For those who still think that my iPhoto bug complaints are overstated — that I shouldn’t expect to be able to edit a JPEG photo 3 or 5 or 10 times without running into problems — check out this example of what a single edit did to a photo:
The “BEFORE” image is a screenshot taken after the photographer had finished his editing, but before he hit the “Done” button; the “AFTER” image is what the photo looked like a few moments later, once iPhoto was done with it. The two images should be completely identical. As you can see, they’re far from it.
Clearly, this is a major, major bug, not to be downplayed by dismissive questions like “Do you seriously edit the same photo 10 times?” On some photos, it takes multiple edits before one notices visible changes; on others, the changes become obvious right away. But on all systems affected by the bug, iPhoto is making unwanted changes every single time you edit a photo, whether they’re immediately visible or not — and that is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.
Equally unacceptable, or at least damn aggravating, is Apple’s prolonged silence on this issue. It’s been about a month since the first complaints started cropping up. Multiple bug reports have been submitted, tons of feedback sent, and many calls to tech support made. Where is the official acknowledgment from Cupertino that this is a real problem, and that a fix is in the works? A little reassurance would go a long way. And a timeline would be nice, too. I’d like to know approximately when I’ll be able to start actually using the software I paid $79 for. Communication is a good thing, Mr. Jobs!
Anyway, the question remains, what the heck is causing this bug? I’ve had a hard time trying to figure out what are the distinguishing characteristics of systems that experience the bug, as opposed to systems that don’t. Many people with Tiger have it, but some don’t; most people with Panther don’t have it, but a few do. Many people with G3s and G4s seem to have it, but some don’t; conversely, many people with G5s seem not to have it, but some do. The bug seems mostly confined to iPhoto 5, but I’ve seen a few reports of people having the same problem on earlier versions… and again, there are definitely some people with iPhoto 5 who do not have the problem. Argh! Similarly, attempts to isolate the problem to people with specific ColorSync profiles, or specific video cards, have been equally unsuccessful.
I have a new theory, though, that at least one of the distinguishing characteristics of systems with the bug is that they have QuickTime 7. That could explain why it’s mostly a Tiger bug but a few Panther users have it too, since it’s possible to run QuickTime 7 on Panther, but certainly not universal (whereas ALL Tiger users have QuickTime 7).
What got me thinking that QuickTime might be involved was a post I saw somewhere (I can’t recall where just now) discussing EXIF errors in images edited by iPhoto. According to the poster, there was a reference to QuickTime 7 in the new EXIF data, which got me thinking. I checked out the EXIF data on one of my own photos, before and after editing, and sure enough…
BEFORE:
Exif Byte Order: Little Endian (Intel)
Manufacturer: Canon
Model number: Canon PowerShot A95
Image orientation: Top, left
Resolution (width): 180 pixels per inch
Resolution (height): 180 pixels per inch
File date and time: 2005:06:05 09:07:24AFTER:
Exif Byte Order: Big Endian (Motorola)
Manufacturer: Canon
Model number: Canon PowerShot A95
Image orientation: Top, left
Image orientation: Top, left
Resolution (width): 72 pixels per inch
Resolution (height): 72 pixels per inch
Software used: QuickTime 7.0.1
File date and time: 2005:06:06 22:46:11
That’s not all the EXIF data, but it’s the relevant part (the part that changed). First of all, no, the repetition of the “Image orientation” line is not a typo on my part — it really does appear twice in the second file. Secondly, I have no idea why the resolution is decreasing, or whether that’s normal. Nor do I know what the change in “Exif Byte Order” means, if anything. But the addition of that “Software used” line definitely makes me wonder. Why is iPhoto using QuickTime to edit photos? And could that be the culprit in the bug?
So I’m going to play around with my PowerMac G3 and/or Becky’s iBook G3, both of which are still running Panther and QuickTime 6, and see if I can establish whether iPhoto works better with QuickTime 6 than with QuickTime 7. I’ll report back if/when I discover anything worthwhile.
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Categories: PowerBook Problems, Technology & Nerdy News
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June 7th, 2005 at 1:43:43 am
I have QuickTime7 and iPhoto 4.0.3 and I can’t seem to get the dramatic bluing you are getting (i had to use GIMP to check out the color curves cause my version of iPhoto doesn’t have them built in, curse you and your upgraded version). I did notice that each of the levels in the photo i cropped briefly seemed to be boosted in the after photo, but they were all boosted in unison, and not shifted like you got.
June 7th, 2005 at 6:43:43 am
I have QuickTime7 and iPhoto 4.0.3 and I can’t seem to get the dramatic bluing you are getting (i had to use GIMP to check out the color curves cause my version of iPhoto doesn’t have them built in, curse you and your upgraded version). I did notice that each of the levels in the photo i cropped briefly seemed to be boosted in the after photo, but they were all boosted in unison, and not shifted like you got.
