Wow, you readers have really come through on this one.
Here are the first emails out of dozens received in response to
Disadvantage Macintosh, in which
I bemoaned the incompatibility of Mac formatted CDs and flash drives
with the rest of the world. It turns out that starting with OS X 10.3, the
Mac's default is to burn a hybrid CD that can be used in both Macs and
Windows PCs, which is much better than the old days when you needed
third-party software to do that. The problem we ran into at Sam's Club
wasn't an incompatible CD, but a CD that one of their photo kiosks
couldn't mount - possibly a hardware problem on their side, possibly a
problem with iPhoto's export function (I use iPhoto 06) - something I
discovered working through the following emails. Read on....
dk
iPhoto Can Burn a Photo CD
From Tim Harness:
Strange, last spring I used iPhoto 5 to burn a slideshow to Photo CD
and my daughter was able to view it on an Xbox 360. My sister tried to
view a copy on her iMac G5 with the Kodak software that came with her
camera, and couldn't. You might've run into a Kodak issue instead of a
windows issue.
Tim
Tim,
I'm using iPhoto 06, and I can't find any option for
burning a Photo CD.
The only export options are Kodak (export to EasyShare, whatever that
means), File Export (which I use), Web Page (which I have almost no use
for), and QuickTime (which I don't see the sense of).
I remember the Photo CD system from Kodak, which
launched with great promise in 1992 and gave way to Picture CD later
on. Photo CD was a proprietary image format, not JPEG, which is part of
what killed it.
Even Apple's iPhoto documentation says that you can't
burn a CD from iPhoto. You have to follow the steps I shared: export to
disk, copy to a blank CD, then burn.
It's a terrible oversight. Maybe they've fixed it in
iPhoto 08.
Dan
Burning Photos to Cross-platform CDs
From Liam Greenwood:
Hi Dan
In iPhoto go to Help and search for the word "burn". The third item
returned is "Creating a CD or DVD to be viewed in Windows or by a photo
processing company". Sadly it's an export then burn from the Finder
process, however it is a process that doesn't require any other
software.
Cheers,
Liam
Liam,
It's a shame that a company that prides itself on
intuitive software can't do something as simple as let you burn your
photos to a CD within iPhoto.
Dan
Burning Mac CD-Rs and Windows
From Jeff Greiner:
Dan:
I work in a dual platform environment. I regularly use CD-Rs and
Flash drives to move data between the Mac (G5 2 gig dual) that sits
behind me and my Dell that sits on my desktop, since the IT people here
don't "want" my Mac hanging on their Windows network. After reading
your article, I got curious, threw a blank CD-R into the G5, used the
built in OS X burning features (just copied some PDF's over to the
untitled CD-R image), then burned the CD-R.
I ejected the CD-R, moved it to my Dell, inserted it, and up pops
the Window with my files. They copy over fine, and even launch from the
disc just fine. Am not sure why you are having problems, unless it is a
3rd party driver issue with some of those 3rd party apps you named in
the article.
At home we are still using an old G3 iMac, with 10.3.X on it, and we
do the same thing using a 3rd party FireWire CD burner. I routinely
copy JPEGs over to CD and take them in to the Walgreen's to have photos
printed. My office Mac is running 10.4.10.
Jeff Greiner
Jeff,
Thanks for writing.
I don't use Windows unless I have no choice, so I'm
only reporting problems I've run into burning CDs for family and
friends - and using a flash drive. The problem with the CD used at
Sam's Club is that I did what seemed the obvious thing to do: Insert a
blank CD-R, select images in iPhoto, and export them to that disc.
It should oughta work, but it resulted in a CD that
couldn't be read on the photo kiosk. That's not very Mac-like
behavior.
Dan
CD Burning from iPhoto
From Jim Brandt:
Hi Dan
I just finished reading your article about burning a CD on a Mac
that is readable in Windows. I've burned a number of CDs from the
Finder on a Mac and have never had a problem reading them on a Windows
machine.
I believe the problem has to do with iPhoto. When burning from
iPhoto, it is burned as a Mac-only CD. While it would be nice to have
an option to burn it as a hybrid CD, iPhoto is Mac-only software so at
least Apple's decision makes some sense.
Apple has a support
doc on burning CDs of photos for use on Windows or at a store.
Thanks for Low End Mac. I've looked at it every day for years - it's
like a part of my daily routine :-)
Jim Brandt
Jim,
Thanks for writing - and visiting daily. The support
doc has the same steps found in iPhoto help and that I discovered on my
own. I'm still perplexed why Export would create a Mac-only CD, as
there's no reason to assume that because someone exported images from
iPhoto that they're going to end up on another Mac.
Dan
Exporting to CD from iPhoto
From Fred Goff:
Mr. Knight,
There is an easier solution to your iPhoto issue.
- Make sure your system preferences is set to mount blank CD-Rs in
the Finder.
- Insert a blank CD-R
- Export your iPhoto pictures to the Untitled CD folder
- Burn the CD from the Finder. In Tiger, and I think Panther as well,
this will make a Mac/Windows hybrid CD.
