Macworld Forums: iPhoto '11 - Macworld Forums

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It is a shame that the old, plain vanilla, photo emailing option was removed and all we're left with, when fancy layouts are not appropriate as in business communications, are cumbersome work-arounds.

A more critical issue with the new emailing method is the fact that there's no record left of your email. After you send out the email with photos from within iPhoto, a copy is not kept in iPhoto and it is not kept in the Mail application. (Yes, there's a preference option to BCC yourself, but then it ends up in the Inbox, not the Sent folder, where you would naturally look for it.)

I'm going to wait to find out if I can buy iPhoto by itself through the Mac App store for a lower price. It's really the only part of the new iLife I'm interested in.

The full screen mode alone is worth it, but with speed improvements, better books and card, and the new places slideshow; my only complaint is the removal of calendars from the creation menu.

iLife '11 looks like some improvements, but I still wish there was a way to turn off Faces. I cannot believe that this was not changed to an option...even if I do not setup a face, on import, the app still "crunches" data for faces, slowing down the process.

Oh, and did anyone notice -- NO CALENDARS! I heard that they are working on putting that creation/print feature back in...hope its soon!

I got iLife 08 with my mac and didn't upgrade to iLife 09 when it came out. So I think I'll get '11. Although like mslavick, I'm really only interested in iPhoto.

Calendars will be back. Look for an iPhoto update soon. And your existing calendars will persist if you upgrade.

I really don't like this update! In the previous version, you used to have a floating palette windows and could see the full widescreen shot, but now the fixed pallet sidebar takes up a huge amount of screen real estate and you can't even see or use crop and image adjustment functions at the same time. Apple, if you had to take up so much screen area with a sidebar in the full screen mode, then put all the tools there like adjustments, info, crop, etc. You might even want to look at how Adobe does it with a small palette (heaven forbid apple checks Adobe!!)

Who writes this rubbish? Apple, stop being dazzled by how much flashy cool stuff you can load int a program, and start giving it the top notch capabilities in it's field like better editing tools and stop trying to move us to Aperture when so many other consumer programs offer more adjustment for less.

If you want a real laugh, try emailing your shots from iPhoto. It creates it's own email outside of Mail now, doesn't leave you with a copy so you don't know if it sent. It leaves you almost no room to type a message except for a little block on top (where I supposed you are supposed to limit type to "Like cool shots huh?"). You now have to use one of the few themes it seems, or go through a convoluted effort to get shots to the real "Mail" program as simple attachments. To top it off, it bundles all your shots to a zip file. I sent the first one of these to myself and it wouldn't display in Mail - missing plugin!

Looks like it's Googles Picasa or Photoshop Elements again, or stay with iLife 09.

While I am ranting, why have you never been able to drag and drop shots or files on to the dock's Mail icon and have it just attach to the present open message like all the other mail programs (eg Entourage). Why create a new message every time?

I have found it to be somewhat slower in response than the previous version. It seems to take 10 second pauses every 20 or 30 seconds.

Not mentioned is the problem many have had and which I too had where when upgrading the previous library, all of the photos were deleted. No notice from iPhoto was given, just the rotating spokes non-stop.

ryszard, on 26 October 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

I've found the easiest workaround is to simply select the images you want to email and drag them to the Mail icon in the dock. A new Mail message opens that contains the images as attachments.

The new iPhoto is great if you read all reviews.
There is however a little drawback; your exisiting books may be uneditable, and new books can be created but not edited. I'm not sure if everybody who purchased the upgrade is experiencing these issues, but check the latest forum threads on apple.com before upgrading.
It can save you a day of useless installing / uninstalling (eventually I got, after too many trial and error my iPhoto 09 back).

Sorry, normally I'm very happy with what Apple 'gives' us, but this iPhoto update looks like a beta that is not fully tested.

I see no reason to upgrade. Sorry Apple.

Derrick / Chris,

There's apparently a very major bug that is hitting some (though not all) people who upgrade to this new version, which is completely wiping out their iPhoto libraries. See this link here (originally posted on Daring Fireball): Warning!!! iPhoto '11 Erases ENTIRE iPhoto Libraries

Ms. Castro lost over 200 GB of photos, though she was smart and had backed up her library twice before doing the upgrade, so no data lost. But she links to an Apple Support forum thread titled WHERE are my PHOTOS????? where it's clear more than a few other people have been bitten by this bug, and not all of them were fortunate enough to have very recent backups. Apparently the app not only has an issue with upgrading existing photo libraries, it also sometimes fails to import properly but still deletes the original photos off the camera's card.

You may want to note these issues in the review and warn users to have a backup before they try to upgrade. I'm sure it's an infrequent problem that's only affecting a handful of users, but it's definitely a real bug and people should take care.

When you say that the extended info screen has gone, does that mean iPhoto no longer has anyway for us to view EXIF data, such as camera model and settings?