WE made the “SWITCH”

We are now Apple MacBook Pro owners and I need advise from all you wise Apple users out there. Anyone know a simple yet good photo editing app I should look into? Also, is iMovie decent enough for my little brain to do some creative editing? Have not played with it yet but will over the weekend I hope. Any other info would be great as I have been resistant to this change but since Cheryl did it with me I feel better. Yet another type of Adventure we both embark upon! 😉

Also, I have a ton of pics on my PC, how do I get them to my Mac? I am sure I will have more questions and again any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

17 responses to “WE made the “SWITCH””

Gary

April 16, 2012 at 8:27 pm

Leslie,
Apples have a short learning curve – in some cases, they are almost too easy – but work really well. iPhoto is a great resident photo management platform and will allow you access to make calendars and books. With iPhoto, get Aperture – a simple to use, but powerful photo editing program that works well with IPhoto.
Deb made your calendar with iPhoto – and she was a PC user forever. The MacBook Pros are sweet!

advgrrls

April 16, 2012 at 8:29 pm

and now we are twins yet again….seems like we have to do everything in 2’s. LOL Thanks will look at aperature. What about transferring the pics from the PC laptop to my mac?

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Sara & Daniel (@WorldwideRide)

April 16, 2012 at 8:33 pm

Congrats! Once you go Mac you never go back.. Grab a usb external drive or a big usb stick and drag all your photos and movies from the PC onto it. Plug it into the Macbook and presto you are in business. The Macbook will import them and you will be very happy campers. Enjoy. PS I thought you gals were cool before! Now you are wow. : )

advgrrls

April 16, 2012 at 8:44 pm

I have a 5GB stick but it appears I have gone overboard with pics over the years…way more than 5GB. I guess a little at time eh? So, now we are cooler? LMAO Thanks!

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Garth

April 16, 2012 at 8:50 pm

iPhoto is ok for categorizing and librarying your pics. Go to the App store, Adobe Elements is available for $79. You can download Picasa for photos also. iMovie is capable of making up clips and adding background sound or text.

If you have all your PCs and mac on your netowrk, there is a migration tool that will allow you to copy all of your photos, music and documents pretty seamlessly.

I bought an iMac a couple months ago. I still have my PC available because there are somethings that are a bit easier on the PC but generally the Mac is a very user freindly computer and will soo become your fav especially if you have other apple products like ipads or iphones. They link ans sync very nicely.

advgrrls

April 16, 2012 at 8:55 pm

I tried the migration assistant but an error keeps coming up…will try again maybe reinstall it on the PC. We have three PC’s in the house well actually 4 my work laptop too. I am going to give the 17 inch laptop to my partners cousin’s boyfriend. Taylor got Cheryl’s all ready. They help out with our dogs and house when we are not around. I wil keep the 15 inch laptop for safe keepings. Marking all the apps down so when I have time I will check them out,

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AlanI

April 16, 2012 at 11:16 pm

With hundreds, if not thousands of images in your collection at this time and with all liklihood that these numbers will increase, you need a good database application in order to keep track of them and making locating an image(s) easier in the future.
A very good application that is both a database and editing tool is Adobe Lightroom and is well worth considering. It was conceived as the competition to Aperture and in my opinion, much better. A 30 day trial which never hurts is available here http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

advgrrls

April 17, 2012 at 4:07 am

All great sugestions now I need to know my tolernance to learn software and what I am willing to learn as well. Thanks Alan as you are right on with the amount of pictures we take and will take.

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Wonko the Sane

April 17, 2012 at 5:38 pm

Check out lynda.com: http://www.lynda.com/Member.aspx

You can learn all about iPhoto, Aperture, iMovie, even changing from PC to Mac. It isn’t free, but the cost is (IMHO) worth it. Not only will they teach you how to use iMovie, they’ll inspire you to! For these programs, I don’t think its necessary to get the “premium” subscription, but look around the website, I got the premium subscription, and for Photoshop and web design, am glad of it.

