I have 5,200 photos in my 2011 Library. I'm trying to better organize my photos, so I select the Photos option and I drag images from one location to another. There has got to be an easier way because it takes quite a while to drag and find the other images that I want to bring them to. I have also merged some events though that only works if all of the images in the events belong together.
Thanks.
You're not really telling us very muc about your current system there, so here's a generic answer that might spark some ideas for you.
I use Events simply as big buckets of Photos: Spring 08, July - Nov 06 are typical Events in my Library. I use keywords and Smart Albums extensively. I title the pics broadly.
I keyword on a
Who
What
Where basis (The When is in the photos's Exif metadata). I also rate the pics on a 1 - 5 star basis.
Using this system I can find pretty much find any pic in my 40k library in a couple of seconds.
So, for example, I have a batch of pics titled 'Seattle 08' and a typical keywording might include: John, Anne, Landscape, mountain, trees, snow. With a rating included it's so very easy to find the best pics we took at Mount Rainier.
File -> New Smart Album
set it to 'All"
title contains Seattle
keyword is mountain
keyword is snow
rating is 5 stars
Or, want a chronological album of John from birth to today?
New Smart Album
Keyword is John
Set the View options to Sort By Date Ascending
Want only the best pics?
add Rating is greater than 4 stars
The best thing about this system is that it's dynamic. If I add 50 more pics of John to the Library tomorrow, as I keyword and rate them they are added to the Smart Album.
In the end, organisation is about finding the pics. The point is to make locating that pic or batch of pics findable fast. This system works for me.
The problem with the dates is usually related to the format of the dates you've chosen in the SystemPreferences / Date and Time.
Do you have that set to a standard setting or a custom setting - if it is custom trh the standard setting
Using edit date/time on the photo menu in iPhoto.
And remember we can not see you - there are two commande - neither are edit date/time
THere is a Adjust date/time command which is used for fixing incorrect camera settings and a batch change date/tiem command that is used for photos with no embedded dates like scans
LN
Adjust Date and Time - which I guess you're referring to - is used for situations where the date and time metadata exists and needs to be corrected - for instance if you forgot to adjust the time settings on your camera when you change time zone. This command allows you correct for that.
A command to change 1970 to 2012 would be gibberish in this case, and that might explain the results you've gotten.
You need to use the Batch Change command, and you need to supply a day and mont, as well. In this situation I might use 1/1/2012 for early in the year. 1/6 for summer and so on.
Thanks Terence. I didn't quite follow that - what is 'metadata'?. This is exactly that situation I thought I was in - I had a few photos with a date ending 1970, which I had put down to a camera not having the date set. As the day and month were irrelevant, I only changed the year, leaving the day and year as they were already. Are you saying that you can only change for a few hours difference? If this is so, I think Apple could make this a LOT clearer. And why this has universally changed most of my photos seems barmy when I had only selected a few.
Alas running repair on my photos hasn't fixed the problem.
I took a look at my settings in system preferences. It doesn't seem to have a 'standard' choice. Date and time is 'set automatically' to European time. formats are set to Gregorian, but I'm sure I haven't changed this.
The command was 'adjust date and time' - I couldnt' see it because repair was running so I had to guess.
Metadata is, literally, data about data. For instance, a filename is metadata - tells you something about the stuff in the file. As photos have no text the date and time are recorded in a subdivision of the file, tacked on to the photo, so to speak. There are two main kinds: Exif records camera settings - date and time, camera make and model and lots and lots of information about the camera settings and so on. IPTC is another form that would contain information like keyword, captions and the like.
A photo app - iPhoto, Photoshop whatever - gets the date and time of the photo from the Exif. That's how it knows when the photo was taken. If your photo has no metadata, or it has been lost, then it cannot know when the shot was taken. The Adjust date and time command assumes that there is date and time to adjust, for if there isn't, how can it adjust?
With this command you don't set the date and time, you look at the date and time there and calculate how much it needs to be adjusted by. So you add to or subtract time from the existing time. If that's not there, or damaged, then you'll have unexpected results.
As for what Apple should or shouldn't make clear, it's difficult to gauge. I've never been asked "what is metadata?" before. Bluntly, every application I've ever used on any operating system has had poor documentation - some is just plain missing, some assumes too much knowledge, some too little.
In this case I think you should be using the Batch Change command.
That was VERY thorough!
My photos had a date and time however and for some unknown reason, the date and time error has propagated. I showed this to the guy in the Apple shop today and he was perplexed. It seems to do a random calculation that subtracts around a century from the year. I'm in 1943-45 on most data (which points to it not being random, but being a function of the original date.) The 1970 photots that I WANTED to change are now in 1834!!
So, the original data could be damaged, but I can't understnad the replication of the fault over other photos (most of them).
As for Apple making it clear, are you sayikng that this is a freak event because if not, then every menu item should be WYSIWYG surely?
Yes it is a freak event - I've never seen it posted here before
LN
As for Apple making it clear, are you sayikng that this is a freak event because if not, then every menu item should be WYSIWYG surely?
I'm saying Apple are ****** if they do and ****** if they don't. If they try and word every command for those folks who don't know - for instance - what metadata is, then they'll really annoy those for whom that's basic information - and vice versa.
As for why the rest of your photos have been changed I have no idea.
Pick one of the images changed unintenionally. Export it
File -> Export
in the Export dialogue set the Kind to Jpeg
Then open it in Preview. Using the Tools Menu, show the Inspector. What date does it show for the file?
Exported as jpeg to preview: The time and date given in ispector is the time that I just exported the file
What are the sources of these images? Do any of them have Exif?
I can't find the images at all in finder. I think this is because you can't 'see' the files in library perhaps?
There are some photos in finder that I imported into iPhoto - these files are fine in that the date wasn't corrupted. Pointing to a problem with iPhoto library perhaps?
By source you might mean original device - some are iPhone 4s, some canon camera, some iPad
I can't find the images at all in finder. I think this is because you can't 'see' the files in library perhaps?
That's why I asked you to export them.
As an FYI:
For help accessing your photos in iPhoto see this user tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491
I'm just having a problem following the situation:
You attempted to redate some photos.
That failed and the dating was all wrong.
Other Photos were affected as well - they're dates were changed backwards?
When exported the Exif date - as reported by Preview - gives them the date of export.
Correct?
You can also see the date, and all the other information in finder with "get info" on the file name once it is exported. Or if you still have the original somewhere on the hard drive.
Those in iPhoto don't show up in finder (although there is probably a trick to make them show)
Better way to organize my images?
