• import photos from camera
• organizing photos
• assign flags and ratings
• adding titles and captions
• processing
• export to web gallery

Well, basically I use it for everything, except occasionally for some photos that I will use Photoshop to process and apply sharpening using Unsharp Mask. The introduction of Lightroom has streamlined my Raw digital workflow tremendously. The only problem is, I would like to have the photos exported to iPhoto too. You might ask – Why would I do that? Well, the iPhoto is good in a few areas:

1. the latest iPhoto ’09 has 2 great new features: Places and Faces. Even though my camera did not have GPS recording capability, I still can assign a location to the photos manually. ‘Faces’ feature detects human faces automatically in photos, and provides tagging. It has auto recognization capability, and it is compatible with Facebook’s face tagging too.
   

   iPhoto '09: 'Faces' feature

   iPhoto '09: 'Places' integrates with Google map

2. Ability to publish photos to Facebook, Flickr and MobileMe – I don’t use Flickr and MobileMe (for now), but I have Facebook.
3. Tight integration with Mac OS X, where many other applications can import/use photos from iPhoto, but not from Lightroom.

I know that Aperture is a great alternative for Lightroom, and provides native integration with Mac OS X applications, but I’ve tried it and don’t like it – probably not because of the software itself, but my familiarity to Lightroom, which I have started using since the initial release.

It turns out that exporting photos from Lightroom to iPhoto is really easy:

1. select the photos that you want to export under the Library tab of Lightroom
2. Go to File -> Export…
3. Under the Export Location, select a folder where the exported files will be temporarily stored. I put them in a folder called “Lightroom Export” on my Desktop, so that I can move them to Trash easily after I am done importing them into iPhoto.
4. Set other options as you wish
5. Under Post-Processing section, select “Open in Other Application” under the “After Export” drop down, and choose iPhoto in the Application folder. Then click “Export”.

This will import the selected photos into iPhoto, all put under “Events”. You can then create an album and add them in. Also, don’t forget to delete the “Lightroom Export” folder on the Desktop! To make it even easier the next time, you can add an Export User Preset with the above settings, named it to something like “Export to iPhoto”, and when need to export photos again, just use File -> Export With Presets, and select “Export to iPhoto”. Viola!

Alternatively, you can use Automator to create an application that selects specific folder with the Lightroom exported photos, import them into iPhoto, and then delete the temporary folder. I tried this out but found that all the photos imported into iPhoto are duplicated, and I can’t figure out why.  All is not lost though, since the above solution is good enough for me already – just need to remember to delete the temporary folder!

Then:

Macintosh 128k, 1984

And Now:

iMac Intel, 2009

I remembered that when I first started working with Motorola Malaysia, Petaling Jaya in 1999, we used to have a few of these compact Macintosh computers (most probably Classic II, cant’ really recall the exact model) around for us to assemble the burn-in program for Motorola’s microcontrollers. BBEdit was the editor of choice for coding. It was just a short while, though, that soon after all the Macintosh’s were replaced by IBM compatible PCs, and my brief encounter with the Mac ended.

Fast forward to September 2007. My home PC (AMD Athlon based) has been showing signs of aging, and the constant CPU over heating was making the performance even worse to the point of unbearably slow. I have been reading up about the iMac Intel a couple of months before that, and really like the all-in-one sleek design and the upcoming (and supposedly more advanced) OSX 10.5 Panther new features even though I have never used any OSX before. The only concern is the price – it is at least double compared to similar spec of Intel/AMD based PCs with the same CPU speed, RAM and HD sizes. But on the other hand, I so want to split with Microsoft Windows after years of frustration that I don’t even want to mention the details here – all the Windows users would know.

So I was walking over to Ikano Power Center at Mutiara Damansara after my gym session and saw the of the Apple reseller IT Planet. I walked in, played with the iMac a little bit – I literally didn’t know how to use the OSX interface by then, I just moved the mouse over the dock and acted as if I know something. The sales girl walked over. I asked her whether I will get a free upgrade to Panther (expected to be out soon) – the answer is No. I asked her whether there is any discount on the iMac, and the answer is No again. She assured me though that the learning curve for OSX is not steep, and I will be much happier with an iMac.

I said Thank You, walked out of the shop while thinking whether I should just go buy another PC and be stuck with Windows, or go back in and get the iMac but have to pay the price premium. I probably thought about it for 5 minutes or so, and then I turned back in, took out my credit card, and in no time I was RM5699 more in debt, but a 20″ 2.4GHz Code II Duo iMac finds its way back to my home.

And the rest, as they say, is history. I am a super happy convert! And let’s hope for another 25 years!

p/s: Check out TUAW’s photo gallery of the historical Macintoshs, here: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/24/25-years-of-macintosh-in-photos