Does iPhoto 9 duplicate things from finder?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. It copies the photos into the library as long as you're running the default library setup. Check iPhoto's Advanced preference pane to see that the option to copy photos into iPhoto when imported is selected. It should be as it's the default.

Click to view full size

If that check box is checked then you can delete the folders of photos that are outside iPhoto.

Here's a tip:

I have been transferring photos into folders in Finder

This is file management. iPhoto is designed to make that unnecessary. Basically it frees you to organise your Photos by letting it manage the files.

does this create a duplicate of all of my pictures or does it just create a link to finder?

By default it creates a duplicate - iPhoto copies the file into its Library. You can change this, but I don't recommend that you do.

*How to do it:*

Simply go to iPhoto Menu -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck 'Copy Files to the iPhoto Library on Import'.

*What Happens:*

Now iPhoto will not copy the files, but rather simply reference them on your HD. To do this it will create an alias in the Originals Folder that points to your file. It will still create a thumbnail and, if you modify the pics, a Modified version within the iPhoto Library Folder.

*Some things to consider:*

1. Importing and deleting pics are more complex procedures. You have to to put the files where they will be stored before importing them. When you delete them you'll need to remove the files from the HD yourself.
2. You cannot move or rename the files on your system or iPhoto will lose track of them on systems prior to 10.5 and iPhoto 08. Even with the later versions issues can still arise if you move the referenced files to new volumes or between volumes.
3. Most importantly, migrating to a new disk or computer can be much more complex.
4. Because iPhoto has no tools for managing Referenced Files, if, for some reason, the path to the photos changes then you could find yourself resolving aliases for +each photo in the Library+ one by one.

My own opinion:

I've yet to see a good reason to run iPhoto in referenced mode unless you're using two photo organiser

If disk space is an issue, you can run an entire iPhoto Library from an external disk:

1. Quit iPhoto

2. Copy the iPhoto Library as an entity from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.

3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.

4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.

If you're concerned about accessing the files, There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto:

*For Users of 10.5 and later*

You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Command-Click for selecting multiple pics.



You can access the Library from the New Message Window in Mail:



*For users of 10.4 and later* ...

Many internet sites such as Flickr and SmugMug have plug-ins for accessing the iPhoto Library. If the site you want to use doesn’t then some, one or any of these will also work:

To upload to a site that does not have an iPhoto Export Plug-in the recommended way is to Select the Pic in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export and export the pic to the desktop, then upload from there. After the upload you can trash the pic on the desktop. It's only a copy and your original is safe in iPhoto.

This is also true for emailing with Web-based services. However, if you're using Gmail you can use iPhoto2GMail

If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.

If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.

*If you want to access the files with iPhoto not running*:

For users of 10.6 and later:
You can download a free Services component from MacOSXAutomation which will give you access to the iPhoto Library from your Services Menu. Using the Services Preference Pane you can even create a keyboard shortcut for it.

For Users of 10.4 and later:
Create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use this free utility Karelia iMedia Browser

Other options include:

1. *Drag and Drop*: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.

2. *File -> Export*: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.

3. *Show File*: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.

You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.

Note that iPhoto sends a copy+ of the file to Photoshop, so when you save be sure to use the Save command, not Save As... If you use Save As then you're creating a new file and iPhoto has no way of knowing about this new file. iPhoto is preserving your original anyway.

Regards

TD

1 - remember iPhoto is designed as a photo management system for +digital cameras+ - so its basic design and default operation is to copy photos to the iPhoto library and keep them safely there- always keeping the original as the digital negative - this default operation is a +managed library+

2 - while there is a mode where you can reference files external to the iPhoto library using a referenced library - this is strongly discouraged and is the cause of many, many of the problems that people have with iPhoto and generally causes them to lose photos or at least have to start over and lose all of the editing and work they have done in iPhoto

3 - as to duplicated - totally up to you - once a photo is import into iPhoto in a managed library you simply delete the source so there is no duplicate

LN

Terence Devlin wrote:
This is file management. iPhoto is designed to make that unnecessary. Basically it frees you to organise your Photos by letting it manage the files.

