Ryan's Journal

Stable, open format. In case iPhoto the application dies in twenty years, I want to know I can still get my photos and all the metadata I've been adding back out again.

Global keywords. My library's getting too large, so I'm thinking about splitting it up and managing it in chunks, but there would be problems at the very least in re-merging them. I haven't actually tried this, because merging libraries is not an obvious operation (see below), but I'm guessing two equivalent keywords from different libraries would end up being separate entities. Having an application-wide keyword database would help.

Merge libraries. Simple enough. 'Import Library,' maybe.

Automated split. If the first (open format) were available, it would be fairly easy to split up libraries by size for easy archiving. That is, I want a 4.7GB library to burn to DVD, and I'd rather not do that splitting by hand every single time.

True EXIF support. If I update a JPG's metadata in EXIF, it doesn't show up in iPhoto. Not good. In conjunction with below, much of the RAW metadata is also incorrect or missing in the JPGs iPhoto generates.

True RAW support. Poor quality JPGs sitting all over the place is bad. Like photo negatives, I'd rather do the work on a RAW (white balancing, please) and let the JPG be generated when I actually want a JPG.

Better importing. iPhoto will randomly stall irrecoverably during importing if it's not the application at the forefront or if the computer goes into intermediate power saving. That's annoying when a roll is 300 photos large. Maybe also look into roll merging.

Less crashy. iPhoto crashes at random. Sometimes while emptying the trash. Too ofen to be rare.