iPhoto For Photo Management and Presentation

I have done a crazy thing and given over all our family photos to iPhoto. Apple has provided its built-in CameraRaw facility that allows iPhoto to manage my .nef files as well as the .jpg files that Debby and the kids provide.

I do not import photos directly into iPhoto, because I only catalog sorted and edited files into iPhoto. I use the following work flow:

• Nikon Transfer imports files from the camera's flash card into a hard drive folder via a USB2 CF card reader.
• Using Nikon's ViewNX, I preview and sort the raw pictures and discard the losers.
• The keepers I then load into Nikon's CaptureNX for editing.
• Any desired hard copy prints are made on an Epson R1800.
• The folder of edited keepers is then imported into iPhoto, still as .nef files.

The iPhoto library has recently been restructured as an OS X package, to discourage people from accessing/modifying library files from the finder. But the underlying files are still accessible by a right-click on the iPhoto library file, then selecting Show Package Contents from the pop-up.

iPhoto supports slide shows. Selected photos are grouped into a slide show and music is added by associating an iTunes playlist. Slide shows are best viewed by sending them straight from the computer to the plasma display (video via DVI-HDMI cable direct to the display, audio via S/PDIF cable to the A/V receiver). Also, the slide show can be distributed on DVD by rendering and sending to iDVD for burning, but the compressed quality is less than the native computer-sourced show.

I have a separate library of web export photos that are highly compressed to around 100 kb. Any to be posted are extracted from iPhoto and then shrunk to be web-suitable.

Apple has advanced photo management software called Aperture. Adobe has a similar product, Lightroom. But I have never found a need for tools beyond iPhoto, and the Nikon applications ViewNX and CaptureNX.