Michal Ždanský iPhoto is the last member of the iLife family that was missing from iOS. It premiered at Wednesday's keynote and was also available for download on the same day. Like editing photos, iPhoto has its bright and dark sides.
The arrival of iPhoto was already predicted in advance and therefore its arrival was no surprise. iPhoto in Mac OS X is a great application for organizing and editing photos, even at a basic or slightly advanced level. We didn't expect the organization of snapshots from iPhoto, after all, the Pictures app takes care of that. An interesting situation arises in iOS, because what is provided by one application on the Mac is separated into two, and it doesn't exactly make things tidy. To outline the problem a bit, I'll try to describe how access to photos works.
Confusing file handling
Unlike third-party applications, iPhoto does not import photos into its sandbox, but takes them directly from the gallery, at least by eye. On the main screen, you have your photos divided on glass shelves. The first album is Edited, i.e. photos edited in iPhoto, Transferred, Favorites, Camera or Camera Roll, Photo Stream and your albums synchronized through iTunes. If you connect the Camera Connecton Kit with a memory card, the Recently Imported and All Imported folders will also appear. And then there's the Photos tab, which combines the contents of some folders.
However, the whole file system is very confusing and shows the weak side of iOS devices, which is the absence of central storage. Excellent description of this problem server macstories.net, I will try to describe it briefly. In iPhoto on the Mac, where a single application manages and edits photos, it saves changes in such a way that it does not create visible duplicates (it does have both the edited photo and the original photo saved, but it looks like one file in iPhoto). However, in the iOS version, edited photos are saved in their own folder, which is stored in the application's sandbox. The only way to get an edited photo into the Camera Roll is to export it, but it will create a duplicate and at one point it will have the photo before and after editing.
A similar problem occurs when transferring images between devices, which iPhoto allows. These images will appear in the Transferred folder, in the Photos tab, but not in the system Camera Roll, which is supposed to function as a kind of common space for all images - a central photo storage. The automatic synchronization and updating of photos, which I would expect from Apple as part of the simplification, does not happen. The whole file system of iPhoto seems to be quite unconceived, but after all, it is a remnant from the first versions of iOS, which were much more closed than the current operating system. Going forward, Apple will have to completely rethink how apps should access files.
What completely surprised me is the lack of greater cooperation with the Mac application. Although you can export edited photos to iTunes or to the Camera Roll, from where you can get the photo into iPhoto, however, the Mac OS X application does not recognize what adjustments I made on the iPad, it treats the photo as the original. Considering we can export projects to Mac apps from iMovie and Garageband on the iPad, I'd expect the same with iPhoto. Sure, unlike the other two, this is a single file, not a project, but I don't want to believe that Apple couldn't provide this synergy.
Exporting images has one more great beauty tip that will surprise professionals in particular. The only possible output format is JPG, regardless of whether you are processing PNG or TIFF. Images in JPEG format are of course compressed, which naturally reduces the quality of the photos. What's the point of a professional being able to process up to 19 Mpix photos if he doesn't have the option to export them to an uncompressed format? This is fine when sharing to social networks, but if you want to use the iPad for editing on the go while maintaining 100% quality, then it is better to process photos in desktop iPhoto or Aperture.
Confused gestures and unclear controls
iPhoto continues the trend of imitating real-life objects, as seen in other applications such as the Leather Calendar or Address Book. Glass shelves, on them paper albums, brushes, dials and linen. Whether this is good or bad is more a matter of personal preference, while I like this distinctive style, another group of users would prefer a simpler, less cluttered graphical interface.
However, what will bother many users is the relatively unclear control, which often lacks intuitiveness. Whether it's a lot of undescribed buttons whose icon doesn't say much about the function, dual control on the bar x touch gestures or many hidden functions that you'll discover more on Internet forums or in the extensive help in the application. You call this up either from the main screen with the glass shelves, which could be considered the main hint. When working with photos, you will appreciate the omnipresent contextual help, which you call up with the appropriate button with a question mark icon (you can find it in all iLife and iWork applications). When activated, a small help with an extended description appears for each element. It takes time to learn how to work 100% with iPhoto, and you will often return to the help before you remember everything you need.
