# Browsing and sorting photos on Mac



## KongKurs (Aug 9, 2011)

Hi y'all.

Just got myself a MacBook Pro, and I'm loving the switch from regular pc's, that was generally beginning to annoy me.
I have not yet found a good solution for sorting, browsing and - most importantly - deleting my photos on the Mac, after a photo session.

Having just returned from London, with quite a pile of raw footage, I just cannot find the nicest way to do this.

On a Windows PC I would just double-click any photo for a fullscreen slideshow, browse with the directional buttons (to easily sort between good and "not nearly as good" shots) and hit delete to erase the photos not good enough.

On the Mac I have 2 different methods, but neither seem to be efficient:

1. Lightroom - nice for importing, editing and linking to other editing tools, but browsing and trying to delete is bad. No shortcuts for delete, and "backspace" leads into a couple of dialogues about "deleting from disk" or only from Lightroom gallery, and accepting this. Ineffective if you have to browse, sort and delete a +1000 photo gallery..

2. Finder - no fullscreen browsing available, and double-clicking for browsing with a preview bigger than the veeery small thumbnail doesn't make you able to browse with directional buttons and delete with backspace at the same time.... Sigh..

Why is this simple task so unreasonably difficult on a Mac? 
Hope to hear I'm just doing it all wrong  preferably without having to install a third party "browsing" tool, since this should be possible without...?


----------



## KongKurs (Aug 15, 2011)

Anyone?

Please share how you browse and delete your photos on a Mac..?


----------



## KmH (Aug 15, 2011)

The problem is not the Mac.

The problem is not the software.

The problem seems to be that you don't know how to effectively use the software you have to do what you want to do. Lightroom is excellent for sorting, organizing, and culling images. In fact that's one of the main jobs Adobe designed it to do. (image editing was like #76 on that list)

But Lightroom is database management software, not an image browser like Photoshop's Bridge. Consequently Lightroom can't be used effectively by using it the same way a browser is used. A browser is quite a bit slower for retreiving photos than a database management application like Lightroom.

Do you have The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers ?


----------



## Goat (Aug 18, 2011)

Have you tried Aperture 3?  It has a full screen mode that you can cycle through the pictures that you imported usiing the left and right arrow keys.  It also has good editing capabilities.

Tim


----------



## D-B-J (Aug 18, 2011)

I second what Keith said.  Lightroom is GREAT for sorting and deleting photo's.


----------



## GeorgieGirl (Aug 18, 2011)

What you should be seeing in the Library Mode ( see top right of screen shot to see what mode you are in) is either a series of thumbnails or a single shot depending on how you have your viewer set. I have shown you two options, one with multi photos and one with the single. The setting for this to accomplish this is at the lower tool bar right above the linear row of photos. So Grid view or Loupe view, either way. 

All you have to do is highlight the photo or photos you want to delete and hit the delete button on your Mac. 

You will be asked if you want to Remove from Disk, as you have mentioned you saw, and this removes the photo from LR and it also removes it from your drive to trash simultaneously.

So if in your LR what you see is the set up in either of the screen shots, click the thumbnail to highlight either in the grid group or in the linear group the photo you want to delete. Hit delete and its gone. Its that simple.  

Is this what you have been doing?


----------



## KongKurs (Aug 24, 2011)

GeorgieGirl said:


> All you have to do is highlight the photo or photos you want to delete and hit the delete button on your Mac.
> 
> You will be asked if you want to Remove from Disk, as you have mentioned you saw, and this removes the photo from LR and it also removes it from your drive to trash simultaneously.
> 
> Is this what you have been doing?



Yes, and although I guess the option to keep the photo on my hard drive and only removing from LR can be useful, I will never use it.
So basically, since LR is all about workflow, I think this double-process is double work. If I have to pick out and delete say 500 photos after a photo session, I have to click delete and then navigate my mouse to "Remove from Disk" 500 times... 

I guess you could say that this isn't worth complaining about, but in my eyes I think this is about 50% as optimal as just hitting delete, and then the photo's gone.

I have found another way though. I'm currently adding archives to the photo viewer in Mac OS, and this way I can browse fullscreen and delete photos just hitting delete..


----------



## oldmacman (Aug 24, 2011)

There are a couple of ways to browse photos with Mac's finder. In any folder where you have pictures, select a picture file and hit the space bar. Click the double arrow to go full screen. Use your arrow keys to step through the images. There is also coverflow view that you get to by clicking the last of the viewing modes of the four available. I think for what you are doing, you will like the space bar method better.


----------



## table1349 (Aug 24, 2011)

First buy the appropriate book: Mac OS X Lion For Dummies:Book Information - For Dummies
or Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies:Book Information - For Dummies

Easy way to do what you did in Windows. 
1. Open up finder and navigate to the folder.
2. Select all the photos you want to view
3. Right click and select open with preview.  

It will open the fist photo in the bunch and have a scroll bar on the side.  Same kind of thing that windows had.



Seriously, they are good books that make the transition easier.


----------



## usayit (Aug 24, 2011)

> The problem seems to be that you don't know how to effectively use the software you have to do what you want to do. Lightroom is excellent for sorting, organizing, and culling images. In fact that's one of the main jobs Adobe designed it to do. (image editing was like #76 on that list)



What he said ^^^

There's several ways to do this depending on what feels natural to the user....   Here's how I do it.

In Lightroom, you can flag as rejected a single frame or multiple selections as you review your photos.  You can do this by right-mouse-click -> set flag -> rejected.   Once you completed review, simply do a command-backspace or Menu->Photo->Delete Rejected Photos to delete them all at once.   

Not fast enough for you???  Here's a feature in Mac OS X that many over look.... you can assign a keyboard short cut to almost any menu item in ANY application.   Simply assign a keyboard shortcut to set flag->rejected.

1) System Preferences -> Keyboard -> click + sign 
2) Pull down box for "Application:" -> Select lightroom
3) In text box field "Menu Title:" -> type in "Rejected".  NOTE: I believe this is case-sensitive.  Cap "R" ejected.
4) Click on empty text box field "Keyboard Shortcut:"
5) Press short cut key of your choosing.  Mine is shift-command-R
6) Click on Add button.
(This is in Snow Leopard)

You have now assigned shift-command-R to the set flag -> rejected action.   While a photo is selected, in full screen, or if multiple photos are selected, just type shift-command-R they are instantly marked as "Rejected".   The type command-backspace to "Delete rejected photos".


----------



## CCericola (Aug 24, 2011)

You don't have to do anything 500 times. You can tag the photos you don't like. Then after you have gone through everything you select your tagged images and delete them in a few clicks.

Sent from my iPad using PhotoForum


----------



## KongKurs (Aug 25, 2011)

usayit said:


> > The problem seems to be that you don't know how to effectively use the software you have to do what you want to do. Lightroom is excellent for sorting, organizing, and culling images. In fact that's one of the main jobs Adobe designed it to do. (image editing was like #76 on that list)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Now THAT's what I'm talking about!
Thank you all very much for the replies, will try this out!

Edit: Just tried the flagging in LR, and there's actually already shortcuts for Rejected and Picked photos - X and P.
To unflag just press U
:thumbup:


----------

