Iphoto 11 Previews Folder. How come I have pictures in the Previews folder?

Pictures in the Preview Folder that have not been edited:

Usual reason:

Your camera has an Auto-Rotate feature. However, the camera does not actually rotate any pixels in the file, but instead flags it with an instruction: "Display me this way". Apps that integrate with iPhoto - Web browsers, Mail apps, Word processors etc - don't understand these tags, so iPhoto, seeing the flag, reads the intention and creates a modified version. If it didn't then the pic would turn out sideways in these other apps.

. If you then try to Revert to Original, iPhoto will remove the edited version. However, when it then looks at the Original file again, it sees the flag, and creates a new rotated version. This loop will run as long as you Revert to the Original. The solution is to either a: turn off the Auto-Rotate feature on your camera or b: rotate the photos prior to importing them to iPhoto.

Faces - like Albums, references the photos in the Library. It does not duplicate.

Most people use iPhoto in the default setting - let the app copy the files to the Library package.

Your current scheme doesn't make a lot of sense:

1. You're using double the disk space - your copy outside of iPhoto and the one inside

2. Only importing some photos makes as much sense as only using Address Book for some addresses. Why not use it for all? What it actually means is that you're managing your photos with two apps - the Finder and iPhoto. Isn't it more simple to just use one - the one specifically designed for the job?

3. I've no idea what "a solid copy" is, but it's not even a back up unless it's on another Disk.

You sound like someone who doesn't quite trust iPhoto and so you're being cautious. Quite sensible. Until you understand the app and feel comfortable with it then by all means take your time. iPhoto is not the right app for everybody and may not be right for you.

If you have any questions by all means post again

Regards

TD

In PC, I have folders which are albums. When I want to copy an album to a flash drive, I just open "my pictures" and right click the folder I want and copy and paste the album. Now If i just use Iphoto, I can not find the album in the "masters" folder. The pictures are all scattered. This frightens me.

No need to be frightened.

You Export from iPhoto. You can choose to export Events or Albums, as you prefer. You can choose to export the Original photo or the edited versions (or indeed both) with or without the metadata that you have added.

If you're migrating to a new system then apps like iPhoto2Disk or PhotoShare will help you export to a Folder tree matching your Events.

So, the fact that the files are "scattered" isn't an issue.

The key is that you do everything in the iPhoto Window and iPhoto tracks the relationship between the iPhoto Window and the actual files.

Regards

TD

When I use export in Iphoto, I am asked if I want small, medium, or large photos. What if I want the original size? What size do I pick?

None of them. At the Kind dropdown you pick Original

That will get the Original file that you imported.

The only protection against corruption is back up. But really, how remote are you? How far from the nearest mac? Personally, I have multuple back ups, one made by Time Machine, three made by other apps. Two back ups are stored in my house, one in my car and one across town. And then I have my photos only backed up online.

But then, I have two Macs at my house and almost all my relatives and many of my friends use them. If you're the only Mac user you know you may have a point.

Regards

TD

Hello, i have the same problem, and in fact, my camera is set to Auto-rotate on both, PC and Camera. Now i noticed that i have a lot of 2010 photoes that can be restored to original and a lot of 2011, that have the 'restore to original' disabled, but all of these photoes have the Master and Modified versions. Maybe the latest version of iPhoto have a different way to auto-rotate.

Now i wish to get rid of the files in the Preview folder. I tried to move the folders inside to another folder outside of the library. Reopened iPhoto but the iPhoto menu still says that there are 2 versions: Master and modified. If i click on modified, it just opens finder because iPhoto can't locate the file.

Do i need to rebuild the library? At the moment i moved the folders back to Previews.

Please give me an advice about how to remove the Previews and keeping Masters only. My previews folder is 3gb and 20gb of masters.

Thank you.

Please give me an advice about how to remove the Previews and keeping Masters only

Very simply: You can't do that. End of story.

Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things,, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.

Regards

TD

Well, if i just manually delete the 'duplicate' photos? Can i then use the Rebuild iPhoto Library ?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2638

You can delete anything you want, it's your computer after all. But if you don't want these files why are you using iphoto? These are the files that other apps get when they interact with iPhoto.

Regards

TD

The fact is that i don't want duplicates. I'd like to keep only the modified (auto-rotated) photos on my HD. I don't need the not auto-rotated vertical photo.

I hope you understand. It's pointless to keep both, auto-rotated one and the master that is horizontal. That's just a space wasting.

Then either turn off Auto-Rotate on your camera, rotate the images before importing to iPhoto or don't use iphoto. Really, if you're concerned about disk space then forget about photography. It takes a lot of space, especially if you want to work losslessly. iPhoto creates no extra files, nothing unnecessary. They're all needed for the app to run

Regards

TD

Well, if i disable auto-rotate on my camera, iPhoto will import vertical shot pthotos horizontally. If i rotate them in iPhoto, i'll still have duplicates. The same photo with 2 different rotations. So tell me if it's not a wast of space? Or you keep your photos on your HD all horizontally and tilt your head to the left each time you see one vertically shot? If you shot only vertically and you have 20gb of these photos, you'd need to have 40gb because you have to rotate all of them horizontally. Don't you?

But maybe i found the solution: Importing the whole library to Aperture, keep modified and delete the masters, then re-import them back ti iPhoto and this way i'll have only masters.

if you're concerned about disk space then forget about photography. It takes a lot of space,

Keeping the digital negative and working losslessly is a great investment in disk storage for me

And in any case it is the way iPhpoto works so your choce is to use it the way it is or to use something else - we are just users like yourself and can telll you how it works based on our study and experiance but can not change anything

My iPhoto library is nearly 120 GB and growing

LN

But maybe i found the solution: Importing the whole library to Aperture, keep modified and delete the masters, then re-import them back ti iPhoto and this way i'll have only masters.

So, explain again why you use iPhoto or Aperture? You want a destructive workflow but use - not one but two apps that work specifically against what you want? Why on earth would you do that? Why not just use Aperture?