iPhoto Feature Question

So, one of the things that keeps me from buying a Mac is this simple limitation of iPhoto and Aperture for that matter. I use ACDSee on a PC for my photo management. One of the things really like is the ability to strike an area of the photo of my choosing and click in the center to zoom into that the area. I have not been able to replicate this on an Mac. There is a zoom feature, but it simply zooms to the center of the photo. There is also a Loupe in Aperture, but this only zooms to the limited size of the Loupe, not in full screen.

Does this ability exist on a Mac?

 

As you have found out, things are often a little different in mac, sometimes for good other times for bad. You can kinda do what you want in iphoto by going into full screen mode. There is an icon in the bottom left with two little arrows, click that. Then in this mode you have a slider at the bottom which you can zoom in on, and a navigation window will pop up which you can use to pan around the photo with.
good luck
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ps the other option is to set another app as the default editor eg photoshop. you can do this in the preferences for iphoto. That way when ever you click edit you will automatically be taken to you fav app.

 

Coming from PhotoShop Elements and LightRoom, I've found Aperture to be a great alternative.

Aperture not only allows you to work in full-screen mode, but you can place the pointer anywhere you want on the image and press "Z" and it will blow up the picture to 100% view centered at that point, and press Z again and it goes back to the original view; a very handy feature for checking/fixing/retouching.

Don't kid yourself, Aperture is a very powerful program. While it's easy to fall in the trap and begin comparing Aperture to iPhoto (after all, they share some of the DNA - apple created both), in reality Aperture is in a totally different league. I've been looking through the 600+page Aperture manual and having used it extensively for the past two months, I'm still only exposed to, and comfortable with less than 10% of its features.

It's a great program and should not in any way be compared to iPhoto.

 

I guarantee you that Aperture is a much better program than any PC equivalent, Lightroom included.

also, that is a very silly reason to not like a Photo Management Application, especially when the application is actually capable of doing so.

Coming from anything else on a PC besides Adobe's Lightroom, you will most likely be more than happy with iPhoto, and if it isn't powerful enough for you, you should definitely look into Aperture.