you mean by "editing." Do you need help with managing your photo collection, assisting with sending pictures to services, basic photo editing (how light/dark the photo is, managing overall color), or complex editing (multiple layers/channels, transparencies)?
The canonical list goes something like this:
iPhoto -- The modern ...
3
Step 1 - Move the files to the new location. It's important to a) Ensure they no longer exist at the original location, and be preserve their organization (ie. folder structure) on the destination.
Step 2 - Start Lightroom. Be sure you are in Library view.
If you've moved entire folders...
Step 3 - At the left, under Folders, navigate to the top-level ...
2
It really depends on what kind of things you want to do with your photos and what is your workflow. Lightroom is good as tool for most of the things.
Aperture at least had edge over previous Lightroom versions on RAW image processing quality of images. At least based of what I heard from one advertising photographer (who works mainly with large number of ...
2
I think both programs have a lot to offer. They have overlapping and complimentary feature sets, and if you have the luxury of owning both a PC and a Mac (or just a Mac), both are valuable tools.
There are some other great answers here, so I won't go into a lot of detail. There are some fundamental differences between Lightroom and Aperture that I think ...
2
This is very subjective, do as mentioned above and download the trials for both. They are both equally great. Personally though, I went with Aperture, as I don't like the modularized approach of Lightroom. Its also a lot cheaper. :-)
One thing not mentioned above is the community surrounding each application. Take a look at the plugins available for each ...
2
I've been using Photomatix Pro version 3 for a while. It's good, but a bit geeky and doesn't really help you find a good image. I've been experimenting iwth Nik Software's HDR Efex and it's a nice step forward but I'm not yet ready to commit to it. I'm just starting to test Photomatix 4 to see whether i'll move forward with it or Nik's software. Nik has a ...
2
Thank you for all the answers here, I really appreciate it.
I found a different solution that I wanted to share. Jpegtran does lossless transforms of jpeg images. I discovered it when I installed ImageMagick and it is part of the tool set installed.
To use, type:
jpegtran -rot 90 DSC_0276.jpg > DSC_0276-rot.jpg
Then you can trash the original file. ...
2
I've searched for something like this for a while as well and haven't found anything great. Depending on what I'm doing, I use a combination of:
Picasa
Preview
Simple Comic (no really, you can page through a directory of images really easily, and has Loupe)
ACDSee (beta) It's not lightweight, though has lots of features ...
2
I have the Spyder2Express and a dual screen mac. It's a bit of a pain in the you know what, but it is possible to calibrate both screens with it. The 3 and the new software adds a bunch of whizbang features that do all sorts of automatic magic to your display. That would probably break this process. But if you don't want all that, and disable all that stuff, ...
2
On the Mac, preferences for what happens when you plug in a camera or a memory card, are controlled by an app called "Image Capture". iPhoto, Lightroom, etc can automatically put preference settings here, but sometimes they do not get done.
Plug in your 550D, then:
Search Spotlight (apple+spacebar)
for Image Capture. Select it and
run.
You should see your ...
2
I have a Mac and a 550D/T2i and when I connect my camera (without having installed the software), the camera/photos show in iPhoto. Try plugging the camera in while it is OFF, opening iPhoto, switching the camera ON, and then hitting the "Play" button on your camera that you use to review photos.
You shouldn't need to install the software at all. I ...
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