I mentioned hidden gestures. There are perhaps several dozen of them scattered in iPhoto. Consider, for example, a panel that is supposed to represent a gallery of photos when an album is opened. If you click on the top bar, a context menu will appear for filtering photos. If you hold your finger and drag to the side, the panel will move to the other side, but if you hit the corner of the bar, you change its size. But if you want to hide the whole panel, you have to press the button on the bar next to it.
Similar confusion prevails when selecting photos for editing. iPhoto has a nice feature that double-clicking on a photo will select all similar ones, from which you can then choose which one to edit. At that moment, the marked photos will appear in the matrix and are marked with a white frame in the sidebar. However, the movement in the marked photos is very confused. If you want to take a closer look at one of the photos, you need to tap on it. If you use the Pinch to Zoom gesture, the photo only zooms within the matrix in its frame. You can achieve a similar effect by double-tapping the photo. And you don't know that by holding two fingers on the photo, you will trigger a magnifying glass that is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary.
When you tap to select one, the other photos will appear to overlap from above and below it. Logically, you should go to the next frame by swiping down or up, but the bridge error. If you swipe down, you will deselect the current photo. You move between photos by swiping left or right. However, if you drag horizontally while looking at the entire matrix, you will deselect and move to the frame before or after the selection, which you will notice in the sidebar. The fact that holding your finger on any image will add it to the current selection is also not something you just come up with.
Editing photos in iPhoto
In order not to be critical of iPhoto for iOS, it must be said that the photo editor itself has done very well. It consists of a total of five sections, and you can find several functions even on the main editing page without a selected section (quick enhancement, rotation, tagging and hiding a photo). The first cropping tool is quite clearly laid out. There are several ways of cropping, either by manipulating gestures on the image or on the bottom bar. By rotating the dial, you can shoot as you like, you can also achieve a similar effect by rotating the photo with two fingers. Like the other tools, the crop has a button in the lower right corner to display advanced features, which in our case is the crop ratio and the option to restore the original values. After all, you can go back in the edits with the still present button in the upper left part, where by holding it you will get information about the individual steps and you can also repeat the action thanks to the context menu.
In the second section, you adjust brightness and contrast, and you can also reduce shadows and highlights. You can do this with sliders on the bottom bar or gestures directly on the photo. Apple has very cleverly shrunk four different sliders into one without significantly affecting clarity or functionality. If you want to use gestures, just hold your finger on the photo and then change the attributes by moving it vertically or horizontally. However, the two-way axis is dynamic. Normally it allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast, but if you hold your finger on a significantly dark or significantly bright area, the tool will change to exactly what needs to be adjusted.
The same is true of the third section. While you always change the color saturation vertically, in the horizontal plane you play with the color of the sky, green or skin tones. Although everything can be set individually using the sliders and not looking for the appropriate places in the photo, dynamic adjustments using gestures have something in them. A great feature is the white balance, which you can either choose from preset profiles or set manually.
Brushes are another great example of interactivity on a touch screen. All the features I've mentioned so far have had more of a global effect, but brushes allow you to edit specific areas of the photo. You have a total of eight at your disposal - One for correcting unwanted objects (pimples, spots...), another for red-eye reduction, manipulation of saturation, lightness and sharpness. All effects are applied evenly, there are no unnatural transitions. However, sometimes it is difficult to recognize where you actually made the changes. Sure, there's the ubiquitous button that shows you the original photo when held down, but hindsight isn't always what you need.
Fortunately, the developers have included in the advanced settings the ability to show adjustments in shades of red, thanks to which you can see all your swipes and the intensity. If you have applied more of the effect somewhere than you wanted, the rubber or slider in the setting will help you reduce the intensity of the entire effect. Each of the brushes has slightly different settings, so you'll spend some time exploring all the options. A nice feature is the automatic page detection, where iPhoto recognizes an area with the same color and lightness and allows you to edit with a brush only in that area.
The last group of effects are filters that evoke associations on the Instagram application. You can find everything from black and white to retro style. In addition, each of them allows you to swipe on the "film" to change the color mixing or add a secondary effect, such as darkened edges, which you can further influence by swiping on the photo.
