new to mac questions

Hi there, I just bought I new iMac. First Mac here! I am a bit confused about how to set this up with EOS Utility. Previously my work flow was as such

connect camera, open EOS utility, import photos to specified location (external HD), then disconnect, open LR, edit, export back to HD, then view slideshows with zoom browser (I know its kinds crummy but I liked how it displayed them). I would kind of like to stick with this flow.

I don't have either of those programs on the mac yet, should I put them on the new rig? I was wondering how others typically go about this basic process. Any thoughts? Thanks

I've always just used a card reader. I import them into the pictures folder and then point Aperture to access them as referenced files. For me its a holdover from my old Windows days when I did all my own file and folder management.

Maybe a better question is what is a good program to use to view photos on your external HD when using a mac? I guess I can get them on my external HD, but what is a good way to view them? Where does iPhoto or eosUtility come into this equation? Thanks

You do not need to use EOS Utility to import the photos, Lightroom can do that for you, or you can just copy paste, or drag and drop the files from the memory card into a folder if your using a card reader.

Lightroom also has an ok slideshow, but with in iOS is iPhoto which should also have a good slideshow.

Okay, so I figure I can just use "pictures" (the mac version of "my pictures") for slideshows, but what if I wanted to use iPhoto? Do I have to import all 10 million of my photos into iPhoto from my external HD before can use it for a simple slideshow viewer? THanks...(I don't really have 10 million photos but you get the point). I hope it is okay to ask these questions here as they are photography related and it is the computer forum. THanks

you can put an iPhoto, Aperture or LR library wherever you want. If you wanted them to remain as referenced files on your external you can do that still. So I would do this

1. Imprort from Camera or Card reader to whatever directory structure you would like on your internal or external drive
2. Either library import or reference import into LR, iPhoto or Aperture.
3a. Once edits are made, export completed images to whatever file structure you want on whatever drive you want
or
3b. Since you dont need to slideshow all 10 million photos, (haahaa, I usuall exagerate to the billions to each their own) you can then import those into iPhoto for displaying slideshows. Again you can point the iPhoto library to whever you want it to be located so it can be on your internal or your external HDD.


My flow is near similar to that.
1. Import to my own directores on external drive, delete any obviously horrible shots
2. Import to Aperture Library on 2nd external drive (this theoretically creates 2 backups, but thats a whole other beast)
3. Edit/delete images in Aperture or in combination with LR
4. Export final image to iPhoto library on local HD for slideshows and easy iDevice loading and aTV viewing.

Are you storing your library on an external drive? My suggestion if you're going to be using multiple editing programs is to make your library a referenced one. That way all your images reside in one place.

Well I think I have made some organizing decisions about things after talking to the tech guy at apple. I now have it set up that I will be

-import to internal library (pictures)
-edit in LR
-export out of LR back to internal directory (pictures)
-either use the pictures slideshow or import into iPhoto for slideshow/viewing purposes
-everything continuously being backed up a large external that has now been formatted as a "time machine" per apple tech guy's recommendation.

I guess everything will just live on the internal and be backed up to the time machine. I suppose if I wanted additional back ups I would just get another external. This new computer has 1Tb of space. I think I should be good to go for some years. If I do run out of space I will just start dumping stuff on to additional externals. Dose this sound like a logical approach to you folks?

That looks close to how I do things. First, I shoot raw only. Those files are imported in Lightroom. Aperture is an alternative. Once edited in LR, I export to jpeg only the files that I want to show to someone on my iPad. Those exported files are imported in iPhoto into albums. In iTunes I select the iPhoto albums I want to synch onto to my iPhone or iPad.

My media libraries (iTunes, LR photos, movies, ..etc.) are on an external thunderbolt RAID set. Both the internal SSD and the external RAID set are backed up to my 3TB Time Capsule.

To save costs you can use USB 3 drives. But I would always have a dedicated drive for my Time Machine backups.

