impressions: iLife '09 - iPhoto

So I got iLife '09 all installed.  It's time to take a look!

Faces

I'm quite excited about the face detection and recognition as well as the places feature, so I'm going to start here.  It prompted me to upgrade my library, and after that, iPhoto loaded.  Under Faces, it's scanning photos for faces, and it says it's going to take 70 minutes or so!  

Places

Places is working, so let's look there.  The only phone I have that has geotagging would be my iPhone, but let's see.  You are presented with a map and there are red pins, which indicate where photos are taken.  Double clicking lets you zoom in.  Ctrl + double clicking zooms you out.  

I went to Disney Sea in Tokyo last year, and the photos I took with my iPhone is mapped out.  I thought they would be lumped together, but they are mapped down to a more granular level that I imagine it'd be.  I could actually see where in the park did I took all the pictures.  That is neat!  

Disney Sea Resort in Tokyo

Now this makes me want to take more photos with my iPhone.  Or maybe, get another camera that has geo-tagging... urgh!!!

Ok, Faces still requires 44 more minutes.  Let's check out the other stuff.

Slideshows

Come to think of it, I never really used the slideshow feature, but now I could export it, it seems to become more useful.

Once you selected the photos you want to use as a slideshow, you just press the Slideshow button.  And then you can configure the slideshow.  There are six themes:

1. classic
   
2. kens burn
   
3. scrapbook
   
4. shatter
   
5. sliding panels
   
6. snapshots
   

Each theme also has a different background music.  There doesn't seem to be a way to save the slideshow by using the Slideshow button.  

To create a save-able slide show, it appears I have to create one using the "+" button on the lower left.  That let's me create and save a slideshow that I could come back later.   After I create one, it appears on the left column under SLIDESHOWS.  All I have to is to drop the photos I want inside.  

Exporting Slideshows to iPhones, iPods, and more

After you finish configuring the slideshow, the Export button will let you export to iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, computer, and MobileMe.  Very slick, but since it's technically a movie, having the ability to go straight to YouTube like iMovie could be nice too.  

Once it finishes processing, the slideshows show up under movies.  And you can plug in your iPhone and sync the slideshows.  

After fiddling around, there doesn't seem to be a way to export a slideshow directly to MobileMe.  In order to share on MobileMe, you'd have to upload or drop it in a MobileMe website.  

In short, the slideshows look great and it's easy to get them on iPhones and iPods, but other than that, it's not so easy.  

Ok, back to Faces

Since there is no one registered,  Faces instructs me to find a photo with people and name someone.  Found a photo with myself, and named myself.  And under Faces, I see myself.  It gives me a couple of photos that I'm in.  I have to confirm them, and after that, it brings up more photos to confirm.  There are a few pictures that weren't correct.  Is iPhoto suggesting this people look like me?  Anyways, after the confirming exercise, iPhoto will bring up a bunch of photos that have me inside.  The final results are pretty accurate.

I'll save MobileMe, Facebook, and Flickr integration for later.  But this version of iPhoto is impressive.  Having the ability to sort through photos by people, time (events), and places makes a lot of sense, and definitely sets a new standard to what photo manage should be today.