PhotoLine as iPhoto external editor -- COMPATIBLE!!!

[greenmorpher]

I tell you all, I was thrilled to discover -- I'm not sure how -- that I could use Topaz Adjust as the external editor for pix in iPhoto.

But being a lad of almost infinite resource and curiosity, particularly as there is a bit of a hiatus around here at the moment (it is 38 C, hot wind blowing, and no air conditioning in my work or living space) I thought -- if Topaz, why not PhotoLine? And then Topaz Adjust from within PhotoLine where it is compatible as a plug-in?

And there you go! iPhoto > Preferences > General > Edit Photo: ... Just click on the "other" (or whatever it is) and go to your Apps folder and select PhotoLine.

Now -- smartarse that I am -- I can bring the power of both PhotoLine AND Topaz Adjust (operating as a plug-in within PhotoLine) to my iPhoto editing. Just tried it -- brilliant!!!

Gawd -- how long has iPhoto been able to use an external editor? Which is a rephrasing of the less flattering question: how long have I failed to exploit iPhoto to the max because I didn't even work through all the preferences, let alone read the manual?

So when I double click on a photo in iPhoto now, PhotoLine launches as default with the photo ready for editing. iPhoto has some nice, simple editing tools of its own, and I can still use them by right-clicking on a photo and choosing plain "Edit". But an important limitation of iPhoto is that it offers no choice in saving an edited pic. It tears into it savagely and mashes the JPEG image down to a tiny pulp. AND it does that every time you edit. You do now have the saving grace of being able to return to the oiginal, but you lose all your edits ...

Anyway, with PhotoLine and Topaz Adjust operating as a plug-in within PhotoLine, that dreadful smashing and squashing of the edited pic doesn't occur. In PL, as we all know, you can choose what format to save in and how much smashing and bashing we want when saving to JPEG, to say nothing of being able to choose superior processes.

Now here's a cool thought: could PL (for Mac) offer a Preference which allowed users to set a preferred JPEG saving format when using PL as the external editor for iPhoto? There ought to be a way for PL to detect that situation -- just the file path to the iPhoto library would do, wouldn't it?

And one other thing: I mentioned LensFix CI, the lens distortion correction software, as not being compatible with PL. I now understand why. LensFix CI is specifically Mac and made for working with Rosetta. BUT there is a "friendly competitor", PTLens (the two share databases), which offers stand-alone and P'shop plug-ins to provide lens distortion correction in both Windows and Mac environments.

I just tried the PTLens P'shop plug-in with PL v.15 on OS X.6.6 and it didn't work. Didn't appear in the menu even. Presumably very late P'shop compatibility. Pity. it would be very, very cool to have automated lens distortion fixing built into PL via a plug-in or however, to complement the program's other photo editing capabilities. I've done some brave stuff in this direction "by hand" in PL and Canvas with quite good results, but it is time consuming and the output is not really good enough. Such programs as LensFix CI and PTLens can do the job -- and do it right -- in a bazillionth of a second.

In reality, no photo editor should lack this capability.

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com

[greenmorpher]

The iPhoto Prefs setting up PL as the external editor. Okay, I could have put that into the firstp ost, couldn't I? No! I was thiniing (about something else)!

Cheers, geoff

[Hoogo]

...how long have I failed to exploit iPhoto to the max because I didn't even work through all the preferences, let alone read the manual?

What?? YOU did not read the manual? What's wrong with you??

I just tried the PTLens P'shop plug-in with PL v.15 on OS X.6.6 and it didn't work. Didn't appear in the menu even.

Though Windows is something different, the windows-plugins work fine, in 32 and 64 Bit.

[greenmorpher]

Excellent, Hoogo -- I thought that would be the case. And good stuff for you Windows guys since PTLens extends PL's functionality very usefully.

A point about setting up iPhoto to use PL as the external editor -- after I posted yesterday, I went out and bought the latest version of iPhoto. Its preferences are different. The external editor now has to be set under "Advanced" -- not "General" as before. The screenshot is attached.

They've also something incredibly stupid: the information sidebar was on the left and always visible. Now that space is blank and you have to open it mouse to ad click oh an icon which opens a more extensive sidebar on the right. That intrudes into and reshapes the window you were looking at with your photos in it. And the comments box only shows two lines instead of the whole comment. Why do they have to fiddle?

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com

[podperson]

iPhoto has supported external editors since, I think, forever.

Also, once you've set an external editor you can still opt to edit in iPhoto via the context menu, which is great for most photos.

At $15 iPhoto is a steal. (I'm thinking of upgrading to Aperture though, which at $80 is ridiculous.)