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Linking Edited and Original Files

Some background: I have been trying to restore my iPhoto (9.2.3) library after a crash appeared to corrupt the database. After unsuccessfully trying repairing and rebuilding the database in iPhoto, I followed the advice in the forums and used IPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library from backup. This seems to have worked; all the files are there. But the rebuilding process created many duplicates (judging from the photo counts). Some older photos appear to be exact duplicates. Some are multiple jpgs associated with movie files or raw files (apparently generated by iPhoto). Some appear to have been scavenged from the trash (even some I thought were deleted years ago). Others appear to be duplicates of any vertical images (although both are vertical). All of these files I figure I can safely delete.


But--some of the duplicates represent edited images, which I obviously want to keep. But is there a way to manually recreate the link between the original and edited versions (like iPhoto generally does)? Barring that, is there a way to batch copy metadata from one photo to another? In all cases, it seems as though the original file has the better metadata (rating, lens info, keywords, original capture date as opposed to date modified) and it would be helpful to have that attached to the edited (i.e, current) version of the photo. Thanks for any advice.

Posted on Jan 1, 2013 12:43 PM

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5 replies

Jan 1, 2013 12:50 PM in response to asarmiento

and used IPhoto Library Manager to rebuild the library from backup.


The usual instruction is to use Library Manager on the damaged Library.



But--some of the duplicates represent edited images, which I obviously want to keep. But is there a way to manually recreate the link between the original and edited versions (like iPhoto generally does)?


iPhoto doesn't do this as of version 9 (iPhoto 11), what you're thinking of as th 'edited' version is actually the Preview.


Barring that, is there a way to batch copy metadata from one photo to another? In all cases, it seems as though the original file has the better metadata (rating, lens info, keywords, original capture date as opposed to date modified) and it would be helpful to have that attached to the edited (i.e, current) version of the photo


No. That data should be in main database.

Jan 1, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Yer_Man

The usual instruction is to use Library Manager on the damaged Library.

I should have been more specific; I tried using ILM's rebuild function first on the current library (after it had been rebuilt with iPhoto) but it didn't recover all of the photos. So I tried again on the last version I could retrieve from Time Machine. This was the best result I could achieve.



iPhoto doesn't do this as of version 9 (iPhoto 11), what you're thinking of as th 'edited' version is actually the Preview.


Maybe I'm not understanding the terminology correctly, but the duplicate files I'm finding have the same pixel dimensions, it's just that one has red-eye correction applied, for example (or cropped or straightened). I thought that iPhoto created a separate file upon editing, and I assumed that ILM's rebuild pulled out both files but was unable to 'link' the two as original and modified. It doesn't seem like there's any way to manually recreate this relationship.


No. That data should be in main database.


That is disappointing then.

Jan 1, 2013 3:26 PM in response to asarmiento

I thought that iPhoto created a separate file upon editing,


SInce iPhoto 09, partially, and completely in iPhoto 11, when you edit a photo the decisions you make are stored in the iPhoto database and then applied live to the image when you view it. There is no 'edited version' any more. What you do get is a Preview, which is what's used in Media Browsers.


Regards



TD

Jan 2, 2013 4:42 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks. These preview versions that were included in the rebuilt database are at least sufficient to keep going forward. I'm curious, do you know--I've had the same single Iphoto database since at least 2004 and kept upgrading to each new version of iPhoto (to '11); would those older edited photos still be in the package folder as originally created, or would they be 'upgraded' to this newer way of handling edited images when I upgraded iPhoto?

Linking Edited and Original Files

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