That's all well and good, but my concern is that I may not use iphoto forever. If I ever want to transfer my photos to another operating system or put them on a disk, I want them to stay organised in in folders in a particular way, which is different from the way iphoto organises photos internally.

I could simply keep the originals, but I don't have enough disk space for this. (If only iphoto was able to track moved files the way itunes can.)

I'd be happy to use the file referencing system and did switch to that mode, but unfortunately only realised that iphoto made duplicates after it had already done so for a lot of files.

My question: Is there a way I can switch to a fully file referenced system (ie effectively delete the copies in the iphoto folder and replace them with aliases to my original files in my own organisation of folders) without losing the data iphoto has associated with the photos eg faces, places etc (I'll call that "meta data" though I don't know if I'm using the term correctly)?

I've discovered the labourious solution of copying the iphoto version of the file (by browsing inside the taboo iphoto package folder) onto my original version to override it (thereby keeping the meta data) then creating an alias to put in the iphoto folder and deleting the iphoto version. I discovered that I also needed to delete the word "alias" from the name of the aliases in order for this to work. So far I've only done this for a handful of files. Please tell me there's an easier way!

Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Mezzomaniac

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

My question: Is there a way I can switch to a fully file referenced system (ie effectively delete the copies in the iphoto folder and replace them with aliases to my original files in my own organisation of folders) without losing the data iphoto has associated with the photos eg faces, places etc (I'll call that "meta data" though I don't know if I'm using the term correctly)?

The only way to do that is to manually replace the actual files with aliases that point to your preferred location. You'll need to do that for each file, one by one.

Of course, there's no need to.

For a start, none of the metadata that you have added in iPhoto - keywords, titles, places (and faces, but they are a special case) is preserved in this way. That data +is not in the photo file+. It's all stored in the iPhoto database file.

but my concern is that I may not use iphoto forever. If I ever want to transfer my photos to another operating system or put them on a disk, I want them to stay organised in in folders in a particular way, which is different from the way iphoto organises photos internally.

So, what you do is organise your photos in the iPhoto Window the way you want them to be. Then, should you choose to migrate at some point in the future to another app or system:

Select an Event or Album in the iPhoto Window.

File -> Export. Check the boxes at 'Places Information' and 'Titles and Keywords'

Export.

This will write the following data to the actual files as they export:

Keywords, Titles, Descriptions, Places. They are written to the IPTC metadata which is a Standard Metadata. Result a Folder of Images complete with metadata as you want.

Simply there is no way to get this metadata out of iPhoto without exporting, regardless of how you set up your Library.

As I mentioned Faces are a special case. There is no defined standard for this information, no place to write this information in either Exif, IPTC or XMP metadata (and that's all the forms there is). So, bluntly, there's no way to share Faces with any other app on any other system. This is true o all forms of Facial Recognition on all systems.

Regards

TD

If I ever want to transfer my photos to another operating system or put them on a disk, I want them to stay organised in in folders in a particular way

If you organize your photos into aptly named folder prior to importing into iPhoto the Events and event folders with the same name. As long as you don't move photos into other events they will remain in those folders. If you ever want to move to another system you can simply move the Originals folder and its subfolders out of the library and begin using them with your new DAM (digital asset manager) app.

There is no way to convert from a manage library to a referenced one. If you are determined to do so I would start over from scratch by moving the Originals folder out of the library to where you want to permanently keep them and create a new, referenced library.

If you want to keep the basic metadata fields, title, keywords and descriptions, if you follow the first 9 steps of Old Toad's Tutorial #1 - Recovering Keywords and Rolls From a Damaged or Crashed iPhoto 6 or 7 Library for a New Library. those fields will be written to the original files and will go with them to whatever new system you use that can read and use the IPTC fields.

Thank you Terence Devlin and Old Toad for your help. Since I only want 1 copy of my files (to preserve space), you demonstrated for me that it's better to have only the iphoto copy and delete my originals, which I've now done, and I've switched back to file managing rather than referencing, and plan to keep deleting originals as I go. For the files that had already been referenced I overwrote the references (the aliases) with my originals, and it's all fine now. I also re-imported some files that I wanted arranged into different folders.

Cheers!