Is iPhoto The Poor Kid On The Block?
iPhoto is the image editor and cataloging system that comes bundled with iLife. It’s made by Apple and only works on Macs. If you buy a new Mac, you get iLife bundled with it. Otherwise, you can by the newest version for around $80 in the U.S. and £70 in the UK.
A Gentleman In Udaipur
What’s The Competition?
A quick list of the front runners in competition with iPhoto include:
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Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Photoshop Full Version
Adobe Lightroom
Bibble
Apple Aperture
Gimp
Of course, there are huge differences in price between these solutions.
Gimp is free. There is a Windows version and a Mac version of Gimp and here is the link to Gimp for Macintosh for those who want to use the editor. I have not downloaded the program but I might in the future.
Otherwise, iLife is very cheap bearing in mind that it costs about the same as Adobe Photoshop Elements but includes not only iPhoto but also iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD which are all mature applications in their own right.
How Does It Compare To The Other Image Editors
iPhoto cannot make the kinds of adjustments that Photoshop can, such as painting on images, cloning parts of the image, and adding text in various typefaces.
RAW Converter and Image Editor
But on the principle of show don’t tell, let’s see how it handles a RAW image. I chose this photograph of a man that was shot in good light and which shows a good histogram distribution.
I am very well aware that seeing an image on-screen does not reveal how well the image would print at say ten inches by fifteen inches (25 x 45cm). But many people only upload images to the web or print at small sizes. So it is for those people that I have done this test.
What I Did Not Do
What I did not do was to edit the photograph in each image editor to squeeze the very best I could out of it. Instead I let the image editors do their thing at their default settings.
I think the Photoshop CS3 version is a bit cool and the Photoshop Elements and Bibble versions were the most pleasing to my eye.
The Versions Of The Software I Used For The Test
I am using Photoshop CS3, which is not the most recent version. CS4 has been out for a while and now CS5 has just been released.
Bibble is now up to version 5. I have used a trial version of Bibble 5 but the trial has run out and I didn’t notice any major differences in the image editing capability over version 4, which I have.
I have version 2 of Aperture. The new version is version 3.
Here are the results shown full frame followed by crops from the central part of the image.
What I Learned – File Sizes
I upload a lot of photographs to the web, including those to Quillcards Ecards and with hundreds of images on that site there is always a need to optimize loading times. The key to that is to have file sizes that are as small as possible.
So the first thing I learned is that Bibble produced file sizes that were quite a bit smaller than the other image editors, and without sacrificing quality.
As I said, I am using Bibble 4, and it does not have a Preview pane where you can see exactly what result you will get from various amounts of compression. Hence, compressing the photograph for the web was a bit hit and miss. With more experience of using the program I might be able to do better than I did.
I plan to ask BibbleApps whether there is a Preview facility in Bibble 5, and if there is then I might well spring for the upgrade.
What I Learned – Ease Of Use
The method for setting up the export preferences in Bibble is painful, quite apart from the lack of a Preview facility.
The actual process of saving small jpegs for the web with iPhoto is OK, but again, the user is in the dark as to exactly what is being output until you look at the result.
So for ease of use in exporting images, Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS3 were the best.
iPhoto Full Frame
Adobe Photoshop Elements Full Frame
Photoshop CS3 Full Frame
Aperture Full Frame
Bibble Full Frame
Lightroom Full Frame
iPhoto Crop
Adobe Photoshop Elements Crop
Photoshop CS3 Crop
Aperture Crop
Bibble Crop
Lightroom Crop
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Can’t believe how much better the Photoshop Elements images look than the CS3. Is this a version thing? The contrast, depth and colour all look way better. I used to use Elements a lot but now use CS5, hopefully one wouldn’t see the same difference. I always thought elements was just a pared down version of CS3?
I used Elements on my Macbook Air and noticed immediately that the colors were much richer. The ‘problem’ with Elements is that to make certain adjustments, one has to convert the image to 8 bit. That and the fact that good old cognitive dissonance crept in, has prevented me from investigating further.
Your comment has prompted me to look again and I will do a post with the comparison between CS3 and Elements when I have completed the test. Watch this space.
I think what grabs me more than anything is the jpg compression on the iPhoto. Those images look like they’ve been compressed too much.
As for color vibrancy or saturation, I’m ok with making my adjustments as needed in Lightroom (or will be when I get a computer that can handle loading in Lightroom without slowing to a crawl!).
James recently posted..Flame and Smoke
Yes, I agree. That’s what it looks like to me, too. It may have been my fault. I can’t recall what the resize method is that I used and I will take a look at it again.
I’ve got some images I need to resize for Quillcards. Normally I use Photoshop’s Resize For Web but I have over 100 images to re-size and I am trying to find a good batch process method. I tried with Lightroom before but the file sizes are too big. I will give that another try and if it does not play nicely I will bit the bullet and use Photoshop.
I’d welcome any thoughts you have on this.
Ugh, I’m not sure I can say much on batch resizing; I started with the camera and have been working my way through updating my other tools. I started using Lightroom recently because LR3 is released as a free beta, but the computer I built over seven years ago is having a very hard time keeping up with my demands.
I just ordered a new PC. I think the new hardware will make a tool like that easy with any software (6 core processor at 2.6 GHz each and 8 gigs of RAM).
James recently posted..Flame and Smoke
I just downloaded Gimp, so far it works great. What others Photo programs do you guys use with the Mac?
It’s pretty much a choice between the ones I mentioned in this article iPhoto Compared To Other Image Editors plus others that I haven’t got around to using or testing.
I downloaded GIMP myself and used it for a couple of hours. I couldn’t see any benefits over Photoshop, but if I was starting over and didn’t have Photoshop then GIMP would be a good place to start. Maybe it is all anyone needs.
AWESOME! This helps a lot.
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