Fred,
That's exactly what I did. For some reason I ended up
with a CD that the photo kiosk at Sam's Club could not recognize. One
reader tells me that when you export images to CD from iPhoto, it
defaults to a Mac-only disc format.
Dan
Well, I'm not sure what to tell you. I did it both ways, choosing
burn CD from iPhoto and doing the export to a burn folder and then
burning from the Finder, and both types made UDF CD-ROMs, which Windows
can read and use. I tested both in Windows, and they showed up fine,
even being recognized as a picture CD by Windows and prompting me how I
wanted to handle the pictures on the disk. I'm using iLife 08 and the
latest Tiger, so perhaps that is the difference.
In any event, this is obviously not a general issue and so does not
deserve your blanket criticism. Might I suggest that in the future you
might want to a little more due diligence before going off on, what
was, frankly, a bit of a rant.
Fred,
You're right. This was the first time I'd burned a CD
from iPhoto and taken it to Sam's Club for printing; in the past, we've
just used the camera's memory card. After further discussion and
testing, it seems the problem isn't iPhoto or OS X (which nowadays
burns hybrid Mac/PC discs by default), but with the photo kiosk.
Dan
Toast Rocks
From Adam:
Hi Dan,
You write in your latest column regarding CD burning:
(I'm not a Toast user, but I suspect it's the same
story there. Dragon Burn costs half as much.)
I've been using Toast since v3 when Astarte owned it, writing CDs to
my $1,200 2x external SCSI CD-R (ouch . . . and blanks were
$10 each). It's a bit more expensive but very stable and highly
capable. Mac/Windows cross platform data-discs are the default format,
along with Audio CDs, Video DVDs, Camcorder captures, TiVo support,
etc. The program supports both Apple's built-in drives and most third
party recorders. I highly recommend it.
I agree; it's unfortunate that Apple doesn't support burning DOS
format CDs, although I've been using Toast so long that I never really
noticed! Will need to give Dragon Burn a look, haven't used that
one.
Adam
Burning CD-Rs with Photos
From Shaun Wolfson :
Dan,
You can totally burn a PC compatible - ISO 9660 CD in the Mac Finder
with no third party apps necessary.
You can even drag your iPhotos straight to the CD icon on your
desktop right from iPhoto. Drag and drop, then burn your CD.
Shaun Wolfson
Shaun,
Thanks for writing. There are some problems with that.
First, you have to figure out which image out of dozens or hundreds
shot the same day (116 in this case), as the files all have generic
icons. And you have to know where to look for the image(s) you need.
Once you've done that, drag and drop is easy.
The problem is that iPhoto doesn't have a way of
exporting images to a CD that Windows PCs can use. As far as I can
tell, it insists on burning in a Mac-only format and gives you no other
options.
Dan
I am not understand your work flow. Here is what I do when I take my
pictures to Costco or send a CD to friends from an event they were
at.
In iPhoto, make the screen smaller so you can see your desktop.
Insert a blank CD. Select the pictures that you want to burn in iPhoto,
not in your Finder. From iPhoto drag the reselected pictures to the CD
icon on your desktop. Then in your finder click burn CD.
Shaun
Shaun,
It turns out the problem wasn't my workflow, which
I've since verified works with a Windows PC, but apparently the photo
kiosk at the local Sam's Club was the source of the problem.
Dan
Burn PC Readable Discs
From Taras R. Hnatyshyn:
Dan,
I think if you use the menu rather than the icon you should get the
choice for which format to burn the disc in Burning
a CD or DVD [Mac OS X 10.4 Help].
Taras
Taras,
Thanks for writing. As that article note, by default
OS X 10.4 produces discs using an HFS+/ISO 9660 hybrid format with
HFS+, ISO-9660 with Rock Ridge, and Joliet with Rock Ridge. This should
be readable on any Mac, Windows PC, Linux system, etc., and I'm trying
to figure out how and why it's creating a disc that's unreadable on the
(probably Fujifilm) photo kiosk at Sam's Club.
I've tried the intuitive process again: Put in a blank
CD, choose pictures in iPhoto, export to the CD image, and then burn.
This time I also dug out my Acer Aspire notebook, a cheap Windows PC I
bought a couple years ago when LEM wasn't working with IE 6. (It's a
pretty pathetic computer. Who would have thought a 1.4 GHz computer
could feel excruciatingly slow or that anyone would sell a notebook PC
with a 45 minute battery?)
Anyhow, I put the burned disc in the Acer, and it
recognized it. As I'm typing this, it's running a slide show of images
from last weekend's church musical. It looks like the problem isn't Mac
OS X, its default CD format, or iPhoto; it looks like the photo
kiosk at the local Sam's Club may be the problem.
Dan
Problems with Dragon Burn
From Scott Cook:
Hey Dan,
I vaguely remember that iPhoto CDs don't work with other software.
Most Mac users should have a copy of Roxio Toast these days. I have
multiple OEM copies here that came with CD burners over the years. Just
open Toast, select "Data" as the disc type, name the disc (or else
it'll be named "My Disc"), drag and drop your .jpg files into the Toast
window, and click the big red record button. Toast will ask you some
questions about how you want to burn the disc, and then it burns it.