June 7th, 2005 at 3:44:00 pm
……Apple should simply start marketing it as TechnoPhoto. :)
June 7th, 2005 at 8:44:00 pm
……Apple should simply start marketing it as TechnoPhoto. :)
June 7th, 2005 at 9:48:26 pm
I’m not sure if this makes sense, but the JPEG format uses a compression algorithm. When you have a digital photo that has not yet been saved, and then you save it as a JPEG, then you will get artifacts like that. Basically, the way I understand it, the software chooses a color pallette and replaces some colors with “similar” values. I think you’ll find this behavior with most editing software, especially if you’re starting with true color and compress to a smaller file size. I noticed this with PhotoShop even, but I’m pretty sure that was just JPEG and not JPEG 3. Not sure if I’d notice it less with PhotoShop now.
June 7th, 2005 at 10:15:43 pm
Nug, i have never seen behavior like this in ANY program before, and JPEG can select from thousands of colors (or is it millions, i can never remember for JPEG) for its color palatte, why would it change?
Even if it were true that this is a matter of JPEG compression from RAW format (which would never ever be acceptable to graphic artisits in the first place, it would make JPEG the worst and most useless format ever created), Brendan duplicated the effect on a color bar, which was NOT initially a RAW image but a JPEG one.
This is a bug, something tied to Quicktime 7 and iPhoto 5.
Brendan, send this info to the people over at MacCentral, if you can get them to pick it up I bet the heat would really be on. Heck contact CNN, you seem to have a pretty good repoir with them :D
June 7th, 2005 at 11:26:05 pm
Nug… what David said. I’ve been using iPhoto for almost a year and a half now, and this is an entirely new problem which cropped up after I upgraded to Tiger (and with it Quicktime 7).
Trust me, I know a little bit about JPEG files, I have like 50,000 JPEG photos on my hard drive. :) And this is not normal behavior. (Incidentally, my digital camera doesn’t take RAW photos, it takes JPEGs to begin with.)
David, this (well, my previous post on the topic) has already been posted on MacInTouch and MacBytes. Maybe I’ll contact MacCentral, though…
June 8th, 2005 at 12:36:05 am
Yeah, they are the big guns in Mac news after all
June 8th, 2005 at 2:48:26 am
I’m not sure if this makes sense, but the JPEG format uses a compression algorithm. When you have a digital photo that has not yet been saved, and then you save it as a JPEG, then you will get artifacts like that. Basically, the way I understand it, the software chooses a color pallette and replaces some colors with “similar” values. I think you’ll find this behavior with most editing software, especially if you’re starting with true color and compress to a smaller file size. I noticed this with PhotoShop even, but I’m pretty sure that was just JPEG and not JPEG 3. Not sure if I’d notice it less with PhotoShop now.
June 8th, 2005 at 3:15:43 am
Nug, i have never seen behavior like this in ANY program before, and JPEG can select from thousands of colors (or is it millions, i can never remember for JPEG) for its color palatte, why would it change?
Even if it were true that this is a matter of JPEG compression from RAW format (which would never ever be acceptable to graphic artisits in the first place, it would make JPEG the worst and most useless format ever created), Brendan duplicated the effect on a color bar, which was NOT initially a RAW image but a JPEG one.
This is a bug, something tied to Quicktime 7 and iPhoto 5.
Brendan, send this info to the people over at MacCentral, if you can get them to pick it up I bet the heat would really be on. Heck contact CNN, you seem to have a pretty good repoir with them :D
June 8th, 2005 at 4:26:05 am
Nug… what David said. I’ve been using iPhoto for almost a year and a half now, and this is an entirely new problem which cropped up after I upgraded to Tiger (and with it Quicktime 7).
Trust me, I know a little bit about JPEG files, I have like 50,000 JPEG photos on my hard drive. :) And this is not normal behavior. (Incidentally, my digital camera doesn’t take RAW photos, it takes JPEGs to begin with.)
David, this (well, my previous post on the topic) has already been posted on MacInTouch and MacBytes. Maybe I’ll contact MacCentral, though…
June 8th, 2005 at 5:36:05 am
Yeah, they are the big guns in Mac news after all
June 9th, 2005 at 11:29:50 am
Yep, I get the same exact thing whenever I edit a photo - IPhoto changes all the settings drastically as soon as I try to save any changes I make. It makes it impossible to edit photos. I’m also using 5.0.2 on Tiger.
-Tom B.
June 9th, 2005 at 4:29:50 pm
Yep, I get the same exact thing whenever I edit a photo - IPhoto changes all the settings drastically as soon as I try to save any changes I make. It makes it impossible to edit photos. I’m also using 5.0.2 on Tiger.
-Tom B.