Using PE3 with iPhoto

[bobgoldstein]

iPhoto can be set up to invoke PE3 as a photo editor when one double-clicks an image in iPhoto. After making changes to the image, however, the only way that iPhoto will allow the changed image to be saved in the iPoto library (as the current version of the image you double-clicked) is to do a Save from PE3. With my current camera, this means that I have opened a JPEG image in PE3 and have to save it as a JPEG, instead of as a PSD file. But my reading tells me that successive saves of a JPEG file always lose quality because of the re-compression of the image.

Has anyone else developed a good way of using PE3 as the image editor for iPhoto, and somehow saving the images back to iPhoto's library, without doing this lossy Save?

[Wendy]

Bob ..

It is true that saving as a jpg is lossy but you have to save it a lot of times before you see any change. The number of times you are saving it is really minimal and because of that even at high magnification you will not see deterioration.

My workflow is to take my original jpg from the camera, edit and whilst working on the image save it as a psd then when I have completed all my editing I save it as a jpg and import it back into iPhoto.

You can save back into iPhoto as a psd if you set the prefs to maximise compatability but that virtually doubles the psd file size .. which of course is already far larger than a jpg.


Wendy

[bobgoldstein]

Bob ..

It is true that saving as a jpg is lossy but you have to save it a lot of times before you see any change. The number of times you are saving it is really minimal and because of that even at high magnification you will not see deterioration.

My workflow is to take my original jpg from the camera, edit and whilst working on the image save it as a psd then when I have completed all my editing I save it as a jpg and import it back into iPhoto.

You can save back into iPhoto as a psd if you set the prefs to maximise compatability but that virtually doubles the psd file size .. which of course is already far larger than a jpg.


Wendy

[bobgoldstein]

Wendy, I tried your recommendation about save with max compatibility. After setting that preference, I did a Save As... with the type set to Photoshop. It saved with no negative comment from iPhoto, and it was saved in the iPhoto folder for the original's date date. BUT, it is not visible in iPhoto, the next time I open it.

I think I am reduced to saving as .PSD to the desktop, and then importing it, and then dragging it to the Roll from whence it came.

I'll look into this a bit more. I remember that iPhoto does allow then importing of Photoshop image files, and they do show up in a film roll. But I could find this .PSD file, dsaved from OE3, only by using the finder FIND to locate it by name, an that verified that it was in the month/day folder thet iPhoto would use for the original. But when i go to the film rool that includes that date, this image is not visible.

[Wendy]

Bob,

You can only resave back into iPhoto if the image is the same format and it will then replace the original ... so because it was not saved to iPhoto as a psd originally you will need to first save it to the desk top and then import it into iPhoto.

I personally do not like saving directly back to iPhoto as I think there are occasions when using that method could cause problems .. so I always save to the desktop and then re-import.

Wendy

[smorky]

Bob,

iPhoto has problems when you try to import a photo with the same name. So I would recommend to Save As ... from PSE and change the name(!), save it somewhere on your hard disk (or on the desktop) and then import this new image to iPhoto. Then you have both versions and you can decide, which to keep.

Besides you can also invoke PSE, if you drag the photo from iPhoto to the PSE-icon in the dock (until it is highlighted). That will launch PSE and opens the photo. Probably it also works with a bunch of photos, but I haven't tryed yet.

I also regret that iPhoto and PSE do not work together as they should. But there are work arounds to benefit from both.