Toast is by far the finest CD burning software ever. It really isn't
even close.
I have used NTI
Dragon Burn in the past. I absolutely hate it. It is unstable,
burns coasters, and NTI would not refund my money. They have come out
with newer versions since then, but I will never purchase anything from
NTI again. You are the only person I have ever heard say they liked
Dragon Burn.
I probably sound like a Roxio salesman or something. The truth is
the latest version of Toast I have is Toast 6 Titanium with Jam 6. I
don't see any reason to upgrade to newer versions. I would have stayed
with the excellent Toast 5 Titanium with Jam 5 except I needed to
encode and author .mpeg2 video DVDs with my G3, which version 6 does a
beautiful job of. Toast with Jam 5 has the advantage of running in both
OS 9 and OS X. Toast 6 with Jam 6 and newer is OS X
only.
If you intend to encode high quality .mpeg2 video you should get the
Titanium version. If you intend to encode Dolby digital audio, you
should get Jam 6 with Toast 6. Jam 5 and 6 is primarily for audio
disks. If you only work with data disks you don't need Jam at all.
Toast 5 is capable of encoding and authoring .mpeg1 video CDs (VCDs)
but not .mpeg2 DVDs. Toast 6 is handy for making multiple copies of a
disc without having to keep clicking on the big red record button each
time like you do in Toast 5.
So in short, for OS 9 and OS X, get Toast 5. For video DVDs, get
Toast 6 Titanium. For audio discs, get Jam 5 or 6 with Toast 5 or 6.
Don't buy any other disc burning software no matter how cheap it
is. Buy Toast 5 or 6 used and never look back.
I burn discs professionally. I have probably burned 100,000 discs
per year for the past few years now. Toast is as good as it gets.
Anyone wanna buy my copy of NTI Dragon Burn? (laugh)
Scott Cook
Scott,
Thanks for sharing your findings. Reviews of Dragon
Burn are decidedly mixed, ranging from those who have been very happy
with it to those who found it unusable - with few opinions in between.
That's why I strongly recommend try before you buy. (On MacUpdate, it rates 3.5
out of 5, and on Version
Tracker the latest version rates 2.9 out of 5.)
I've used Dragon Burn on my eMac and now use it on my
Power Mac, as both have non-Apple SuperDrives (Pioneer DVR-110D, which
it a 16x burner that supports DVD-R, DVD+R, and dual-layer - and cost
only $60 two years ago when my eMac's optical drive failed out of
warranty). Between that and PatchBurn, I've had no reason to invest
in Toast, which is definitely the gold standard of disc burning
software.
Dan
Drag and Drop from iPhoto
From Miguel Alcantara:
Hi Dan,
I'm a long time fan of your site. I enjoy your articles and also all
the other columns; you guys are top three in the Mac Web for me! I find
you guys to be very honest when it comes to writing about Macs, and I
especially enjoy the articles where you veer off and talk about
personal stuff (life, faith, your deep inner thoughts about buying an
Intel Mac, etc.); I find this journalistic honesty very comforting and
always look forward to new content.
Regarding your problem with exporting to iPhoto, I have had a
similar experience, and it frustrated me. I found a really easy work
around by inserting a blank CD, then selecting all the pictures in the
album and dragging them into the CD folder and hitting burn.
I hope this helps,
Miguel
Miguel,
Thanks for writing and for your high opinion of Low
End Mac. Our official policy at Cobweb Publishing is that real life
comes first; Macs are just tools, and writing about them sometimes need
to take a back seat to divorce, illness, being deployed to Iraq or the
Balkans, studies, etc. We don't too often make that the subject of a
whole article, but sometimes it's important to share our stories and
remind our readers that people are always more important than
things.
As for burning CDs from iPhoto, at this point it looks
like the problem is the photo kiosk at Sam's Club, as I burned another
disc this morning, put it in my Acer laptop, and it mounted just
fine.
Using drag and drop from iPhoto never occurred to me,
but thanks for the suggestion. Just one more way Apple gives us to burn
pictures to disc. :-)
Dan
No Problem on Win 98 and XP
From Steven Hunter:
I have burned lots of CDs and DVDs of files for PC users over the
years with OS X. In fact I just did both a "Share" -> "Burn"
and a "File" -> "Export", "drag to CD and burn" of some pictures
from iPhoto 06 (on my Early 2006 Intel iMac with 10.4.10), and both
discs are perfectly readable in a Windows XP machine without any
special software (in fact it was freshly installed with Service Pack 2
only). A Win98 PC was able to read it without problems either.
Anecdotally at least, it would seem that the fault lies with the
photo printing place's computer and not OS X.
Steven Hunter
Steven,
Thanks for writing. Later testing on my Windows laptop
(every time I have to use Windows, I seem to hate it more, so I avoid
using that machine as much as possible) showed that it can mount CDs.
It's the photo kiosk that has the problem.
Dan
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
