Importing Images on the Mac

Image Capture has emerged as my software of choice to bring photos onto my Mac from my camera. Why? Because I have more control over the process than when I use iPhoto.

Not only that, but iPhoto has been taking forever to recognize my camera. In fact, I end up force-quitting iPhoto after staring at the spinning beach ball for too long. When I first started using my camera, iPhoto recognized it quickly. My friend's Sony camera was always recognized quickly, too. I don't know the source of the slowdown.

Aside from that, there are other reasons why using Image Capture has its advantages.

It opens faster.
You can choose which photos to download. (it's all or nothing with iPhoto)
You can also download movie files if you have any. (iPhoto can't)
Thumbnail previews of everything you've got on your memory card. (iPhoto shows only one thumbnail as you download, which is of no help)
You can choose which photos to delete from the camera or have all of them automatically deleted. (iPhoto can only auto delete everything)

Sold? Go to Image Capture->Preferences to set it as the default to open instead of iPhoto when you connect a camera.

Note that I still use iPhoto for cataloging my images. I'm only talking about the process of getting them onto the computer.