iPhoto and Dropbox

1 - drop box is not an appropriate place for your iPhoto library - the iPhoto library must always be on a volume formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) - drop box does not meet this requirement - a number of people have rendered their iPhoto library usless by syncing it with DropBox

2 - where you keep your photos is totally a personal decision - to me since iPhoto is how I manage my photos all of my photos are in iPhoto - others have different opinions

3 - if your iPhoto library is on a proper volume and you have good backups then there is no reason to have duplicate copies of photos outside of iPhoto

4 - no matter what you want you will find "some recommnedations" to do it - again using or not using iPhoto is a personal decision - I have made the personal decision to use iPhoto so I do

LN

Dropbox is an excellent service in many ways but there is no way it has the features of iPhoto for managing, processing, cataloguing and sharing your photos.

The iPhoto sync feature is part of the beta build. Don't use Dropbox as your repository for your iPhoto library. Especially given that they are rolling out this feature. Let them hash the bugs out, wait for a legitimate release, and then sync your iPhoto library to dropbox if you want, but don't use it as it's home.

New Dropbox For Mac Beta Finally Brings iPhoto Importing ...

I see a lot of questions...

But it’s the iPhoto import feature that has us really excited. Once you have it set up, all the images you import into iPhoto will be automatically uploaded to a folder of your choice in Dropbox. So no matter whether you snapped your images on your camera, your iPhone, or your iPad, you’ll be able to access them on any device connected to Dropbox.

Note that this is not the same as putting your iPhoto Library in Dropbox. It seems to try and read into the iPhoto Library and upload new imports:

Once you have it set up, all the images you import into iPhoto will be automatically uploaded to a folder of your choice in Dropbox.

First question: does this use extra disk space on your mac? Second: Only the original? What about edited versions? Metadata? Keywording? Albums etc?

Note that this is not the same as putting your iPhoto Library in Dropbox. It seems to try and read into the iPhoto Library and upload new imports:

Exactly.

It will only use up extra space on your Mac if you choose to sync the Dropbox folder to your Mac. You can modify your 'selective sync' settings. I think Dropbox is realizing that there is redundancy regarding their "Camera import" feature and iOS + OS X syncing.

This is just regarding importing raw photos into iPhoto library. They never mention continuously syncing the library...which would introduce all the problems you mention. It would be a disaster, I think.

I haven't really looked into it much at all. I won't be doing it, I know that.