[amiskin]

I use a K200D and an ist*D

I use iPhoto on the Mac to import photos - I like its interface and integration with other Mac software such as iMovie

However, iPhoto only shows basic EXIF information such as aperture etc - it does not show other items such as saturation etc etc. The Pentax Photo Browser 3.5 does not seem to be able to open the iPhoto package where the photos are stored and so I cannot use it to see these tags. If I move the photos out to an external disk I can see them and the tag information, so it is there, but this is a very heavy workaround.

Does anyone know how to open the contents of a Mac package folder in Pentax Photo Browser?

[Photo Tramp]

I know when I got my K 100D there were two disks with Photo Lab one for PC and one for Mac. since I don't have a Mac I have never tried that disk, but I would think it should recognise the format and open the files. Other wise it was a waste of time to install the program. How ever The iphoto program may use a different file format than Pentax will take. Does iphoto, in a drop down menu have a place to setup files and allow certain file suffixes? like JPEG and TIFF extensions? If it does then try and mark them as accepting and see what happens. I know the Pentax photo browser and Lab have a place where you can change what files it will view. Try changing the settings and see if this doesn't help.

Good luck.
like I said I'm not a Mac user but with today's OS the way they are anything is possible.

[augustmoon]

Just to confirm you are shooting JPG and using iPhoto from iLife 08?

This version of iPhoto stores images differently than previous versions and has been a thorn for a lot of users (see the iPhoto discussion boards over at apple.com) I remember vaguely about having iPhoto treat files (store them) as it did in previous versions, but I can't remember now. I import my photos just by copying them to my hard drive (via a card reader) and then run a script to keep a lower res copy in my iPhoto library and am now just using iPhoto as just a photo album to look at photos an make slide shows, I'm afraid iPhoto is less of an organizing tool than it used to be with iLife '08, just like iMovie lost functionality in the same upgrade. You can find an iLife '06 CD and install that, then it is a different story (for now) But, I'd check out the apple boards and see what people over there are doing about the newer iPhoto. I seriously doubt that Pentax Browser will ever be able to read the .package content. There might be other EXIF viewers for the Mac though, if that's all you need Pentax Browser for, but then you have that funky "images kept within the package" deal with iPhoto.

Apple may be trying to get you to use Aperture instead. I think the success of their free apps was a bit too successful it seems.

I am using lightroom right now, the library is decent, I get all my info, and I am shooting raw anyway, then I export out a set optimized for iPhoto.

If you find out anything about fixing iPhoto or a better work-around, let me know...

Brian

[davemdsn]

It seems people are working too hard at this. You can have iPhoto import your photos without moving them into the library package so they are referenced in the folder of your choice. This allows iPhoto access to full res versions while still allowing you to access them with other apps as well.

On another note, if you are shooting jpeg you don't really need the Pentax Photo Browser since iPhoto will do more for you than PPB. If you are shooting raw than I would use something other than iPhoto. iPhoto can read raw files because raw support is built into the OS, but it doesn't have a dedicated raw decoder like Aperture, Photoshop (Elements or CS3), Lightroom, and others, which do a much better job of getting all the benefits out of your raw file.

[amiskin]

Just to confirm you are shooting JPG and using iPhoto from iLife 08?

This version of iPhoto stores images differently than previous versions and has been a thorn for a lot of users (see the iPhoto discussion boards over at apple.com) I remember vaguely about having iPhoto treat files (store them) as it did in previous versions, but I can't remember now. I import my photos just by copying them to my hard drive (via a card reader) and then run a script to keep a lower res copy in my iPhoto library and am now just using iPhoto as just a photo album to look at photos an make slide shows, I'm afraid iPhoto is less of an organizing tool than it used to be with iLife '08, just like iMovie lost functionality in the same upgrade. You can find an iLife '06 CD and install that, then it is a different story (for now) But, I'd check out the apple boards and see what people over there are doing about the newer iPhoto. I seriously doubt that Pentax Browser will ever be able to read the .package content. There might be other EXIF viewers for the Mac though, if that's all you need Pentax Browser for, but then you have that funky "images kept within the package" deal with iPhoto.

Apple may be trying to get you to use Aperture instead. I think the success of their free apps was a bit too successful it seems.

I am using lightroom right now, the library is decent, I get all my info, and I am shooting raw anyway, then I export out a set optimized for iPhoto.

If you find out anything about fixing iPhoto or a better work-around, let me know...

Brian

I am indeed using iLife '08 and shooting jpgs.

The real issue is that I can't get iPhoto to read or display all the correct metadata. I want to use Pentax Photo Browser to do that, but because iPhoto stores the jpgs in a 'package' (a sort of hidden folder), Photo Browser cannot see them. I already have Photoshop Elements which integrates reasonably well with iPhoto.

I guess you are right I will have to look for a funky EXIF metadata displayer. I'll try google and see what happens...

[augustmoon]

Here's what I found out... (and thank's to Dave for getting me started on the right path!)

You can set your preferences to not copy the photos into iPhoto (uncheck "copy items to the iPhoto Library") I believe this is what Dave was referring to.

There's a free app called iPhoto Library Manager, which might make this future managing of photos and Libraries easier, I have yet to try it, but I do see that it will allow you to have multiple libraries and libraries in multiple locations, this will also let you extract all of your photos if you need to) You can the use iPhoto Library Manager to tell iPhoto which library you want to use, then from then on,

or you can extract all your images out of iPhoto through iPhoto or iPhoto Library Manager, if you no longer have them anywhere else and re-import them with the copy function off, or if you do have them somewhere else then you can skip that step.

you'll have to physically manage your photo folders and import images from there into iPhoto from there on out, because iPhoto will no longer do that for you.

But, at least then you can point your pentax browser to that folder and then you should be able to see the same folder of images in whatever app you want and from there on out you shouldn't have to have anymore workarounds

Brian

[davemdsn]

Preview also displays metadata. Open the photo in Preview, open the Inspector, and move through the various tabs. Different types of data are in different tabs. Camera make and model are in one, exif is in another, file info (color space, pixel dimensions, and others) are in another. It won't read some Pentax specific info, like what the camera saturation settings were. You may need to use PPB for that as it is non-standard.

[amiskin]

OK, I have found an excellent free viewer that shows the metadata that iPhoto ignores at Simple EXIF Viewer for Mac OS X

[maxamillion]

Amiskin.

You can get your photo data by hitting Command and I in iPhoto.

RAG.