For each group of effects you have used, a small light will light up for clarity. However, if you go back to basic editing, which is cropping or brightness/contrast adjustments, the other applied effects are temporarily disabled. Since these adjustments are basic and therefore parent, this application behavior makes sense. After finishing editing, disabled effects will return naturally.
All effects and filters are the result of very advanced algorithms in some cases and will do a lot of work automatically for you. You can then share the finished photo on social networks, print it, or even send it wirelessly to another iDevice with iPhoto installed. However, as I mentioned above, you need to export the image in order for it to appear in the Camera Roll and you can continue to work with it in, for example, another third-party application.
An interesting feature is the creation of photo diaries from photos. iPhoto creates a nice collage to which you can add various widgets such as date, map, weather or note. You can then send the entire creation to iCloud and send a link to your friends, but advanced users and professional photographers will leave the photo journals cold. They are cute and effective, but that's about it.
záver
The first debut of iPhoto for iOS was not exactly auspicious. It earned a lot of criticism in the world media, especially because of the not entirely transparent controls and confusing work with photos. And while it offers many advanced features that even professionals on the go will appreciate, it has room for improvement in future updates.
This is the first version and of course it has bugs. And there are not a few of them. Given their nature, I would even expect iPhoto to get an update soon. Despite all the complaints, however, this is a promising application and an interesting addition to the iLife family for iOS. We can only hope that Apple will recover from its mistakes and, over time, will turn the application into an almost flawless and intuitive tool for editing photos. I also hope that in a future version of iOS they will also rethink the whole file system, which is one of the main flaws of the whole operating system and which makes apps like iPhoto never work properly.
Finally, I would like to point out that iPhoto officially cannot be installed and operated on the first generation iPad, even though it has the same chip as the iPhone 4. In the iPad 2, the application runs relatively quickly, although it sometimes has weak moments, in the iPhone 4 the work is not exactly the smoothest.
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I would like to mention that iPhoto does not work on the original iPad (1) and on the iPhone 4 it is quite slow.
I use iPhoto/iMovie on an iPhone 3Gs and it works pretty well…
omg *sighs
I wonder how. When I tried on the ipad1, it said that the application requires the front camera. There is no 3GS here..
Search for iPhone Configuration Utility. You don't need JB just the latest iOS.
I had it on my iPad 1 :P
Is it possible to export just one photo or more at once to the camera roll?
Dekuji
Well, in my opinion, you can only do one at a time. in iPhoto you can select more than one photo, but it does not allow multi export to export to the camera roll... which is a shame.
Professionals on the go would especially appreciate the ability to adjust the photo size before sending.
"...or many hidden features that you'd rather find on internet forums or in the extensive in-app help."
this also annoys me on mac os x. :(
otherwise good article (review), thank you.
It has its ups and downs... for example, I experimentally created a diary, the photos contained in it appeared logically in the "edited" album. After deleting the journal, I didn't delete this album even though the photos it contained were reset to their default state. I had to delete and re-download iPhoto...
I would just like to know where the author of the article came up with the fact that iPhoto on Mac OS X saves edited photos in the original photos? So, any photo editing always creates a copy, which is saved in the iPhoto "folder". I just want to ask how I can achieve this in the settings so that iPhoto does not duplicate my photos. Thanks a lot
Good note. It saves the changes to the original photo only visually, while preserving both the original and the modified image. However, in the app it looks like one file, you don't see two similar photos next to each other.
It should also be added that even if it can be used on an iPhone, the control is even worse
I expected a lot min. I take this to mean that in the future Apple will want to introduce apertures without flaws, which are, paradoxically, much easier to program than filter applications, etc. - e.g. support for multiple formats when saving... it's a classic with limited functionality in an effort to get better and more expensive. Personally, I hope I'm wrong, I wouldn't like having three photo programs and I liked this one. I only have reservations about aesthetics and that stupid icon... all of them from iwork and ilive are disgusting. They just put the icon from the mac on the background into a square... wtf! Probably due to the transition of older people from macs to tablets, so that they know what to click on first when shopping in itunes with a new tablet.