Where does iPhoto store imported photos?

As I said above the Current version is the Preview, middle quality everything.

Want lossless, export Tiff

Want high quality Jpeg then use the high or maximum quality setting at Jpeg Quality

In either case check the boxes at Title and Keywords and Location Information to get all the metadata.

Export at Full Size to get the same dimensions.

Png doesn't support metadata.

Regards

TD

Nikon D5000 jpg at 5.8MB. Imported, modified then exported:-

1. current 4.9MB

2. Full 10.3 MB

3. Tiff 36.6 MB

Huge size differences but honestly cant see any difference viewing or printing, even zoomed in. In practice for the home user "current" seems Ok to me. Maybe I need a better camera.

But if your need is simply to recover the photos from a time machine backup or for moving them to a new hard drive / windows machine, etc., then copying all files from that directory shouldn't cause any problems. Moving, manipulating, or otherwise tampering with the files is ill advised if you want to preserve them, but for restoration purposes it shouldn't cause any problems and is probably the easiest way.

Are you saying iPhoto export to PNG doesnt suport it, because PNG does support MetaData..

png supports a very limited subset of standard metadata.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Comparison_to_other_file_ formats

The PNG specification does not include a standard for embedded Exif image data from sources such as digital cameras. TIFF, JPEG 2000, and DNG support EXIF data.

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTC_Information_Interchange_Model

IIM metadata can be embedded into JPEG/Exif or TIFF formatted image files. Other file formats such as JPEG2000, Portable Network Graphics and GIF do not support IIM.

It simply does not support IPTC at all.

Regards

TD

But if your need is simply to recover the photos from a time machine backup...

That doesn't work. Remember a TM back up is in increments, so accessing one particular snapshot this way will not necessarily find all of your photos. To restore from Time Machine you need to restore the whole library.

And, of course, for your ther point: File -> Export achieves the exact same thing - by design.

Regards

TD

Huge size differences but honestly cant see any difference viewing or printing, even zoomed in. In practice for the home user "current" seems Ok to me.

Well I did point out that it was good for most common purposes. However, you are still missing metadaata and, of course, when you delete the files from iPhoto (as you do in your scheme) you lose the lossless editing feature.

As I said already - you're a grown up, you can decide to do what you want. But what you're doing is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what iPhoto is and you're using that misunderstanding to complain about iPhoto.

Given what I guess is your aim from your description of what you’re doing, it can all be achieved more effectively with iPhoto, less work and more data safety.

Y'all have a nice day now.

I believe it did contain every one of her old photos because I loaded the most recent vesion of her iphoto library and unpacked it. Since the iphoto library is condensed into a single file, it contained every file... even those that hadn't been changed or updated recently.

@Oversoul,

It worked so that's all that matters. sometimes you need to take risks if the alternative is total loss.

BUT, does TimeMachine really backup the whole iphoto library as a single file every backup if just one photo is changed???

does TimeMachine really backup the whole iphoto library as a single file every backup if just one photo is changed???

No. That's my point. It works incrementally. First run it backs up the lot. Thereafter it notes changes to that first back up.

Regards

TD

@Peter,

Apple only users don’t understand the ease of how you can just access files; they rely on apps to do everything from what I can tell. I'm not bashing the Apple users at all it's just a matter of two worlds colliding with each side not understanding the others methods or operation.

Coming from a Windows world I still find myself more productive on a PC whereas my work comes to a crawl at times using a Mac. You can say that’s because I am still a convert but I would think after two years of use the bar would even up. I find the file management on the Mac to be Windows 3.1 ish and the applications so linear in operation. I can’t tell you how many little quirks I run into daily where it's like I am dealing with an unfinished operating system. Let’s face it’s there is no real change to the overall look and feel of the OS since its first release, it’s just flasher since getting off the Motorola chip platform. It’s almost like Apple has neglected its user base to focuses on the iOS. If you don’t think so take a deeper look at the next OSX update. Apple is converting the Mac into a iOS device with each release which is the wrong direction, it’s a computer not a big tablet. In reality the computer side of Apple’s business only makes up 9 to 11 percent of their total market with the iPad and iPhone/Pod making up the rest of the pie.

Also I would like to point out again all the senior Apples users in the forums do a great job of describing how to use the software in the Supported methods, and point out the dangers of straying from the path. Not a bad thing because it’s good to educate users on proper operation. The flip side is some users wish to use a more efficient way of directly accessing their data outside of an application. When you can select 30 thousand plus files and copy them to a different location with a couple of key stroke on a keyboard will be much faster than using some applications. It really boils down to workflow and the method the end user is comfortable with. I state this after reading page after page in this thread and others for such a simple answer. It’s like the file manager is omitted from the solution because its considered unsupported. I have yet to find any official documentation that backs this statement up of being unsupported from Apple.

Let’s face it the debate and bantering will go on forever between the two platforms. It really boils down to PC users know there is an easier way to do it and Apple users will disagree. Both sides have their issues just like both sides may have a better way of doing something. From my years of observation and usage what I can tell a PC user will admit that something is a piece of crap like Windows NT, ME, and Vista where an Mac users will defend the mistakes Apple makes.

Windows 3.1ish? Jeez. ( I was using Windows 3.1 up to a few years ago on an old piece of equipment, and that sir is a rank lie!)

I use Macs at home and PC's at work and find that there really isn't all that much difference anymore. iPhoto is nice because I can put *zero* effort into organizing my photos, but can still find any particular photo pretty easily, which I believe is the point.

(I don't like the Windows 7 filing system because it tends to hide files and put them in other places because of permission issues.)

Funny how now we want to report people now considering i was the only one at the beginning of this thread that answered the question on the file location... Everyone else wanted to tell you how to use the program...

OCD to the max

Hi Cmhall8, I saw your review of Toodledo in the app store reviews and I had a question for you and this seems to be the only way I can send you a message, so sorry if it's the wrong place.

You say you don't like the app because it won't let you manually order items, which is one of my biggest complaints of almost all the to-do apps out there. But then you say you like Todo, so I assumed you could do it there. I downloaded it and it doesn't seem like you can manually order your tasks there. Am I missing something? The app 'Errands' is otherwise perfect for me, but the sync is terrible. Any pointers you can give is appreciated.

Thanks,

Neil

Hi,

I'd like to ask whoever defending to use iPhoto and not to access the photo files directly. What if (and this happens to my friends) after updating iPhotos recently, the iPhoto database is corrupted and all the 45GB worth of photos stored in iPhoto are inaccessible and when iPhoto is started, it's just like a brand new iPhoto?

Should my friend just sue Apple of destroying the iPhoto database? Or should my friend try to recover it by finding where iPhoto stores the photo files?

Oh, and please do not say "It's your friend's fault because he should have back them up using Time Machine". We are not talking about back up mechanism. Just talking about whether accessing the photo files directly is necessary or not.

Cheers,

Wins

I feel sorry for cmhall8. He asked a simple question and started a war between group of people who's ego's are so delicate they have to prove that they know more that the other. Most of the point are condescending and obtuse. I think that you should all just realise that when the original post was made, all the guy (or gal, sorry) was looking for was a simple answer that said if you go file/open and click on the camera icon you will find your pictures. No one asked for a discussion regarding the myriad file formats available to the use and what they all mean. No wanted to know the meaning of life is 42, they just wanted a simple and above all concise answer.

On the plus side reading this has given me the best laugh I've had in ages.