cannot drag and drop photos into folder on desktop from iphoto

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Level 1

8 points

cannot drag and drop photos into folder on desktop from iphoto

Hope you can help. I was backing up a lot of photos onto an external disk yesterday, both from iPhoto and Bridge.

The photos that are now left in iPhoto cannot be dragged and dropped into a folder on my desktop. I had been doing this yesterday and it was working fine.

I also seem to have lost the RAW information from all the Photos and they will now only open in Photoshop if I drag them to the Photoshop icon on my desktop but they are only opening as JPEGs. Before that I could right click the Photo and choose open in external editor, it won't let me do that anymore.

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro 2008, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Apr 30, 2011 4:14 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 30, 2011 6:04 AM in response to AdeleS

Maybe your iPhoto > Preferences > Advanced > Importing settings aren't set to "Copy items to the iPhoto Library"? If that's the case, iPhoto only references the photos from their containing folder without duplicating them, and if you move or delete that folder iPhoto looses the link to the originals photos.

If your iPhoto > Preferences > Advanced > Importing settings are set to "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" then the problem may also be related to what I consider a user interface bug in Mac OS X which allows you to access the content of the the iPhoto Library very easily from the Finder, which shouldn't happen (the iPhoto Library has been made into a monolitic file package in the latest versions of iLife specifically to prevent this):

Just search for any JPEG file into your hard disk and presto, every photo contained into that iPhoto Library file package appears in the Finder ready to be easily moved and deleted by the user, corrupting the iPhoto Library!

Maybe the new photos come up as JPEGs because iPhoto converts the RAW files to JPEG as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2297?viewlocale=en_US#one

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Answer 2

AdeleS Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 30, 2011 5:06 AM in response to Yer_Man

I was dragging them into folders from iphoto onto the desktop, then dragging the folders to a Passport external disk.

I was also dragging folders from Bridge onto the external disk.

Once the files were on the external disk, I deleted them from the laptop.

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Answer 3

AdeleS Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 30, 2011 5:16 AM in response to Yer_Man

Yes, from iphoto window onto the desktop where I had created folders. I right clicked and deleted them from iphoto window to iphoto trash and also from Bridge to the trash can.

Was Bridge working on the same Photos? Well yes, I think so. Though my photos are all uploaded from my camera to iPhoto, I then work from there and bring them into Photoshop. When I save the finished file, I save it into a new folder which shows up in Bridge. Very confusing I know. Now I did have two folders in Bridge which I deleted, one named Originals and Originals Alias. So could that be the problem?

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Answer 4

Apr 30, 2011 5:18 AM in response to AdeleS

Did you try some of the "Rebuild iPhoto Library" options? (they appear if you keep pressed both the ALT and the CMD key while launching iPhoto).

Try the "Examine and repair iPhoto Library file permissions" first.

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Answer 5

AdeleS Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 30, 2011 5:25 AM in response to AdeleS

I took another couple of photos and loaded them into iPhoto. They are working normally and will edit as RAW in Photoshop like the others did before.

But, if I try to drag the photos to a folder on the desktop, it will let me but they only appear as JPEGs in the new folder.

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Answer 6

Apr 30, 2011 5:31 AM in response to AdeleS

Are the JPEGs hires or lowres? (I fear that the previous photos you still see in iPhoto may only be the JPG previews built by iPhoto in order to display them. You could have lost the original photos when deleting them from the Finder)

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Answer 7

AdeleS Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 30, 2011 5:35 AM in response to plopthegeek

Resolution is 72. I think you are right that I may have lost the original photos. Not too worried about that as there aren't that many left. But why are new photos coming up as JPEGs too?

Thanks for all your help so far, much appreciated 🙂

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