I currently process my photos on a PC. My workflow begins with copying raw files onto the computer and viewing them first in Fast Picture Viewer. It allows me to 1-click zoom to 100% and 1-click copy a file to a "keep" folder that I will eventually process.
My question is this: Is there something similar available for the Mac? The conventional ways of viewing photos either within the file folder or with preview is simply too slow.
OS X Finder has the Cover Flow option when looking at a folder. When using this, your images appear as pages in a book which you can quickly flip through. If you need a bigger image, then "Quick Look" also in Finder works.
Since I process my shots generally one at a time, I use the loop tool in PhotoShop's Bridge for selecting to see which shots are more in focus, have less noise, etc.
Assuming your camera is supported by the latest Apple Raw update, i.e., it's not so new that the RAW profile hasn't made it into the system, then all you have to do is select as many photos as you wish (click drag, select folder, click-shift-click, etc.) then open with Preview. Most likely, simply double clicking on your selection will open Preview. OSX deals with RAW images at the system level so that any application which wishes to call the subroutine can open any supported file. You can also use other software. I've used PhotoMechanix in the past which was good. These days I do it all with Aperture. I find that I can do the download and "first cut" of the 500 or so shots from a game in 1/2 to 3/4 hour. This leaves me with keepers that are rated and in a non-destructive (proprietary) filing system. Other solutions also exist.
As "OntheRez" say's, Aperture is a great tool and for the cost $89 from the App store, it is a high end program. I find it way better that Lightroom. I can make a curves adjustment to get things right then if there is another area that needs modifying, I can add another curves adjustment and just brush in the adjustment where needed.
You can import the images directly to the Library, rename and keyword. or even make adjustments, at the same time make a copy in another location. All the adjustments are made without touching or changing the Raw file.
If you are really serious about photography this might be the way to go. As an alternative, you could use the free app iPhoto. Similar but without being able to do all the major adjustments. I think you can download a 30 day trial to see if you like it.
If you're doing 100 pics or less I'd just import them to either Lightroom or Aperture (kind of a ford vs. chevy decision on which one).
When I'm dealing with hundreds of pics (or more) I import using Photo Mechanic and only move my 'picks' to lightroom. Easy to add IPTC data, etc. Depends on your needs.
I have Lightroom on both my Mac and PC. Really just looking for a Mac program to do the 1st pass culling of shots before I got to LR. What's nice about FastPictureViewer on the PC is that 1 mouse click goes to 100% and one key press will copy to a different folder. I am not able to do either of those two functions using the catalog viewing mode in the folder or Preview.
The workflow begins when I insert the CF card into the Firewire card reader. That automatically opens the Bridge Downloader application. With it I can select which files to download, where they are stored, apply custom file names (retaining the original in the meta-data) and even applying a custom meta-data template.
Once loaded they appear in Bridge as thumbnails. Selecting the first one and then hitting the space bar opens it full screen and the rest can be toggled through with the arrow keys. While reviewing this way I use keyboard shortcuts (cmd+1) to mark with a star rating for first round culling of the "keepers". Then using the filter function in Bridge I can select the 1-star images, review again, and upgrade some to 2-stars to narrow the choices before starting the editing process.