BTW, for ordinary photo editing, Photoshop isn’t necessary, there are more than enough tools in iPhoto and (especially) Aperture to do the job. But if you need to make major changes like move or delete people, Photoshop, once you learn how, is at least one of, if not the most efficient way to do that.

OR, you could just do a better job making the photo to begin with;)

If you go with Lynda.com, learning that Mac will be FUN!

advgrrls

April 17, 2012 at 7:10 pm

gonna play with iMovie this weekend I hope and take what everyone is saying into consideration after I see if the stock program can do what I want it to do. I am no videographer but willing to learn to get better. So far I have found a decent finance app for our home money and still need to transfer those pics from the PC to this Mac.

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advgrrls

April 18, 2012 at 8:12 pm

OK I think iMovie has enough editing tools for me. I have a learning curve with this program and I need to read up how to use it much better than my first attempt reviewing the KLIM Latitude suit. My first impressions. So, iMovie is good enough from what I can tell so now I will seek out a better photo app. Getting used to this Apple thing but still being a PC person for soooooo long there are a few things I am having issues with and miss. Like the right click! 😉

Mike

April 19, 2012 at 7:23 pm

Hey Leslie and Cheryl,

Congrats on the Mac. I use iMovie really easy to edit. That trip video on my YouTube channel was made with it.
While surfing the web. …hold command and hit the letter t to open a new window of your top sites.

Cheers mike

advgrrls

April 19, 2012 at 7:26 pm

yeah I need to learn little tricks like that…thanks. One question. How can I take a screen shot..I have an app called snapNDrag but to be honest I have no idea where the pics go after I capture them…can’t seem to figure out how to control where to save them….

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Mike

April 20, 2012 at 7:58 am

As you are probably aware… Backing up your machines will be a snap with time machine. An easy solution for transferring your photos would be to purchase an external powered terabyte drive (mine is omega) and make sure it comes with the Mac I link cable. You can copy your photo’s to this drive , install them on your macs, then use the drive as your time machine back up drive.

advgrrls

April 21, 2012 at 7:40 am

we have an external drive but would have to reformat it etc…so I might do what you say and just pick up a new one and keep it for the Mac. Thanks!

Mark

May 11, 2012 at 7:21 am

All good comments. As far as a photo apps go, I’ll second your 2 main options; Aperture & Lightroom. They are essentially quite similar but do things differently. Aperture is an Apple product so if you like Apple line of stuff, this will be similar in ease of use, although still a learning curve. Aperture’s direct competition is Lightroom. This is Adobe’s version of a prosumer photo app. As already stated you can download a trial version of both apps in fact and mess around with them.

I have Lightroom 2 and like it, although I would say it’s more “PC like”. LR is currently on version 4 and has better feature than the currently older version of Aperture that is currently out. However the rumour mills are ripe with a possible Aperture update….??

With all that said, your new shiny Mac does come with iPhoto. I somehow end up using this app more than LR2 day to day. It has basic photo editing functionality and is great at sorting, organizing and in general photo management. You can make all sorts of books, calendars, etc. (something you can also do with Aperture and LR, although I have not used LR for this). I like that iPhoto easily syncs with our iPhones via iTunes. There’s also iCloud which has Photostream. I found this really cool on a recent hike where every pic I took with my iPhone was automatically uploaded to my computer at home and my wife’s iPhone almost instantly, so she was able to enjoy the trip with me in a way.

Photoshop although excellent (and way above what iPhoto, Aperture and LR do) is not exactly cheap and has a much bigger learning curve but it is what the pro’s use.

This post is getting long. I would start with the free and already on your Mac iPhoto for now and if you find like you need more photo editing horsepower, you can check out the free trials of either of the other 2 great products out there. Go to iPhoto Help and watch the tutorials if you’re having problems.

advgrrls

May 11, 2012 at 4:06 pm

great comments and I am learning as I play with all the apps and features. Trying to learn iMovie now too. As I get better I might dive into some more advanced programs but for now I am overloaded as it is with trying to figure out my new job! Thanks for your comments and we love long comments too! 😉

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