MCAsan wrote in post #15362136
That looks close to how I do things. First, I shoot raw only. Those files are imported in Lightroom. Aperture is an alternative. Once edited in LR, I export to jpeg only the files that I want to show to someone on my iPad. Those exported files are imported in iPhoto into albums. In iTunes I select the iPhoto albums I want to synch onto to my iPhone or iPad.

My media libraries (iTunes, LR photos, movies, ..etc.) are on an external thunderbolt RAID set. Both the internal SSD and the external RAID set are backed up to my 3TB Time Capsule.

To save costs you can use USB 3 drives. But I would always have a dedicated drive for my Time Machine backups.

Thanks for the reassurance. I will be using the one external for a dedicated Time Machine. I guess I am having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that my whole life is sitting on the internal. It makes me feel vulnerable, but I suppose this is what the Time Machine is for? Right? Then, as I understand it correctly, if I were to have things set up so that my main media directories were on external drives, the TM would not back those drives up. The TM only back up what is on the internal, right? Maybe this is the difference between a Time Machine and a Time Capsule?? THanks for the discussion.

the TM can backup external drives as long as the drive or partition you set as the TM isnt the drive you want to back up. They are turned off by default but you can change that in the TM settings.

So what your best bet would be to do is NOT use the pictures folder that is on the internal and instead make a directory on an external for storing the images. Now if you only want 1 external you would need to partition it and then choose 1 partition as the TM drive and 1 partition for images.

Get another external, backup to it, and store off site.

peeaanuut wrote in post #15362569
the TM can backup external drives as long as the drive or partition you set as the TM isnt the drive you want to back up. They are turned off by default but you can change that in the TM settings.

So what your best bet would be to do is NOT use the pictures folder that is on the internal and instead make a directory on an external for storing the images. Now if you only want 1 external you would need to partition it and then choose 1 partition as the TM drive and 1 partition for images.

This is kind of the way I would like to do it. But the Tech dude said that there is not a way to have the TM back up an additional external. While this isn't much of a problem right now, as I approach filling this internal (long time from now) I would like to have an option to run an additional external as your describe. Do you know of any tutorial that might be able to walk me through it? THanks

The tech dude is absolutely wrong. If you have the drive mounted as a local drive, which a Firewire, USB or Thunderbolt drive would be, you can back it up via TM.

As you can see in the attached image, I have chose to exclude cetain drvies from TM. Going down the list is like this:

Bootcamp is a partition of the internal drive and TM doesnt back up Fat or NTFS drives
Media FW800 is a 2TB Firewire 800 drive
SG Back up is a 1TB partition of a 2TB drive
SG - Pics is the other 1TB partition to the above 2TB drive
Video 1TB FW8 is another 1TB FW800 drive.

By default they are chose to not back up, but I can remove them from this list and they will back up. I am really only interested in backing up my internal drive and my laptop via TM.


As far as tutorial for TM, its pretty simple

When you turn it on for the first time it will ask you to identify the TM drive to backup. It basically wants to utilize the entire drive. So if you plug in a 3TB drive it will want to use all of it. So choose a drive accordingly. I prefer the chosen drive to a separate drive or a partition of a drive with low usage.

So once you choose the drive it does an initial back up. let it do it with default settings of just your internal drive. Then once that is done, go back in and remove any drives on your "exclusion" list so that they also back-up to the TM. Remember, anything on the list WILL NOT BACK UP VIA TIME MACHINE.

Also remember that TM will not back itself up as it would put itself in an endless loop.

Very very interesting. So at this point I have a nice 2TB drive that has been set up as my TM and it is backing up the internal. So what I hear you saying is that I could go into the TM options (?) and find the list of things that are not being backed up (which by default would be anything else that is attached to the mac, ie, another external) and deselect it and it would then begin to be backed up by the TM?

I guess I just need to figure out exactly how I would like to structure my life. Tell me this, If you were just a family guy with a bunch of photos of the fam, friends, and some short videos would you keep these on your internal and simply back up with the TM? I mean this is why I bought a computer with one TB of space right? Or would you keep all that stuff on an external and back up with the TM and not utilize the internal space. Will filling up your internal bog down your computer? I guess in comparison to many people I don't have as much data to begin with.

Thanks for your time and help.