This has turned more into a discussion about MCs image handling
Should we split the thread perhaps?
I use both Picasa and MC for my images, and photoshop for editing.
Images are an area of huge growth. Digital cameras, cheap storage and quicker internet have made photo storage and sharing incredibly popular. You only need to look at online gallery sites like FlickR and facebook to see this. With a few well thought out changes to image management, I believe MC could be marketed to a whole new audience which never would have looked to MC otherwise.
I think if you are looking at changes to image handling, Picasa is a good target to strive for... it is simple to use, has seamless integration with it's own online gallery and has enough power to handle most types of image libraries. It also has competent and useful image editing features which are seamlessly integrated into the program -- try it, it works a charm. MC has come a long way in image organisation - panes, Pix01 and facebook integration are great drawcards, and more recently the nested panes have made image organisation even more powerful.
So why do I keep going back to Picasa?
MC wins over Picasa hands down for organisation. If I want to find a photo by person, place, or any other field, MC is the way to go. I like having a million fields and use panes to organise images in every conceivable way possible
But a lot of people don't have massive libraries and wouldn't even think to tag "People" in their photos. These people form the bulk of the market, and use Picasa (or iPhoto) for the following reasons
- it has a sleek interface (scrolling has a 'bouncy' feel, all the controls you need to "do things" with your images are at your fingertips - there is no need for nutting down through "Library tools" etc etc)
- it has gimmicky features (like timeline, slideshow, posters and collage): it's things like this which draw in a lot of amateur users - it impressed me when I checked out the website for the first time
- it has more powerful features like geotagging and integration with google earth/maps (this is an area of growth - cameras capable of geotagging will become more and more popular - "Place" is becoming almost as important as timestamping
- integration with Google's Picasa Web Galleries is simple and easy to use. The program knows which photos you have uploaded to your online gallery and allows you to edit and add to your online albums.
In my honest opinion, one of
MC's original strength is now becoming one of it's major weaknesses - MC was marketed as "the one which plays them all". This is a great concept - a single and familiar interface can be used to navigate all your audio, video and image collection. But as media organisation has become more specialised, I think MC has suffered because of this original strength. In my mind, MC still tops the bar in audio. But there are other pure video and audio programs that outdo MC, because that's all they deal with. MC will win out in organisation -- the two areas where this may not be the case are
playback and
manipulationVideo is a separate topic altogether and has been discussed elsewhere. Personally I would like to see MC go the way of VLC player and play many video types out of the box without needing Directshow (this alienates the amateur user). This is contentious, however, and I do digress.
PLAYBACKI am honestly quite happy with the way MC handles image playback currently... I do admit that it is a little slow and clumsy for quickly viewing images from explorer for many of the reasons listed in this thread, but I'm not all that sure how this could be improved without a complete redesign -- MC currently has a single playback option for all media (audio, images and video). There is the option that maybe MC could have a separate image viewing display (with simple buttons like "rotate", "edit", "share" etc easily accessible, similar to Picasa's view)... You'd probably need to do a poll to see what people want in this area.
MANIPULATIONHere is my super list of things which I think would complete MC's image handling.
Keep in mind no single program that I have found can do all of these things, but if MC could do them and do them well it would be unbeatable and attract a new type of user.
EXIF support--We can read EXIF tags now. This is great, but a fully featured image program should allow us to view the EXIF data (separate from the database "tags"), edit it and save it to the file. While it is good to have a single "Tag Window" for all media types... sometimes I'm not sure if what I'm viewing is from the EXIF tag or MJ tag (without opening up the "Format" field)
--Advanced functions like "Batch EXIF date changing" would be nice (eg adding 2 hours to a bunch of photos to correct for time differences)
"Features"Let's face it, people like cool new things. Slideshows, timelines, collages etc are great for impressing the amateur user.
--The ability to frame "Faces" in facebook was a huge factor in the networking site's success. This is discussed further below. Does it bother anyone else that you can tag 5 people in a photo, but there is no way to know which person is which??
--The ability to select multiple photos and autocreata a collage or timeline would be a nice feature
--This is getting a bit fancy, but video collages are very popular... pick some music, pick some photos and select a few simple transitions and you're done.
Web IntegrationPix01: I like Pix01. With a bit of love and care it could be something great... there are a few things missing though which always lead me back to Picasa Web Galleries.
-- I think we should be aiming for more integration here. MC should know which photos I've uploaded to my web gallery and I should be able to add to or change photos without replacing the whole album. I know this is hard, but it is important.
-- A bit more customisability to the site itself: allow me to organise my albums (by date, by name, with categories etc etc) and reorder my photos, and allow me to view the tags of the files (ala Picasa)
-- Have an option to share private galleries with other users, and add the ability to comment on photos (ala Picasa)
-- Allow me to "Download Entire Album" (ala Picasa)
Facebook: iPhoto has this sorted - copy them!! In iPhoto you can fill in all the tags from the program and better yet, fill in the "Face" frames before you upload. With the power of it's numerous fields, MC is in a prime position to mirror this or beat it. I want to be able to bring up the photo, bring up the "frame" and select the name from my [People] field. There are open source solutions for this so it's definitely not impossible to do this. Check out:
http://code.google.com/p/fb-photo-uploader/ (it's under GNU General Public License)
Picasa: Why not? Complete support for the major web galleries would please everyone
Batch Features--I would find a "batch convert png to jpeg" feature INCREDIBLY useful. Some people pay for software just to do this (myself included). I should be able to select my conversion settings, size etc. MC audio conversion is fully featured, why shouldn't images get the same treatment?
EditingDo yourself a favour, download Picasa and double click on an image. A very simple and user friendly menu comes up with Basic Fixes (Crop, Straighten, Red Eye, Contrast, Colour), Tuning (Lights and Shadows) and Effects (B&W, Sepia etc etc). This is all I expect from a simple image editor. Anything more and I will use photoshop.
--The key is integration. Don't use a separate editor I have to open up. And
make sure that my output file retains all the tag information when I save it!!
--I love the lossless image rotation in MC. Simple lossless editing will make the program more functional and stop users from turning to other image solutions.
Geotagging and Map IntegrationThis isn't that important yet but it is getting there. The idea of viewing a "Map" of your photos is very appealing. I know there was some recent geotagging implementation in MC but I must confess I haven't tried it yet. Picasa is the only program I'm aware of that supports this well - it is well integrated with Google Earth and Google Maps.
Long post, sorry
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Topic: new window for pic viewing? (Read 5361 times)