Photo star power

I've been marking photos with stars for a while now but don't really have a system. I feel like my ratings drift over time but worse I sometimes don't put ratings on photos because I don't remember how I use the stars. This, of course, means that I am building a backlog of photos that are unrated. This wouldn't be a big deal except I am thinking of making a photo book for Grandma and Grandpa at the end of the year and I don't want to wade through a year's photos to choose the ones that should go in the book. So here's a scheme:
5 stars - outstanding photo
4 stars - photo that I like a lot but something is less than perfect
3 stars - photo that is a worth looking at again (best in a series where none were great)
2 stars - photo was a nice idea but didn't turn out well
1 stars - bad photo but one that I can't bring myself to delete

After asking Google it turns out others have thoughts too:
deeje cooley on rating systems in general
austinpreneur explains his workflow including ratings (very good write up)

I guess I'll try my system for a while and see how it goes but austinpreneur's might be better.

Photo management software for Macs

So I use a Mac... and I went out and got iLife '09 when it came out because I wanted Places and Faces. Both turn out to be pretty cool. But the face recognition isn't that impressive. It misses a bunch of faces and even with hints it seems to make obvious mistakes. For example, I import an album of 20 picutres all of which are the same 3 people. I'd think that after I confirm/add faces to the first few pictures it could do a much better job guessing that the same people appear in the remaining photos. But nope--it will still suggest a name that appears in only 2 other photos from 4 years ago. And I haven't been able to find a workflow that I like for tagging faces. The best I've found involves lots of switching back and forth between keyboard and mouse.

But what I really meant to post about is the decision between iPhoto and Picasa for Mac. Here's the deal. Almost everyone in my family has a Google account. So Picasa web albums is a convenient way to share photos. And perhaps most importantly it is what my Mom has learned how to use. (I am sure she would learn a new website or two (or 50) if that's what it took to see pictures of her grandson but none the less our history is with Picasa.) Likewise my in-laws are used to Picasa web albums and so there is a large incentive to stick with it.

Given that I am going to use Picasa on the web it would make sense to use it on my Mac too. It seems to be  a fine program.

Things I like about it (Picasa's Advantages):

• Good facial recognition.
• The "People" view showing only suspected matches to let you confirm quickly.
• The ability to rotate videos that were taken in portrait aspect ratio
• Integration with Picasa Web Albums
• The ability to load videos to Picasa Web Albums
• The print layouts are easier to understand (e.g., you can print 4 3x5s on an 8.5x11 sheet of photo paper)
• My wife uses it on her PC

iPhoto's Advantages:

• Integrated with the Media Browser on the Mac (file open dialogs, other iLife programs, etc)
• Tools for creating photo books are way better than anything I've tried on the web (Picasa has no built in tools--it just helps you get to web-based tools)
• All my tags, ratings, and Faces are up to date in iPhoto
• It has a 5 star rating system.
• Full screen editing mode
• Compare feature lets you view pictures side-by-side

Ideas for workarounds:

• You can create a 5-Star rating system in Picasa using tags
• You can buy an iPhoto plugin that says it will let you upload videos to Picasa Web Albums
• You can export photos from Picasa to iPhoto to make a book
• Write an Applescript/Automator routine to use iMovie to rotate videos

Sometime I'll make a decision. Right now I am squarely on the fence and using some of each.

(Updated: 1/2/11 to add the full screen and compare advantages to iPhoto)